Teaching small children about death

                                                                            

 



Man this is a heavy topic. Honestly I don't deal well with the topic but we are going to a viewing today and a funeral on Monday for a family member and C being as smart and inquisitive as she is I thought it would be good if we got prepared.

I asked my mother in-law who has worked in hospice for many years and worked in a child  bereavement camp for some tips. The main point she hit on was K.I.S.S! Not the band with the creepy tongue guy! It stands for Keep It Simple Stupid! The less information at this age the better. They just are not capable of understanding death on the scale that a older child or adult can.

 

I'm Christian so when C asks me for instance " where is your daddy mommy" (which she ask's me at least once a week) I say what I truly believe. "He is in heaven! We will see him again someday". 

C also had her first fish a while back and was asking what happens to it. I was SO torn up about having to explain that she could no longer see her beloved "Blue Fish". My mother in-law got me a Mr Rogers video on explaining death. I agonized over it for days waiting for her to ask me the Big question! Thoughts of just replacing it with a new Beta were quickly dissolved by my husbands desire to be honest with his daughter. Humph how dare he! This could scar HER FOR LIFE!!!!

The Truth was I was the one with the issue with death. I was the one that had the scars over losing my father at 7 years old to suicide.  The worst part of all of it was the fact that I was never really able to have closure. My mother who had divorced my father really wanted to shelter me and thought I was to young to go to the hospital where he lay a vegetable or to the funeral. Maybe she was right in doing so I will never know what it would have been like if I had had someone explain it to me properly. It didn't help that I was told he went to hell by my mothers side and someone from my fathers side later told me if I had been at the hospital perhaps I could have brought him out of it. UGH the baggage I carried around from that statement. Words do hurt folks and kids carry some of  them around well... forever. It is so important to give children time to grieve to let them feel it and go through all the emotions associated with grief. No its NOT fun but it is healthy for them in the long run! On a much brighter note God put me right where he wanted me; living in this fantastic family. My husband grew up with a Hospice nurse for a mother, they know death and they know healing! God is good!

 

 

So anyway back to the fish! She finally asked about the darn thing and I panicked and copped out and made my husband do it while I gritted my teeth and waited for the wailing then wait for it wait for it... "Ok can I have some ice cream".... WHAT??? No tears? No sobbing? No sleepless night over dear old blue or blue fish whatever the darn thing's name was?

 

Nope not a one. The answer he gave was simple and kind and she excepted it.

 

I know a beloved family member and a fish are not even close to the same thing but its a starting point an opening into a conversation that makes us all squirm in our seat. So dare I say I'm thankful for the fish dying. I'm sad that she lost a pet but it gave me an opportunity to learn something more about myself and the resiliency of children .

 

 

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Muffin tin nature hunt

 

 

 

We are featuring Mama Papa bubba blog today they have this wonderful post on a muffin tin nature hunt. I just printed the picture off the blog Click Here to check them out! We love following them. In the mean time here is our adventure! Hope you all enjoy your Saturday!

 

 

 

 

I Love nature hunts with my daughter. It gives us and opportunity to get exercise and talk about new things. Feel different textures and sometimes we get an occasional encounter with a wild Critter.

 

Like this guy...

 

We came across this lone duck on one of our other nature walks.

 

 

Or just checking out things in your own back yard. We planted this Jewel weed last year C loves to pop them!

 

Getting outside is so important for kids especially nowa days when we are so inundated with wonderful technology. Im not going to knock it I love it in fact but I think as a society we need to limit it more and get our children outside MORE! (Not to mention ourselves!)

 

 This website has a great list of reasons why its  so important to get our kids outside!  here

 

 

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Firefly candle holder

Staying with the camping theme today and making a firefly candle holder.

I think one of Cs favorite part's of the other night was catching fireflies. Well her older cousin caught them and she got to hold the little baby food jar with the fireflies in them. So I got to thinking and searching the web and I came up with this.

Supplies-

• baby food jar or clear votive

• Elmer's glue

• food color 

• yellow and black paint

• a candle to put in it. (A flameless candle would have been great but I didn't have one)

 

 

We started by pouring a little glue and adding a drop of food color in it (warning this will wash off so try not to get it wet or use some kind of seal that can handle heat and is not flammable of course) 

 

 We then painted it on

   

   

I'm impatient so we used the blow dryer

 

C put yellow finger prints for the fireflies

The funny part was her singing me happy Biiirrrfffday over and over again and blowing out the candle.

Happy crafting.   

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Yard camping

We did a little camping in the yard last night. C will only be 3 in September so I was not about  to sleep outside with a 2 year old. But we put up a tent and did a fire lightening bug hunting and s'mores. It really was fun she was so excited to stay up late and run in and out of the tent ext.

I thought setting up camping in the yard would be a lot of fuss but it wasn't bad at all. 

Snuggling with her cousin in the tent.

Roasting marshmallows

Yum! 

 

First S'more ever

Sitting by the fire with dad. A little afraid of the dark but she was having such a great time.

Lightening bug hunt with her cousin Allie. 

I'm so happy that we did it we all enjoyed our "camping" trip.  If you have kids of any age it's a safe way to give them a little taste of camping.

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Octopus counting craft with octopus video

C loves to learn about sea creatures. I think its important when teaching our children that we use things they are already interested in. You will find they can pay attention longer and get more excited about learning. If you make learning to stringent they won't want to do it. This is why we rarely just sit down at a workbook. Although we do use some we only do a page or two and at this age she gets to chose the duration of "work". She has soooo many years ahead of her for structured learning.

 

So we started off watching a few videos on octopi. Here is one I liked but Youtube has many you can chose from.

 

 

 

 

C chose pink we learned that an Octopus changes color to fit in with the environment around them. So she could chose whatever color she liked. 

  

We used tissue paper for the "legs"

 

We glued the remaining tissue paper tithe back and put another piece of construction paper on the back to make it a bit three dimensional. 

We used sequins for the sucker cups. I numbered each leg. 1 got 1 "sucker cup" and so on.

 

Looks kinda like a jelly fish more than an octopus but you get the idea... 

 



 



 

 

We followed up our morning craft with a long walk and then a rest for pup and C in the wagon.

 

 

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flower power counting

Today we are working on numbers 1-6

 

 

supplies - Popsicle sticks

tissue paper

construction paper

glue

green paint

 

 

 

I let C paint the popsicle sticks green

 

Then I numbered them and she glued them down

 

I cut the pettles for the flowers out of tissue paper and we counted out our petals

 

This works motor skills, counting and number recognition.

 

Happy counting

 

 

Crayon Roll Tutorial

Crayon roll

I love them they are so handy and make me look wayyy more organized than I am when I go out to a resterant to eat with C. Just toss a couple coloring pages in the bag and instant busy work while you wait for your food. They also make great gifts too!

Look how cute!!!

So I made up a little tutorial for you. My disclaimer I'm NOT a professional seamstress but more like a "enthusiastic hobbyist" :) hope this Tutorial helps you in some way. If you end up not wanting to sew one yourself I will be putting some in my Etsy store soon so go check them out. Here http://www.etsy.com/shop/playmommaplay

Skip to my lou has a fantastic tut here If you want more.

Here is my go at it!

I started out cutting 3 pieces of fabric and 1 piece of interfacing.

two pieces of fabric 5 X 16 1/2 and one piece of interfacing cut the same

One piece of 6X 16 1/2 fabric to fold in half for the pocket. You can use contrasting fabric like the ones above or all the same have fun with it its up to you.

I normally get iron on fusible interfacing but our local jo anns had a going out of business sale and sew in interfacing  was all they had left sooo at this point sew or iron on your interfacing all along the wrong side of one of your 5X16 1/2 pieces.

Flip your fabric that you have just sewn your interfacing on over so the pattern side is up. Grab you 6 X 16 1/2" piece fold it and iron it in half. Put it on top of the 5 X 16 1/2 inch piece that has the interfacing on the back fold side towards the top.

Sorry this next picture is upside down (its getting late tomorrows my birthday cut me some slack :P)

Anyway one tip I can give you that helped me get better rows was to pin a measuring tape onto the fabric. You sew a line down every inch so I placed a pin every inch. Be sure to back stitch at the top and bottom of the rows for extra strength.

Place the other 5X 16 1/2 piece face down You can also pin your ribbon or elastic to the inside as well at this point.  pin and sew around the edges 1/4 inch seam allowance. Leave a 2 inch opening at the bottom for turning. Turn press and top stich .

 Enjoy!!!



Clean learning!

Sometimes I have an ulterior motive... Today it was to get my windows free of dogs nose smudges and C's sticky finger prints. That coupled with C's resent love affair with squirt bottles and some wet erase markers well sounds like a recipe for fun to me.  We are covering number recognition this week.

We wrote out the numbers and she sprayed them off the concept is simple but she had a lot of fun with it. 

It's really hard to see but I drew the numbers out in dashes and she traced them. 

This little project works motor skills, handwriting and number recognition. Oh yeah and my windows are clean wohooo! 

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Imaginative play Doctor

I'm not sure I have met a kid that has not at one point or another liked to play doctor. Well C is no exception. Not to mention ever since she started to watch Doc Mcstuffins on Disney she has been gaga over all thing doctor.  There is something to be Said for pretend play preparing your children for what to expect. She used to HATE going to the doctor now she is so much better after some role play. She enjoys taking me to the doctor so much she takes me in by the hand and is so stinkn cute about it "come on mom the doctor will make you feel better".

That said I set up a little play scenario for C this morning that she had a blast with. I 

Waiting area we lined up all of her patients. 

What a lovely doctor to wait with the patients lol. 

Took patient information

We made her a big book of boo boos she took the ailments down. In this case this cheap Barbie rip offs head keeps popping off along with her arm. Ouch!

Treatment wrapped her arm up and gave her a shot. I guess her head problem will have to wait until next time seeing as I found her decapitated again already >.<

A little medication

This patient needed a band aid stat. 

  

What medical office would be complete without taking your money. This is our check out area. Consequently she robbed Dora blind. $500 to put a band aid on yikes!

This is one of the Melissa & Doug doctors sets that is super cute. My only complaint is that the batteries for the stethoscope are really hard to find and when you do find them it makes this awful coughing sound then this drum like heart beat. Doctor kit I know Doc Mcstuffins has a cute set too.

I hope this inspires you with some creative play ideas of your own. Happy playing!

If you have not seen Doc Mcstuffins yet here it is.

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