In a more perfect world we’d just play this way without the need for the specialized molds – but I really think these are brilliant and smart marketing for Hasbro. A very good preschool birthday gift idea – includes parental involvement, reading, acting, emotion and improvisation. That is the makings of a quality toy.
Previously titled Things to Do with your 2 year old – too narrow, on second thought 🙂
Today I made this chart showing a month (or more) worth of weekday activities to do with a young preschooler. This may be handy for yourself or another caregiver you know (like when Grandma or a sitter has the kiddo for a while and could use some ideas).
If there is enough interest, I’ll make new editions available.
You can click on it, click the magnifying glass and drag it to your desktop to print.
Your feedback and comments are very welcome.
Having days free with our young children is more and more rare – those of us who can do it, more and more fortunate. They grow up fast. Savor the time.
This is the cardboard playhouse I made with the girls this winter. It has since gotten a white coating of prime, and we plan to paint it (the marker doodles the girls covered it with bleed up through in a way we like). I’ll post an update when that happens.
ingredients: a few boxes, duct tape
tools: box cutter, yardstick
This shouldn’t be such a hard decision.
Bee has this at the top of her list of gifts she’d like for the holidays. Our hesitation isn’t because the toy oven has an age recommendation of 6 and up. No… wait, is it 7 and up? I’ll go look… hold on… holy cow, you aren’t going to believe this – they have it as 8 and up!? You should be 8 years old to be able to place your hands carefully near a lightbulb?!
Anyway, no, the reason is that she made pancakes on the stove top just this morning (she’s 4), and has been cooking with me since she could stand. She helps cook everything already. It is true that she can’t reach the oven to put things in, or take things out – – but it is also true that the Easy Bake oven says that adult supervision is required (so that oafish 8 year old of yours doesn’t get in trouble with a lightbulb).
She wants to bake independently – and the toy isn’t even recommended for that. It costs a good 6 bucks every time she’d want to make a cookie-sized little cake (pro-tip, you can make 3 actual cakes for that money).
The marketing and package design are sexist and entirely dismiss boys as a consumer. Cooking isn’t for girls any more than it is for boys. That notion is absurd and reflects an ugly history of keeping women tied to the home while men go out and earn – as offensive to the men who would prefer to be caregivers as it is to the women who want to pursue careers.
To some people, that is going to sound unfair. It turns out that (according to the reviews I’ve read) a big audience for this toy is the mothers that wished they had it as a child and now want to live vicariously through their children. That it doesn’t occur to them to just bake with their kids is odd to me – but I know how nostalgia can be a heavy motivator. There is the underlying point that their own parents didn’t get the oven for them for some reason. I’d be willing to bet that ability to afford the toy isn’t the main reason (though it may have been the main reason given) – I imagine that since their own parents did a lot more cooking than parents do today, they had similar reasons for denying this toy to their kids: they cooked regular food with the child instead.
And there is the problem area. The “we’ll just cook normal food together, honey” solution didn’t satisfy the children in question (the one’s desiring to live vicariously through their kids today). Maybe it is a sort of desire to do miniature cooking – maybe the tiny frivolousness of the venture is the main attraction and shouldn’t be dismissed so lightly? Or – maybe it’s the advertising blitz this toy relies on. Bee doesn’t watch commercial TV much at all (only on occasional Saturdays does she watch network cartoons) – and yet the commercials she’s seen for the EBO have made a big impression.
I don’t want this to be her Red Rider BB gun – the thing that she sits back and says “yeah, these are wonderful presents, but what I really wanted was that Easy Bake Oven”. I’ve heard some interesting arguments for allowing your child to pick out trashy toys from time to time, so that they get a sense of self-determination and learn that sometimes things look better than they are – and that mom and dad are sometimes right about something being a piece of crap.
A substitute idea we have had is to get quality kid-sized baking impliments for baking real food in the real oven. She already has a few – and we’ve seen some good ones out there. The play kitchen, while not a complete waste of time/money/space has not turned out to be something she’s very interested in. She wants to do the real thing – and more power to her.
Here is the part we came up with that I think might be brilliant:
Some complaints about the EBO are that it is too expensive, and that you can get a good quality toaster oven for that price. Do see where I’m heading? The mini muffin trays and cake pans we’ve seen on the market could fit in a toaster oven (I’ll check on this to be certain, but I know at least a mini cookie tray would easily fit). We could also use it for strictly practical uses – heating/baking small things at lunch time, etc. (with more energy efficiency). So – what if we had a chat with Santa about getting a real oven for Bee instead of a plastic piece of crap with a lightbulb in it and decals for temperature gauges and timers? It wouldn’t cost any more – she could make a wider variety of things – it won’t end up unused in a closet somewhere even if it didn’t hold her interest. So – a couple of kid-sized pans, good children’s oven mitts, and a run-of-the-mill toaster oven could be ideal. Rational compromise.
We’ll run it by the man up north.
update:
While you can get a regular toaster oven for less than an EBO – it would be of poor quality or too small a size, so we are 86ing the EBO subject in favor of just using the kitchen as usual. Some kid-sized muffin pans and oven mitts are in order, though – hopefully they will scratch some of that EBO itch for the Bee. Also, the notion of losing more counter space was weighing me down. Maybe the suggestion would work for someone in other circumstances, though – and it seemed like a fun, smart alternative at the time.
Here is exactly what we wanted. Real non-stick cookware, real recipe cards with scaled ingredients.
Li’l Gourmet is the brand – they have some real sets and some play ones, the real ones are right on the money for us.
They also have a cupcake making set, a cake baking set, and others – – each have more decorating accessories than the Easy Bake brand, and they make food with ingredients you have in your cupboard, in actual batches. The price is lower as well.
MakeBeliefsComix.com is a website I came across after reading a short piece about it in Family Fun magazine. You choose a from a few panel options, 15 character options, and loads of editing choices.
This is exactly the kind of thing Bee is getting into right now, and I think we’ll have a lot of fun with the site. They also offer a lot of pre-designed layouts, lacking only dialog – so you can use them as a creative writing exercise. Pretty brilliant!
Here is a tutorial.
Teach and learn about time keeping, clocks, and watches with your kids and this page of Just For Kids activities and informational links from the National Watch and Clock Museum.
Make It Yourself (click on each for PDFs of directions)
Water clock
Fruit clock
Incense clock
Pendulum Power
Sundial
Coloring Pages
The National Watch and Clock Museum
Street Clock
Banjo Clock
Cuckoo Clock
The Unplugged Project theme of the week is Yellow – we made a yellow shaky chickie!
What you need: lentils (or other good shaky bits – rice or beans, etc.), construction paper, toilet paper roll, googly eyes, glue, scissors, and glitter.
Cut a yellow circle with tabs to cover the top of the tube, and glue it in place. Have another one ready, and some feet as well.
When one side is covered, fill the tube about 15% with your shaky bits.
Cover the tube opening with your cut bottom piece, then glue a yellow piece of paper to the outside of the tube.
Now add the feet.
And the eyes. And beak.
Here, Bee is adding the wings, and some feathers she made.
the nearly complete Chickie:
I say ‘nearly’, because we are in the ‘everything is better with glitter’ phase of our lives 🙂
The most consistently fun little science/nature activity that we do is The Checking of the Logs. They started as a ring around a campfire in our backyard a couple of years back, then one day we looked under them to see what was going on down there.
Every time it is a little bit different. We see lots of pill bugs, spiders, worms, centipedes, millipedes, slugs, ants, termites, and other critters. The best is when we find families of garter snakes – which we pick up and hold carefully when the opportunity strikes.
Whenever we are down in the back yard, we check the logs. These are pictures from this season’s first round (maybe second). Bee loves the worms.
This time we got really lucky and found salamanders too!
This week’s Unplugged Project has the theme “Long“, and Mommy wanted to take a crack at it with Bee this time. I provided emotional support and some creative consultation.
We came up with the idea of making a long stuffed snake – in part because I have some annoying gigantic socks that would go up to my knees if I wore them.
Materials used – two long socks, fabric paint, fabric markers, buttons, ribbon, needle/thread, some sequins, and stuffing.
1 – Stuff the socks.
2 – Decorate – this step can be done before or after everything is stitched together, they did it before.
(this stage was a good opportunity to talk about evolutionary adaptation – where green snakes live as opposed to brown ones, how they differ in the way they hide themselves, get their food, etc.)
3 – Add a Face – Mommy used button eyes, a ribbon tongue and Bee wanted the snake to have blue hair.
4 – Stitch the two halves together
(I was impressed that Bee thought to use the fabric paint as glue for sequins)
Here is the final product – we all like it a lot 🙂
This week’s unplugged project theme is water.
We made a fish bowl scene using ye olde wax paper and melted crayon shavings technique.
1) We drew fish, and coral, an octopus and a special guest star (though you probably won’t recognize who it is). Also, we made a plecostomus – because Bee always has to visit Mr. Plecostomus whenever we go to a pet store.
2) We cut them out
3) Next, Bee peeled some crayons, and 4) we used a crayon sharpener to produce shavings of three colors of blue (plus a little silver).
5) Next we cut out two sheets of wax paper of the same size, and drew a large fish bowl on the bottom one.
6) Bee arranged the fish cutouts on the wax paper fish bowl. This can be fun in and of itself, and take a little while for your child to ‘get it just right’.
7) Then, the crayon shavings were sprinkled around the pictures in the fishbowl, especially in the areas between the paper shapes.
The picture below is how it looks with all the shavings on it.
I’ll tell you about the special guest star now – he’s the guy right there in the middle, it’s Aku – from Samurai Jack. Bee likes him. (If I were to teach a narrative art class – I would include lots of Samurai Jack. The sophisticated storytelling uses narrative art far more dependent on visual media than dialog. It also won 4 Emmy Awards.)
8 ) Place the second sheet of wax paper on top, and iron them using a low temperature setting.
This makes great water!
10) Cut out the fish bowl and tape to a window (with clear tape).
(without flash – brighter outside)
(photo with flash – equal brightness inside and out)
The final results exceeded my expectations – and there were a lot of fun steps along the way with opportunities to learn a variety of things. A memorable morning well spent!
Someday all this will be yours. 