English Muffin Pizzas

Whether you need a quick lunch or a substantial snack, English muffin pizzas are always a hit. You can let the kids help make them, or you can assemble them yourself ahead of time. They're easy and yummy, and you can make them very healthy, too, by choosing healthy toppings like vegetables and low-fat meats.

Ingredients:
English muffins
Pizza sauce (or plain tomato sauce)
Mozzarella cheese
Toppings (sausage, pepperoni, green peppers, tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, chicken, etc.)

Preheat your oven on the broiler setting. Slice the muffins in half and lay them out on a cookie sheet. Spread sauce on each muffin and sprinkle cheese and toppings on top. Place the cookie sheet in the oven under the broiler, and watch carefully as the cheese melts and begins to brown. If you walk away for long the cheese and toppings might burn. Remove them from the oven and let them cool for a couple of minutes before serving.

Water Activities to Beat the Heat

It's hot outside! It's a great day to slather on some sunscreen and get wet. Here are some fun outdoor water activities to banish boredom and cool everyone off.

• Water Relays. Divide the kids (and adults who want to get wet) into two teams. Each team needs two buckets: an empty one across the yard and a full one at the starting line. Use a marker or piece of tape to draw a line several inches from the bottom of the bucket. Each team must transfer enough water from their full bucket to the empty bucket to reach the line. Give each team a plastic cup with three holes poked in the bottom. The holes will add some challenge, encourage them to run fast, and help them cool off by getting them wet.
• Water Balloons. Kids will think of all kinds of games to play with water balloons, but here are a few activities to get them started. Have them catch the water balloons with something other than their hands, like an empty milk gallon jug or a plastic bucket with a handle. Try playing hot potato. Another fun game is to set a bucket in the middle of the yard and assign one child to be the Bucket Guard. Give the Bucket Guard a plastic baseball bat. Everyone else wants to earn points by tossing water balloons in to the bucket, but the Bucket Guard fends them off by hitting the water balloons with the plastic bat.
• Squirt Bottles. Squirt bottles make for misty water fights. You can also use squirt bottles for a very silly game involving shaving cream. Pair the kids up and put shaving cream on one partner's face. The other partner has to wash the shaving cream off her partner's face with the squirt bottle--no hands allowed! It's a race to see whose face can clean up the fastest.
• Water Bombs. Water bombs are those small sponge-like balls that you can get at dollar stores in the summer. They usually come in obnoxious neon colors. Fill a bucket with water and drop a bunch of water bombs in it so they'll be saturated. Divide up the kids into two teams and have them stand at opposite ends of the yard. Place the bucket in the middle. When you yell "Go," the kids run up to the bucket and throw the water bombs at the opposite team. If you're hit, you're out, and you have to sit on the sidelines. The last person remaining is the winner.

What other games do you know that keep kids happy and cool on hot days?

Reducing Sugar: Reversing the Too Sweet Kids' Diet

The University of Calgary recently conducted a study to investigate kids' diets. They found that more than half of the foods marketed to toddlers contained at least 20 percent of their calories from sugar. Many of these foods are considered staples: yogurt, cereal, and snacks. Turns out, the low-fat craze that began in the 1990s prompted food manufacturers to replace fats with sugar, so now we're seeing sugar show up in places it's never been before: salad dressing, hamburger buns, pretzels, chips.

Sweeteners, from agave nectar to high fructose corn syrup, all behave the same way in the body. The liver metabolizes fructose, and too much sugar puts added strain on the liver. Too much sugar stimulates the liver to trigger fat production, which can boost belly fat and cholesterol levels. This is heavy stuff. What's a parent to do when sweetened foods are all around your child?

Here are some simple things you can do to reduce your kids' consumption of sugar:

• Limit fruit juice to one glass a day. Although fruit juice contains vitamin C, your body reacts to it in the same way it reacts to Kool-Aid; it's a too-quick dose of fructose for the liver to manage well.
• Avoid other sweetened beverages. A can of soda at a barbecue every now and then won't cause much damage, but multiple servings of soda every day leads to obesity and dental problems.
• Look for unsweetened foods. Buy natural applesauce instead of sweetened applesauce, canned fruit that doesn't contain added sugar, and plain yogurt. 
• Keep your kids active.  Exercise slows down the liver's cycle and allows less fat to enter the bloodstream.
• Don't ban sweets. Banning sugar altogether will only make your kids crave it. Instead, aim for moderation and healthy alternatives.

Sidewalk Paint

Ah, it's May. It's time to go outside and have some fun. And here's something fun: Sidewalk Paint!

You've all bought sidewalk chalk, and you know how much fun kids can have with it. Up the wow factor by letting them paint on the sidewalk. Here's the paint recipe:

1/4 cup of corn starch per paint color
1/4 cup of water per paint color
5-10 drops food coloring per paint color

Put these ingredients in paper cups and stir. Stirring is a great job for preschoolers. It takes a while to stir each paint color because the corn starch doesn't want to break up at first. Don't make the paint ahead of time; you have to use it right away so it doesn't firm up. See if you can find big, chunky paint brushes for painting with this stuff. It's much more satisfying than using little watercolor paintbrushes.

When you're done painting and everyone has gone home, you can clean up the sidewalk paint with your garden hose. Have fun!

Rising Childcare Costs

Childcare has never been cheap, but it may be more expensive now than it has been in the past. According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), childcare costs have increased twice as fast as median income in New York since 2000. For many families, childcare has become cost-prohibitive, and they must look for alternative methods of caring for their children.

Many families have found that babysitting co-ops are a great no-cost alternative to traditional daycare. Although most co-ops don't cover enough shifts to provide childcare for a full 40-hour work week, they can be used as a partial childcare solution or as total solution for parents who work part-time or run their own businesses out of their homes.

For more information on babysitting co-ops, check out our Co-op 101 section, or fee free to contact us.

Positive Reinforcement

You know those days when the kids you're caring for just seem to want to be bad? Maybe the weather just changed or a holiday is coming up. Whatever the reason, there are days when the kids will look to the ringleader (you know who it is), just waiting for an excuse to do something they know they shouldn't do.

When it's one of those days, pull out a handy tool we call Positive Reinforcement. It may not work immediately, but then again, it might.

Here's how it works. The kids know they're not supposed to jump on the couch, but one of them (the ringleader, who might just be your own child) inches her way up onto the arm of the couch and looks at the others mischievously. Her adoring fans egg her on, inching themselves up into jumping position. If you don't act fast, they'll all be jumping on that couch within seconds, and you'll have to dish out timeouts right and left.

Just in the knick of time you see which child is behaving. It's Luke. "Oh wow," you say. "Look how well Luke is behaving. I'm so proud of you, Luke." The would-be jumpers will look to see exactly what Luke is doing. He's standing with two feet on the floor playing with the Duplo blocks. Somebody will jump down off the couch and stand next to Luke and possibly even pick up a Duplo block (hopefully not the one in Luke's hands). You gush, "Ava's behaving so well, too. Great job, Ava!" Before long, they're all off the couch, playing with toys, and timeouts were successfully avoided.

Has this method of re-directing worked for you? Do you have any other good ideas for changing a rambunctious dynamic during your co-op shifts?

Homemade Flubber

Last weekend I took my daughter and her friend to Claire's, their favorite store in the whole world. They found a bottle of stuff labeled, "Intergalactic Ooze." I wasn't too sure about introducing such a questionable substance to my house, but they had enough of their own money to pay for it, so they bought it. I have to admit, it's pretty fun stuff, but then I found some recipes for homemade oozy substances that have the potential for keeping kids (and adults) busy for a long time. Here's a recipe for homemade flubber:

Two cups Elmer's glue
Food coloring
4 tablespoons Borax
Warm water

Mix 1 1/2 cups of warm water, the glue, and the food coloring (as much or as little as you want) in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the Borax with 1 1/3 cups of warm water. Pour the glue mixture into the Borax mixture, but don't mix or stir them together. The flubber will form on its own, and watching it form is half the fun. If it has trouble mixing on its own after 10-20 minutes, go ahead and give it a little help with a spoon. Store it in plastic baggies (no need to refrigerate). It seems to get better with time, so pull it out after a couple of days, and it will probably be stretchier and bouncier. You can stretch it and shape it, roll it into ropes, and bounce it like a rubber ball. Fun stuff!