Atlanta's Frugal Mom

15 Books You Should Read with Your Kids 11/01/2016 by Barbara **This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small amount of compensation when you purchase from my links, which I"ll totally blow on waffle fries and sweet tea , y'all!** Recently I shared with you reasons WHY you should read to your children , now let me offer a selection of great books you should read with your kids.  Remember, whether you’re reading aloud, reading together, or reading the same book separately and discussing, the important thing is to simply READ. Do you agree with this list?  Do you see any books you’d add?  Do you see any books you would not have included here?  Any surprises?  How many of these books have you read as a child, or TO your child?  Would love to know your thoughts.  🙂 15 Books You Should Read with Your Kids Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak – My kids LOVE hearing this one at bedtime – they’ve got it memorized, and my two-year-old so...

Before I dive in to great toys and activities to keep kids moving, a disclosure: portions of this post are sponsored.  I’ve received a form of compensation in exchange for featuring some of the items in this post; however all opinions, experiences, and bad puns are 100% my own. With kids’ birthdays sneaking up on you, and Christmas being a close -um- nine months away, it’s time to start pondering gift ideas for the kiddos in your life.  If you’re like me, you may be looking for toys and activities that promote getting active, rather than passively sitting in front of a screen.  While I’ve already mentioned games and activities for preschoolers, these toys are geared more for an older crowd, say ages 6 – 106.  😉 Here are some great gifts to keep kids moving, both indoors and outdoors: (Laser) Tag! You’re It!   My kids, particularly my son, enjoy a good game of Laser Tag, and have really dug the Laser X we got for Christmas last year.  We have recently added a few more L...

Although we still have some warm days ahead, the cold autumn weather is peeking around the corner. The other day, I simply couldn’t get my fingers to warm up, so I knew it was the perfect night for soup! So, to the pantry I headed for inspiration, where I found a box of orzo. Lo and behold, the box had a simple recipe for chicken orzo soup. Naturally, I had to take the recipe and tweak it to make it my own. ….and because it forgot to mention garlic in the ingredients. The best part of this chicken orzo soup? Not only did everyone eat it, but they all said they LIKED it! That’s an extremely rare occurrence these days, so I’m claiming this as a victory, which means I’m sharing it with all y’all!

Starting kindergarten is something I’ve gone through twice already with my own kiddos, and there’s definitely some things you can do to help prepare your kiddo for kindergarten, aside from simply ensuring they’re ready for kindergarten .  Getting your child ready for the first day of kindergarten can help make the day, and your morning, go smoothly.  Here are my best practical tips for making the first day of kindergarten a success! Getting Ready for the First Day of Kindergarten

As a preschool teacher, I’m frequently asked about ways to help facilitate learning and growth at home, particularly what activities for young preschoolers can parents work on at home.  During spring conferences with my two-year-old class’s parents, this question is second only to questions regarding potty training .   Trust me, I get how long these summer days can be, and being able to fill your child’s days with meaningful, age-appropriate activities can make or break your summer.  (or winter break.  Or spring break.  Or ….Tuesday!)  So what are some activities for your young preschooler, or any time of the year, to do at home?

As a preschool teacher, I’m always looking for ways to spice things up in my classroom, including new and fun sensory table ideas.  Thankfully, an amazing coworker created a master list many moons ago, and shared it with me as I was starting out. Whether you’re a preschool teacher, or a parent of a preschooler, you’ll appreciate the diversity of a good sensory table.  Sensory tables provide an opportunity for preschoolers to experience a wide array of fine motor skills, as well as some gross motor skills, all a sensory-rich environment.  Don’t have a full-blown sensory table for your home or your classroom?  Remember, water/sand tables make great sensory tables, too! Also, the sensory table ideas listed below can be mixed and matched for whole new levels of experience.  Toss in tools to assist in manipulating the items in the table, such as cups and measuring spoons for pouring, tongs/kid-friendly tweezers, and scissors for snipping and cutting.  Also, yo...

Morning car rides can be daunting if you’re not a morning person, and sometimes even if you ARE a morning person.  Although I believe it’s perfectly ok to let your kids be bored, I also believe it’s important to use moments together wisely.  So we tend to spend our morning car ride having conversations, and playing kids car games that help wake them up and keep them on their toes, AND it’s all done sans technology!  Here I delve beyond “Punch-Buggy Charlie” and the license plate game for some good no-tech car games for kids. Car Games for Kids 20 Questions  –  We each take a turn coming up with a person, place, or thing.  Then the other participants take turns asking yes or no questions to figure out what it is.  If we figure it out before the 20th question, we win; if not, then the person answering the questions wins.  This is a good exercise in making deductions and also figuring out good “category” questions.

This was supposed to be the summer of many things. Just like every other previous summer, I started concocting some pretty grand plans for summer 2017 with my kids. I’d planned to work a little bit each day teaching my rising 3rd grader her times tables, using a fun program I used when I was a public school teacher. Instead, I randomly quizzed her verbally. I’d planned to work with my rising kindergartner on learning to tie his shoes, since shoes with laces are mandatory for him. That didn’t happen at all. I’d planned to try out all the cool awesome places around Atlanta I keep hearing about (and -um- some of which I’ve featured here ), but we didn’t.

Tonight I was the very mean mom who wouldn’t help her daughter.  Tonight I let my little girl struggle and get a little frustrated, and I refused to help her or to do for her the task she set out to do.  And we both lived through it. You see, she decided she wanted to change out her shoelaces for these funky Atlanta Hawks laces she got when we visited the Ronald McDonald House a few weeks back.  She pulled out a pair of sneakers, plopped herself down on the den rug, and sat there, staring at her shoes. She looked up at me for …approval? Guidance?  Or both. I told her this was a task she needed to try to do on her own.  I told her upfront I would NOT put those laces in myself, that -at 8 years old- she could do it.   I further told her she may need to keep trying until she figured it out. She looked at me like a helpless puppy, but I stayed over on the couch, folding clothes, and simply offering a watchful eye, and an ear for conversation. She pulled the laces out of one sh...

I originally wrote this almost two years ago, but as I get closer to sending my now SECOND GRADER off to school, and cope with also having a boy in pre-K, there’s still so much of this that rings true.  ….and I still don’t know how to do-it-all.  😉 Last week proved to be quite a week, to say the least.  My family and I spent the first week in August on vacation in Florida, first hitting the beach, then spending some quality time with the grandparents, and a day at Disney. We came back on Saturday, and my oldest was starting Kindergarten on Monday.  Seriously, the summer seemed to have just flown by.  I’m proud to say I held it together quite well, and masked my nervousness and sadness at sending my baby off to Kindergarten, in a school with kids all the way up to 8th grade.  It was the second day, when carpool began, where I nearly lost it – watching her walk away with her cute Ariel backpack.  Such a big shot.  What happened to my little baby?? With start...

I am now the mother of a seven year old girl.  While she will forever be my littlest Peanut, she is certainly growing up.  Like many modern mamas, I posted on my personal FB page, gushing over how amazing she is, and how proud of her I am, and yet, how I wish to hold on to every last piece of her seemingly fleeting childhood. But the truth is, I’m darn proud of the young lady she is becoming.  With each transition to the next stage, I mourn the small and little pieces of her that slip away, while also welcoming the new she brings to our world.  It’s bittersweet, at best, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So, in all her squirrely-ness surrounding her birthday, she started telling us a few months beforehand that she’d “never” had a surprise party.  You know, in all of her (almost) seven years of living. Around the same time, I got an invitation from the good folks at All Fired Up to try out one of their locations.  Opportunity knocks, y’all. ...

You may recall, my family and I gave up meat for Lent this year, so I’ve been on the hunt for creative ways to keep dinner lively.  I can’t really say how I came up with the idea for chipotle tofu burritos, other than just to throw together some common ingredients and enjoy.  ….and that’s basically what I did, y’all. Ok, so it really started out when I bought chipotle-flavored tofu because it was BOGO at Publix and because there was a Berry Cart deal for $1 rebate on it.  …and I built a mealtess dinner around that one sale item, based entirely on what I already had in my pantry and fridge. To my delight, every one of my family members ate their dinner, even my picky kiddos.  Ok, so the boy choked his down, but he *did* eat it.  It may or may not have required a little come-to-Jesus convincing, but once he tried it, he decided they “weren’t bad.”  sigh   Chipotle-Flavored Tofu Burritos (1) package Nasoya baked tofu, chipotle flavor – sliced in to...

Part of our family routine includes attending Saturday evening Mass, and this weekend was no exception.  We drove separately, since my husband was going to take our daughter to a dance performance, while I took our son back home.  I came in about 15 minutes late with our son, as he was in the midst of a Prednisone-induced fit when it was time to go.  Sigh. We were all sitting in the back pew, doing our usual Mass thing, and I observed the family in the pew ahead of me – namely because there was a little girl with redhair sitting with them.  I noticed their mom, and likely her parents, with three school-age-ish kids.  The mom and the grandfather sat between the son, while the girls were sitting betwixt the grandparents. I quickly, quietly noticed the son likely had mild special needs.  I also noticed quickly how stressed the mother seemed.  It broke my heart to watch her out of the corner of my eye: I could sense the anxiety she felt.  She was nervous her son may act out, or simpl...

For some reason, today I felt just a little extra whimsical while watching my daughter.  Like many mothers, I’m sure, I catch glimpses of her older self throughout the course of the day, and today -for a fleeting split second- I saw my little girl all grown up.  I’ve already shared my wishlist for her , but here is my collective little nuggets of advice for my daughter. Advice for My 6-year-old Daughter, for the Teen Years and Beyond   Don’t be a mean girl.  Ever.  But don’t be mean back to the mean girls – how else will they learn kindness if it’s not extended to them? Love yourself , on the inside and the outside.  Treat your body with respect now, and it will thank you in kind as you get older.  Learn now how to take care of your whole self. Be kind but firm.

  I came across this post, from an old blog I created about and for my daughter.  Unlike my actual daughter, this blog’s been neglected for about three years, but I wanted to breathe new life in to this post, as I still feel it’s relevant to her -and to daughters and children everywhere.  What’s on YOUR wish list for your children?   My Wish List for My Daughter October 2, 2010 My Dear Carol, As your mother, I wish for you many things in this life.  Above all, I pray daily that you live an exceptionally long, happy, healthy, meaningful, and purposeful life.  I wish this for you, and any siblings you may have.  I hope to help make those things attainable for you, with these things I wish for you:

It seems like it was just last week I walked my little girl in to Kindergarten .  And yet now, in a blink of an eye, she  was saying goodbye to Kindergarten .  While I knew she was more than ready to start Kindergarten , I still knew this year would be filled with many “new”s: she started a new school, venturing away from the preschool where she was already well-known; which also means she made new friends, whom she embraced with her big heart and they she; new teachers, all of whom she seems to like, her classroom teacher the most! In the last nine months, she’s become an even stronger reader, mastering even more sight words, gained more confidence as a reader, began to experiment with spelling, finished writing her own book, began formerly learning Spanish, learned how to skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s, learned how to add numbers in her head, almost mastered shoe tying (gonna keep that on our summer checklist!), and grew by leaps and bounds in ways I never imagined! ...