Toddler fractions

Confession: Ryan laughed at me when I made this. Probably because Ellie was something like 4 months old. But hey, I'm a planner!

I honestly didn't think she'd use it at all until much, much down the road, but she LOVES her circles! She collects the pieces, sorts them by color, counts each stack, and then asks me to stack them. We talk about what whole, half, third and fourth mean. She loves this activity and seriously does it with me nearly every day we play downstairs.

It was also ridiculously simple -- I just cut four circles out of thin craft foam, then eyeballed halves, thirds and fourths, and labeled them appropriately. I demonstrated once how the circle worked, and she has just run with it.

Fridge menu

I'm not really a baby-flashcard person. Or Baby Einstein. Or any of those things that promise to teach my 20 month old to read. I think that's kind of silly.

But I am a big fan of saturating our environment in printed text. This project is one of those things.

This hangs on our fridge and goes with us to the grocery store. Ellie can grab it to choose a snack, we can talk about what ingredients are going into a meal, or she can find things while we're shopping.

Here are the files if anyone wants to use them. The photos are all Creative Commons licensed from Flickr. Just print, cut, hole punch, laminate if you want. Add a nifty little binder ring and you're all set!

Triple pizza lunch

Ellie LOVES cooking. LOVES. She asks to get in her "tower" all the time and help me cook. She'll pour, stir and taste test as long as I'll let her.

We made a triple pizza lunch to give her a chance to really get her hands dirty in the kitchen.

First up was a bagel pizza:

She did a great job spreading sauce! (I forgot to get a picture of her sprinkling cheese because I was trying to keep her from shoving handfuls in her mouth)

Next up was veggie pizza. Daddy helped her spread the cream cheese. Love the tongue!

Adding carrots...

And cucumbers.

For dessert, we had peanut butter cookies with honey, ricotta and berries.

She sampled a berry. See my hand trying to tell her what to do with it?

DELICIOUS!