Show Your Baby That You Read

When you take your child to the library, check out a book for yourself. Then set a good example by letting your child see you reading for yourself. Ask your child to get one of her books and sit with you as you read your book, magazine, or newspaper. Don't worry if you feel uncomfortable with your own reading ability. It's the reading that counts.When your child sees that reading is important to you, she may decide that it is important to him or her, too.

How Does a Book Work?

Children are fascinated by how books look and feel. They see how easily you handle and read books, and they want to do the same. When your toddler watches you handle books, she begins to learn that a book is for reading, not tearing or tossing around. Before she is 3, she may even pick one up and pretend to read, an important sign that she is beginning to know what a book is for. As your child becomes a preschooler, she is learning that ??

A book has a front cover.

A book has a beginning and an end.

A book has pages.

A page in a book has a top and a bottom.

You turn pages one at a time to follow the story. 
You read a story from left to right of a page. As you read with your babt, begin to remind her about these things. Read the title on the cover. Talk about the picture on the cover. Point to the place where the story starts and, later, where it ends. Let your child help turn the pages. When you start a new page, point to where the words of the story continue and keep following the words by moving your finger beneath them. It takes time for a child to learn these things, but when your child does learn them, she or he has solved some of reading's mysteries. 

How to Throw a Baby Shower on a Budget

So, you want to host a great party, but you have limited funds. Can it be done? The answer is ABSOLUTELY!!!

There are numerous ways that you can cut costs when planning a shower. Perhaps the easiest way is to split the hostess duties among several friends. Homemade food, favors, and invitations are another way to make things less expensive. The time of day you have the shower may also influence the cost. A mid-afternoon party with cake, punch, and light snacks is much less expensive than a dinner or a spa afternoon. Having the party at a restaurant may be less expensive if the guests all know each other and are willing to pay for their own meals. This may be somewhat awkward, though, so it definitely is a plan that will only fit certain situations.

Handmade invitations are a very easy way to cut corners. With a computer, a printer, and cardstock or specialty paper, you can make invitations that will look practically professional. Or you can choose to make a crafty invitation that perfectly complements your theme. Another option for invitations is to email invitations. Sites like sendomatic allow you to send invitations and maps, track responses, and even send weather reports for the big day for less than $15 dollars for 100 invitations. Sending email invitations saves on the purchase of invitations, as well as the postage.

Food for a shower can be very simple. If you have an early afternoon party that falls after lunch but before dinner, you can serve cake, punch, mints, nuts, and perhaps a fruit tray very inexpensively. The presentation is often more important than the actual food that is served. Use nice bowls and silver for a formal atmosphere. If you do not have crystal or silver, you can usually get plastic that looks like crystal and silver and will still look nice. Finger sandwiches also add an elegant touch and are inexpensive and easy to prepare. If you want a more casual feel to the shower, a vegetable platter and chips and dips are always welcome. Or get everyone in on the act and ask each person attending to bring a snack. You might want to have a sign up sheet, though, so that you don't end up with 5 bags of chips.

Believe it or not, even if you don't consider yourself a baker, there are several alternatives to expensive bakery cakes. Cupcakes are very easy, and sugar or plastic decorations in baby themes are fairly easy to find. You can also use frosting to "glue" small plastic baby decorations to the tops of Little Debbie snack cakes. These are precious, and they look like you spent a lot of time. Another option is to skip the traditional decorated cake, altogether, and go for individual cheesecakes (easy to make in muffin tins) or a delicious chocolate cake (make sure that the mom-to-be isn't avoiding chocolate first). Cookies can make a great sweet treat also, and there are some really cute cookie cutters readily available. Finally, if you think you can make and frost a rectangular cake but are concerned about trying to do fancy decorations, you can find edible cake art images online. These are easy to apply to the top of the cake, and they are the same images used by bakeries.

Many of the games and activities for a baby shower are free. There are printouts available online if you want to play games like bingo. While party favors are a nice touch for a shower, they certainly are not necessary. A personal thank you, in person or written, is all that is necessary to thank the guests for attending.

Throwing a baby shower is a wonderfully generous thing to do. It does not, however, have to break the bank. Remember, the most important thing when hosting a shower is to create wonderful memories for your friend. Years from now she will remember the laughter and the thoughtfulness of her friends more than she will remember fancy favors or expensive cakes.

By : Jill Manty

Teach Your Baby To Read English

If your child's first language is not English, he or she can still become an excellent English reader and writer. Your baby is on the way to successful English reading if she is beginning to learn many words and is interested in learning to read in her first language. You can help by supporting her in her first language as she learns English. Talk with her, read with her, encourage her to draw and write. In other words, do the same kinds of activities just discussed, but do them in your child's first language.

When your child first enters school, talk with her teacher. Teachers welcome such talks. They even have sign-up times early in the year, though usually you may ask for a meeting at any time. If you feel that you need some support in meeting with the teacher, ask a relative, neighbor, or someone else in your community to go with you. 

When you do meet, tell the teacher the things that you are doing at home to strengthen your child's speaking and reading in her own language. Let the teacher know how important you child's reading is to you and ask for support for your efforts. Children who can switch back and forth between languages have accomplished something special. They should be praised and encouraged as they work for this achievement.

By : Anil Vij

How To Look For Baby Books

Look for Books! The books that you pick to read with your child is very important. If you aren't sure of what books are right for your child, ask a librarian to help you choose titles.

Introduce your child to books when she or he is a baby. Let her/him hold and play with books made just for babies: board books with study cardboard covers and thick pages; cloth books that are soft and washable, touch-and-feel books, or lift-the-flap books that contain surprises for your baby to discover. Choose books with covers that have big, simple pictures of things that she/he sees every day. Don't be
upset if at first your child chews or throws a book. Be patient. Cuddling with the child as you point to and talk with great excitement about the book's pictures will soon capture her interest. When your baby becomes a toddler, she will enjoy helping to choose books for you to read to her.

As your child grows into a preschooler and kindergartner,the two of you can look for books that have longer stories and more words on the pages. Also look for books that have repeating words and phrases that she can begin to read or recognize when she sees them. By early first grade, add to this mix some books designed for beginning readers,including some books that have chapters and some books that show photographs and provide true information rather than make-believe stories.

Keep in mind that young children most often enjoy books about people, places, and things that are like those they know. The books can be about where you live or about parts of your culture, such as your religion, your holidays, or the way that you dress. If your child has special interests, such as dinosaurs or ballerinas, look for books about those interests.

From your child's toddler years through early first grade,you also should look for books of poems and rhymes. Remember when your baby heard your talking sounds and tried to imitate them? Rhymes are an extension of that language skill. By hearing and saying rhymes, along with repeated words and phrases, your child learns about spoken sounds and about words. Rhymes also spark a child's excitement about what comes next, which adds fun and adventure to reading.

By : Anil Vij

Baby Gift Basket Ideas

Planning host a baby shower? Or you have a friend recently birth to a healthy baby Bounce? How could express otherwise for that care of your friend and her baby? A baby gift basket, it would be best to present your concerns. 

A baby gift basket these themes is a gift baskets, objects presented by the benefits to the recipient. Often, these baby gift baskets containing the following elements, without doubt the joy of giving new parents and the new addition. We could use this information to create your own objects or baby gift basket, you liberate this costly marketed species. 

Nursery House post. This includes mobile phones to keep the baby occupied colorful, the cradle of the music of the song to calm the child and CD's Nursery Rhymes. Larger items such as layettes, changing tables and carpets cribs and other furniture for the baby, see the section of luxury gift baskets baby. Toys educational as well make the baby gift basket more beneficial for promoting the intellectual development of babies. 

Toys R Us Toys to the place as beautiful baby in your gift basket. Grasping toys, pacifiers, teethers, baby bottles, infant cups, spoons and flaps are also useful Add-Ons in your baby gift basket. 

Bad Bad Baby. Bathroom products for babies are also in Baby-gift baskets. This is baby shampoo, baby powder, baby clothes, rags for wiping, jacuzzi, brush and sink, that the toy baby is certainly appreciate in the near future. Baby's clothing could also be regarded as one of the best baby gift basket Goodies that ever. Just be sure the clothes to give the sex of the baby. 

If you click on a baby gift basket to someone with a child or a young child, the article should also be for the age of the baby. Soft-toys, board books, board games, Piggy banks is undoubtedly win with a Kleinkinds jump for joy. Clothing for infants are also beautiful baby in your gift basket. 

If we consider the gift basket of baby as a baby shower, it is beautiful, if cookies Baby, Baby cakes, jelly beans and other food for babies is found. Notice and invitation cards may also surprise some additional beneficiaries of the basket. The small frames and photo albums could also be more fun to your gift basket of baby. While this gesture is sweet. 

Diner food, fine wines and other dishes can also be baby in a gift basket for parents celebration. 

Often, bows and Raffungen adorn the baby gift basket. But we could still more creativity in using a baby decorative pictures or childcare articles. Other labor may personal touch to your basket. They could be made in the form of paper, "origami, sculpture, painting young, braided or woven articles, etc. 

If, on the one hand the baby out with the intention of gift basket, give him during a ceremony christening or baptism, a small bible of gold, silver, cups and symbolic of each element being held on the theme of celebration and the recipient to appreciate their religion may also basket. 

A small gesture, as well designed a basket of baby can certainly go a long way to go. The beneficiary's smile is enough for a sincere "thank you".