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I am guest posting this week over at Dollar Store Crafts. Heather graciously allowed me to share my idea for Christmas ornaments kids can make using dollar store items. It's a simple kid's craft that children can make for less than a dollar each. Head over to Dollar Store Crafts to check it out!

Welcome to another wonderful Muffin Tin Monday! Are you having trouble getting your toddler, preschooler, child to eat healthier? Are you looking for creative lunch ideas for your kids? I will unashamedly recommend Muffin Tin Meals. It is a fantastic way to bring fun to mealtime!


Every Monday, here at Muffin Tin Mom, we celebrate kids, creative food and eating healthy with Muffin Tin Monday. Sometimes we do themes.



A few important notes about MTM this month:

That means you get to come up with your own varation on the theme: Christmas stories, Christmas ornaments, Christmas morning...let your imagination go! 

Now It's your turn. Would you like to participate in Muffin Tin Monday? Make a MTM for your kds, snap a photo and upload it to a photo sharing site and link it up here by clicking the blue "add your link" button. If you have a blog, post your photo on your blog and link it up here. Remember to include a link back to muffintinmom.com.

This weeks Links....




Creative Kismet: Make fall leaves from paper bags -love this idea! found via the Crafty Crow


Tangarang: free printable baking labels...perfect for Grandma's cookie recipe. Found via onepretting.com


Giver's log: love this sticky note advent calendar...it's easier than you think!

My kids love learning activities. Maybe it's because I have done them with the kids since they were in preschool. Maybe it's because God created them that way. Either way, I love it. And although we don't homeschool (but clearly see it's many benefits), I like creating hands-on projects for them at home to reinforce early learning concepts.


We use simple items (often found in the craft box or around the home) for our learning activities like chenille pom poms, craft beads, etc. The Dollar Tree has some festive holiday table scatter that is perfect for learning activities! I drew up the templates with white paper and a marker and then the kids used the table scatter pieces to fill in the boxes with the right amount.



My 1st grader also insisted on coming up with the equations herself, so I left blanks where the numbers go:


 My kinder-gardener worked with counting and sorting.



You might also like:

Promoting Language and Literacy in Young Children

Sorting and Graphing Candies

Preschool Math: Early Counting With Game Pieces

Here are this week's lovely links. I hope you enjoy!

Miss Priss: I want to try this delicious Cranberry-Lime Salsa It would pair well with some homemade tortilla chips.

Katherine Marie Photography: She's at it again with her theme of the week, and this week's Turkey theme ideas and photos are delightfully adorable.

Muffin Tin Advent Calendars: Two words: Google Images. The one above is from Frosted Designs.

   where does my help come from?

 

² My help comes from the LORD, 

   the Maker of heaven and earth.

   he who watches over you will not slumber; 

⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel 

   will neither slumber nor sleep.

   the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 

⁶ the sun will not harm you by day, 

   nor the moon by night.

   he will watch over your life; 

⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going 

   both now and forevermore.

Welcome to another wonderful edition of Muffin Tin Monday. It's hard to believe that Muffin Tin Meals have been going strong for over 2 years! Make my heart happy that so many families are enjoying this as much as we are. To find out a little more about Muffin Tin Meals, be sure to read the FAQ page.



Sliced turkey wrapped in a tortilla, broccoli, lowfat blueberry yogurt, honeydew melon, carrot sticks, red apples. I went for the "half your plate" concept as mentioned below.

I am the first to confess that my muffin tin meals have not always been healthy. A few of them have been glorious candy-filled concoctions that my kids have loved. However, for the most part, I aim to bring a healthy balance to my children's diet. That's one of the reason's I love muffin tin meals - the separated muffin cups make for a great visual reminder of what I am feeding them.

While doing a little research for this week's theme on eating healthier, the food pyramid and nutrition, I came upon several important resources I hope you as useful and interesting as I did:

• It's Not About Nutrition: Forget the Food Pyramid: I loved what this post has to say about eating healthy and helping parents and kids make healthy eating choices. Her comment to "Think ratios instead of servings and your kids will automatically start eating better." really resonated with me. She advocates the CDC's reformed approach of "half your plate" for fruits and veggies instead of "5 a day".
• Today I Ate A Rainbow: I know many of you have already heard of this amazing concept/product for families and I can see why - it's full of helpful tools and colorful charts to get your kids eating a wide variety of foods along the rainbow spectrum.
• Nourish Interactive: Free online kids games geared towards promoting healthy eating in kids. My kids love them, especially the "whack-a-snack" game and the coloring pages.
• Local Grocer: Have you taken the time to find out what kind of vitamin's and nutrients are in your kids foods? I was delighted to walk into my local grocery store and find in the produce section, clear labels over every food detailing what each was "known for".  

Now it's your turn! What did you make for a Muffin Tin Meal? Won't you share it with us? YOu know the drill. click the blue "add your link button" to add your post or photo of a muffin tin meal you made this week for the kids!

Hi friends! Muffin Tin Meals have been  featured on some super cool sites. If you have a moment check them out:

Recently, after spending a good portion of my day doing copious amounts laundry, I devised a simple, yet effective way to get my kids to put away the stacks of freshly clean clothes. Armed with a stack of post-its and a black sharpie pen, I labeled each dresser drawer with the corresponding clothes item (and I drew a little picture to go with each word).

Here's why it works:

• My kids learn independence
• Helps hone their sorting skills
• Helps my new reader learn words
• Helps my emerging reader with letter recognition
• Post-its are temporary-perfect for dresser drawers that always seem to be in transition
• They know where every clothes item is and where it goes
• One item off my to-do list
• My kids love it!

It's that time again, the time for muffin tins and Mondays and for the weekly blog link up Muffin Tin Monday. Muffin Tin Mom is the official home of the Muffin Tin Meal. What is a Muffin Tin Meal, you ask? Simply stated, it's a meal served in a muffin tin (typically for kids, but also for grown ups too!)  Every third week, we try and do a themed edition of MTM. If you want to know more about MTM, be sure to check out the FAQ page and previous MTM posts.


Here's what we had today. My camera is on the fritz, so I borrowed my husband's camera phone-not bad.


Strawberries with panda bear picks, honeydew, pineapple, bear shaped cheese sandwiches, yogurt in a little bear cup, and cantaloupe.

Now, it's your turn! What did you make? Won't you share it with us? We (and by we, I mean our awesome community of muffin tin mamas) share blog posts and/or photos of the muffin tin meals we make and link up here each week. be sure to click on the blue "add your link" button to started.

I feel a little bit like this guy... only the plates are things in my life...more on this later.

After seeing my tins, I realized that most kids aren't going to eat orange bell peppers in that large of a quantity.

Tips for getting your kids to eat more veggies without sneaking it into their food:

• Start small, offer small bite sized portions, so they aren't so turned off (something I did not do today)
• Cut it into cute shapes: there are a wide variety of cookie cutters that you can use to make it look a little more appetizing
• A little dip goes a long way. Offering small portions of ranch dressing, hummus, peanut butter, or your own healthy option is a great way to ease kids into veggies.
• Keep trying. Research has shown that it can take kids up to 10 tries to "like" a food. Also, re-introducing when their older is important as their taste buds and preferences may have changed.