Kid Stuff: Stages of Child Development in Laymen's Terms

I have an associate degree in early childhood education, which means I've read a lot of books that use words like “hatching” and “launching” to describe different phases in child development.

While I have no objections to using those terms, I've come up with a way to describe the phases of child development that is, in my opinion, more entertaining and descriptive.

First stage: The “Watch out for the baby's head!” stage. (Roughly birth to 12 months.)

Second stage: The “Sweetie, watch your head!” stage. (Once the toddler starts moving around on their own.)

Third stage: The “Where the frak do you get these ideas ?!” stage. (Roughly preschool through early elementary school.)

Fourth stage: The “I don't even want to know where the frak you get these ideas!” stage. (Mid-elementary school up through high school.) 

Now that I'm an adult, the things my sister and I tried to pull as kids are starting to horrify me, haha! 

Kid Stuff: homemade play dough

I got an iPhone a couple weeks ago, and I'm experimenting with adding pictures to the blog from the phone but still using the computer for most of the typing.  (No, I don't have a tablet.  Someday, hopefully!)  So please bear with me while I get the hang of this!

Now that I'm doing childcare again, I want to start sharing some of the crafts, recipes, etc. that I've done.   Today I tried making homemade play-dough using the recipe in one of my early childhood textbooks.

Homemade Play Dough:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

2 cups water

2 Tablespoons oil (I used vegetable oil)

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

food coloring

Stir all ingredients over low heat until mixture has coagulated into  a dough.  Allow time for the dough to cool thoroughly.  I took the pot off the stove and covered it with a dish towel until it was mostly cool, then put it in containers.  While kids definitely need to be taught not to eat the dough, all the ingredients are edible and they would probably have to eat a ton of it before they'd even get a stomachache.  This recipe made two pint containers (shown here), and the recipe can easily be cut in half.  I will probably cut it in half for future recipes because I don't need that much.