THE SINGING AMMA~LISA SIGURGEIRSON MAXX

nurturing, empowering and educating families for over 30 years! (amma = grandmother in Icelandic) the singing amma is a fledgling company created by Lisa Sigurgeirson Maxx, ECE, with the intent of offering ideas and tips, support and education, and family-nurturing products to parents and grandparents and the children in their lives.
Lisa can be reached at the.singing.amma@gmail.com or at the singing amma page on facebook! (click the “like” button to stay connected!)
Early in the new calendar year, as spring is itching to burst into life, time for re-organization of the kid spaces in our homes is optimum. Some simple organizational details can encourage a child’s independence and, simultaneously, lessen arguments with parents. Both awesome advances in family life!
Organizational Tips and Ideas for Kid Space Kitchen Kid Cupboards
A Kitchen Kid Cupboard (or drawer) is: low and easily accessible for young children; is filled with unbreakable children’s dishes and utensils (use a small container to corral the cutlery!) and is stocked with healthy, nutritious snacks and drink boxes that you feel fine letting your children help themselves to.
Beginning in toddler-hood, children thrive on a sense of emerging independence. They gain confidence and self-assurance when they can do something as simple as get their own dishes out of their own cupboard, helping to set the family table. When their body feels hungry, the ability to choose a snack independently will bring delight to little ones, as food access is often in the adult-controlled-domain-only turf. Such a sense of emerging self-care is empowering and will reap rewards both immediately – as whining is often directly related to hunger  – and later, when as
teens they will be faced with very big decisions. The ability to make healthy choices for oneself and one’s own body is a paramount life-skill that can be encouraged early!
Book Baskets
Do the bookshelves of your youngest literary buffs (i.e. the preschoolers) drive you to distraction? Those randomly sized picture books, with their millimetre-thin spines – do they sprawl and spew all over the shelf and floor no matter how many times you and your children sort and tidy them?
The singing amma’s Simple Solution: purchase a few rectangular baskets, open at the top, of a depth and width to hold a number of picture books upright. Do not cram the books in! Put in just enough books so that flipping through them to choose a story is easy for even the littlest hands. Put the Book Baskets on top of a low shelf unit or dresser for easy access and voíla! Organized and tidy, stories at a glance! Distribute Book Baskets throughout the house so they are handy for a cozy read, anytime, anywhere!

Send your parenting/grandparenting questions and dilemmas to the.singing.amma@gmail.com or check Lisa out on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Singing-Amma/295831270444034?ref=ts