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Monday, March 21, 2011

Same Manners; Different Blog Address

Monday Night Manners Friends (all 10 of you) !
 
I have some exciting news! My latest manner is posted on my new blog called "Raising Lemons".  You can find me at www.RaisingLemons.com


The story behind the name is up on the website, but it is basically a parenting blog with ideas for holidays, travel, abcs, general parenting and of course MANNERS.  I  found myself having so many other ideas that wouldn't fit under the mantle of manners and I wanted to keep all my ideas in one place. I will still be doing the weekly manner posts on Monday but just under the heading of                { Manners } on my new blog.  All of my previous manners posts were transferred to  "Raising Lemons" so you will still be able to access them under { Manners } as well.

I have appreciated your support and I hope you will follow me to the new website and stay with me there.   The new blog is a little more advanced so there is an RSS feed that you can subscribe to if you want to be notified when I update the blog. Or you can check in at the new blog every Monday for the weekly manner post.  This will be my last post on  the Monday Night Manners blog, but I will keep it up for a few weeks during the transition time.   Mondaynightmanners.com will reroute to www.RaisingLemons.com 

Again thank you all for your support and let me know if you have any questions. I would love any feedback you have for me.

Tiffany

Monday, March 14, 2011

#13: Using Your Spoon

Manner #13: Here's the Scoop on the Spoon

Attention Getter:  I set the table as normal (with a spoon on the right,) but I also set a spoon above the plate.  The kids were intrigued by the mystery spoon above the plate. I let them make predictions about the "new" spoon.


Since we had already learned about the fork and the knife, it was time to learn the scoop on the spoon:

Manner:  1. The spoon-including the soup spoon- will be found to the right of the plate. If a spoon is set above the plate, it is used for the dessert.
2. You hold your spoon like you would hold a pencil- not with a fist.
3. Spoons have limited use compared to the fork and the knife. (I gotta admit I feel kind of bad for the spoon.  She is like the fat sister that has little purpose compared to her sharp brother, the knife, and busy sister, the fork.)  Spoons can be used to stir drinks like coffee and tea, to eat soft desserts like icecream and pudding , and of course they are used to eat soup and cereal.  When I was studying the functions of the spoon, I realized that they would be easier to remember if we noted that the Spoon's responsibilities fit under the letter S.  Spoons are to be used for Soup, Stirring, and Soft Desserts.
4. If the soup is a course and not the meal, then you will see two spoons. The soup spoon is found to the right of the regular spoon. It is usually the outer most spoon.  The soup spoon may have a slightly different shape. If you are only having soup, you will only one spoon would be set. (I will do a more detailed post on just soup later.)

Practice: I served soup for dinner and pudding (from a Snack Pack) for dessert so the kids had two opportunities to use the spoon.  My son kept resorting back to the fist hold, so we had to work on the pencil grip.

Follow-Up:  Since Jello-O is classified as a soft dessert in my book, I made a a rainbow Jell-O dessert complete with a whip cream cloud later in the week.  This was a fun St. Patty's Day treat as well as another chance to practice using our spoon.  Isn't it cute in the individual trifle dish? (I knew I would get some good use out of my  cups.)

If you have any desire to make this rainbow Jell-O for St. Patrick's Day here are a few tips:
1. Make sure you have room in your fridge for these to set.
2. I used 6 boxes of small Jell-O.  I had to go to a few stores to find blue and I only found it in the big size, so I just guesstimated.  I prepared each color as the box directed.
3. I keep a pot of boiling water on the stove that I could just keep going back to for each color.
4. Each layer was about 1/4 cup.  
5. I placed the dishes in a cake pan so I could take them in and out of the fridge easily to add layers.
6. It took about 20 minutes for each layer to set.
7. The boxes made about 10 trifle cups of rainbow Jell-O.  So if your family is small, share with a friend.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Feeling Lucky

Background:   This is a modified repost from my days as a guest blogger for Shade Clothing so this might be familiar to some of you, (but I changed the ending so keep reading.) I love to use the holidays-even St. Patrick's Day- to reinforce good manners.  Kids benefit from opportunities to express gratitude and appreciation.

The idea came to me after the Haiti earthquake last year.  My kids seemed to be complaining about everything from breakfast to school clothes.  I found myself lecturing "You're lucky you have food to eat" or "You're lucky you have clothes to wear at all."  My rants inspired this St. Patty's Day idea:

Mini pot of gold
Attention Getter:  Before we started, I filled a mini cauldron (found at Partyland) for each child full of pennies. It took 4 rolls of pennies per cauldron.  Then I hid them around the house.  I told the kids of an Irish legend that says if you find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you will have good luck. I sent the kids on a hunt for their own pots of gold. Squeals of excitement came from the basement when they found their pots.

Lesson:  We gathered in a circle and I gave a brief lesson on how lucky we are to live where we live and have what we have.  Then I explained the activity:  Take a penny out of your mini cauldron and say something you feel "lucky" about.  Then add your penny to the larger pot of gold in the center. We went around the circle many times and their responses ranged from the silly to the serious.  My son was lucky to have his light saber and my daughter thought we were lucky to have policemen and firemen.

Follow-Up: Since it took 200 pennies to fill up one small pot, we did this activity every night with our bedtime ritual for a week or so leading up to St. Patty's Day to go through all the pennies.   I had intentions of donating all the pennies to the Haiti earthquake fund, but I can't remember if I ever did???  This year I might just do Rolos in the cauldrons, eat them as we go, and keep the activity to one night.