To me, kids’ parties are the best and most fun if they are active and novel. Moonbounces and trips to pizza play places are active, but they do not necessarily engage children in creative play. And, these kinds of parties are expensive and not terrifically memorable. This year, do something totally new and kid-friendly: a breakfast cereal party.

I came upon this idea by accident. Last year, I was a teacher and advisor to a group of eleventh graders, and the tradition at our school on the final day of class—when juniors become the oldest students at school—was for them to tailgate in the parking lot and to get their senior class shirts so they could wear them as they entered the school building. The previous year, students had been a little less than responsible using grills to cook breakfast, and the administration banned them. Disappointed and angry, the kids turned to me as their advisor to appeal—sorry, but I agreed with the principal and told them that we would come up with something spectacular that did not require cooking. I remembered hearing about a chain of restaurants that served breakfast cereal and was inspired by the concept. So, I got several kinds of cereal and put it in foil pans with plastic scoops from the party store. I got the traditional cereal toppings—bananas, blueberries, and nuts—as well as many non-traditional ones, including gummy bears, marshmallows, chocolate candies, coconut, exploding “rock” candy, and more. I bought chocolate syrup, caramel sauce and malted powder. To top it all off, I bought several small jugs of flavored milk: chocolate, strawberry, cappuccino and, of course, plain old white. With bowls and spoons in their school colors, I have never seen a crowd of kids so delighted by their creative concoctions.

This idea would be terrific at a birthday part for children, especially at a sleepover. Set up all the cereal, toppings, syrups and milk on a long table protected by a plastic tablecloth. Children can become cereal chefs, first by mixing up cereals and toppings (nothing wet) in a container (I love using small, colorful Chinese takeout cartons) as their signature cereal bland to bring home. Make labels on your computer (labels in all sorts of sizes can help you be creative) so kids can customize their boxes. Crayons, markers, stampers and stickers will help kids get creative. Then, let kids make another mix to eat at the party, adding syrups and milk.

To further the cereal theme:

• Invitations could look like cereal boxes or advertising, or could simply have one piece of cereal hot-glued on a plain card.
• Ask guests to come in pajamas, even if your party is in the afternoon.
• Incorporate cereal into classic party games like relay races, guess the number in the jar, and charades.
• Plan cereal crafts such as making cereal necklaces using licorice strings. Buy plain party hats and have kids decorate with cereal.
• Decorate your cake or cupcakes with cereal.
• Give themed party favors such as fun spoons, cereal bowls or crazy straws.
• Play classic “Saturday morning cartoons” on the DVD player in the background.
• Get photos of each cereal chef with his or her creation. Make into magnets and tuck in with thank you cards.

By the way, the cereal buffet works great for Saturday morning bar and bat-mitzvahs and is an extra fun, memorable and economical way to send off out-of-town wedding guests. For these events, cereal, toppings, syrup and milks look amazing in clear glass containers. For any occasion, your cereal party will be a showstopper that amuses and delights guests of all ages.

You can contact Jill Bloomfield by emailing: jill@teachkidstocook.com

One thing that I learned from teaching my young children at home is that it is so much easier to give them a lesson when they don’t realize that you are teaching them.

And, how do you do this? Through activities that are fun for kids!!

Just fill many of your everyday interactions that you have with your children with the perfect combination of education and family fun. Education and family fun is the perfect recipe for bringing up a smart child.

Let’s take breakfast for instance… Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But, did you know that using your children’s favorite kids cereal you can teach them Math, Science, colors and even potty training? It’s true.

And, the best part? They won’t even realize that you are giving them a lesson.

12 Fun Kids Activities using Breakfast Cereal

Learning Colors with Kids Cereal

The more often you point out colors to your children the easier it is for them to learn them. Point out colors throughout the day as you are doing different activities with your child. Tootie Fruities are the perfect cereal for teaching your children their colors. Primary colors are the easiest for children to pick up and Tootie Fruities has those colors covered. Here are a few ideas on using kids cereal to aid your child in learning colors…

• Christmas Tree Garland – Since the Christmas Season is upon us why not string colorful Tootie Fruities cereal on a string to use as Garland on the Christmas Tree. With each cereal piece your child adds to the string announce the color. After a while begin asking your child what color he is adding & see if he can answer himself. This is a super fun and educational seasonal activity.
• Sorting – Sort the cereal by colors. Make a piles of yellow, blue, red, green, etc.
• Colorful Rainbow – Make a Colorful rainbow and have your child fill in the rainbow with their colorful cereal pieces… matching the colors of the cereal to the colors of the rainbow. For a craft add glue to each cereal piece to make the artwork permanent. Make sure to hang up their tasty artwork for all to see.
• Color with Cereal – Tear out a page from a coloring book or print off a coloring page and have your child use the Tootie Fruities to fill in the picture instead of crayons. For example, use the green cereal pieces for the leaves on a tree & the yellow cereal pieces for the sun. Make sure to ask your child why they chose those specific colors for their coloring page. Talking about their color choices can help reinforce the learning experience… not to mention the bonding time.

Math Activities using Kids Cereal

Parents & teachers have been using manipulatives for years to teach their children math. Why not use Cereal as a manipulative? Using kids cereal to put together math activities for your children can be a great tool to aid in teaching your children counting, patterns, adding & subtracting…. plus the activities are FUN!! Here are some ideas of math activities using kids cereal.

• Counting – Using kids cereal is a great way to teach your child how to count. Sit your child down at the table and lay out 10 pieces of cereal in front of her. Point out each piece and say the number. Go all the way from 1 through 10. Next have your child point at the cereal pieces and count along with her. If you feel she is ready see if she can point at each piece and count from 1 to 10 herself. Let her eat the 10 pieces of cereal as her reward for working so hard.
• Patterns – This would be another fun activity to use the multi-colored Tootie Fruities for. Place a pattern in front of the child using the different colored cereal. Make a pattern of let’s say 2 reds, 3 blues, 2 reds, 3 blues, 2 reds, and 3 blues. Place a pile of extra cereal pieces next to the pattern and see if you child can continue that same pattern. Create another pattern and see if he can finish that one.
• Adding – Using breakfast cereal is a great way to teach your child addition. As an example, place 4 cereal pieces down on the table. Ask your child to count the pieces of cereal. Depending on the child’s age count the pieces along with her. Now, say to your child, “What happens when we add 3 pieces of cereal?” Help your child count out the 3 pieces of cereal as you place them on the table next to the other 4 pieces of cereal. Now, have your child count all the cereal pieces together and give you the total. Give your child lots of praise after this activity. This is just the beginning… your child will use addition the rest of her life!!
• Subtracting – After you have been teaching your child addition for a couple of weeks successfully you can begin adding subtraction activities to your lessons. Grab a handful of their favorite Kids Cereal as a manipulative and using the same basic rules as the addition lesson above lay cereal pieces on the table in front of your child. For this example place 6 cereal pieces in front of the child. Have your child point and count out the 6 pieces of cereal. Now ask your child to take away 3 of the cereal pieces. (Use the phrase “take away”. Your child will not understand minus or subtract for quite a while). After your child removes 3 pieces ask him to count out the remaining pieces. Did he get the answer correct?

Child Potty Training using Kids Cereal

Anyone that has ever had to struggle through the challenges of potty training a child knows that there is a method to the madness of it all. However, every child has a different methodology of what will work for them. Here are a couple potty training tips using Kids Cereal that can help.

• Rewarding – Cereal can be used to reward your child for going on the potty. What is really great about using kids cereal to reward your child for going on the potty is that it is healthy. If you use candy to reward your child for going on the potty she will be ingesting a lot of sugar with each reward. If your child goes to the bathroom every hour or two throughout the day that is a lot of added sugar and calories to her diet. This wouldn’t be good for your child. However, if you use cereal to reward your child she not only gets a healthy treat, but something totally yummy!!
• Aim – For any one who has had a little boy or babysat a little boy you probably know that their aim when potty training is anything but perfect. A little boy’s focus isn’t quite there… instead of being focused on what they are doing (peeing in the potty) they are looking around the room and most probably making quite the big boy mess. But, if they had something to aim at it would help your big boy keep their focus and probably keep your bathroom much cleaner. This potty training tip is simple… grab a few round cereal pieces, Scooters would be perfect, and throw them in the toilet right before your son is ready to use the potty. Have him aim for the cereal inside the toilet while he goes potty. It will give him something to aim at & he will find it so much fun!! This little trick will make it easier to get him to want to try and pee in the potty the next time he needs to go.

Science Activities using Kids Cereal

Yes, there are even a few Science Activities that use Kids Cereal to aid in the learning experience.

• Environment – One of the great things about Malt-O-Meal Cereals is the fact that they use 75% less packaging than other cereals. While pouring your child their breakfast cereal this is a great time to point out that caring about the environment is so important for the sake of our future. Using products that are environmentally friendly is so important. Just as it is important to recycle it is important to use as little packaging as possible. It is never too early to begin teaching your children to take care of our planet.
• Mixing materials / Recipe building – Mixing ingredients teaches your child what happens when you put together two different items. Cooking is a form of science and children LOVE cooking with their parents. Using cereal to mix and build recipes is a fun activity for children. Plus, at the end of the activity they can eat their project. Why not help your child make their very own trail mix with their favorite cereal, raisins and M&M’s. Begin the project with the items apart and show your child the individual ingredients. Have the child taste each ingredient one at a time. Now, help your child mix the ingredients in a bowl. Let you child look at the beauty of their treat together in a bowl. When your child is ready let him taste his home-made treat and ask him what the ingredients taste liked mixed together? “Does it taste different than when the ingredients were separate?” “Is the texture different than when the ingredients were separate?” Have him explain why.

It is proven that using fun activities to teach your children can be extremely effective. Young children have a very difficult time sitting still long enough for regular lessons. However, if they are taught in a way that they don’t even realize is a lesson, let’s say through fun activities like the cereal activities I mentioned above, you will have better success. Use anytime during the day as a learning experience for your child. They love to learn, they love to experience new things and bottom line…. they love spending quality time with you.

What better way to teach your children than to do it in a fun and yummy way.

One thing that most kids love to do while eating their breakfast cereal is to read the back of cereal boxes. And, why not? The colorful characters, bold robust print and fun activities can hold your child’s attention the entire time they are eating their cereal. And, even more surprising than that is the fact that a child will read and reread that same cereal box over and over again until the entire box is empty.

It’s crazy, really. Most days I have to beg my 12 year old to pull himself away from the video games to do some reading, however, give him a bowl of cereal and he searches for anything in a 5 foot radius around him to read.

Don’t misunderstand me…. I love that my kids love to read something during breakfast. Truthfully, I am thankful they love to read… period.

Who knew cereal boxes could be so fun and educational!? But, we all know that it isn’t the box that holds their focus, but instead the activities, colors and bold text that holds their attention for that long.

Coming to the conclusion that breakfast time means children are more eager to read, more easily focused and ready to absorb I took advantage of this and began making my kids fun activity books and educational placemats to use during breakfast time. Not only do the kids love the fact that they have tons of fun activities, but I’m thrilled to be able to buy cereal in bags instead of boxes….. less packaging to dispose of which means better for the environment.

Here I will show you how to make your own educational placemats and kids activity books perfect for your child to read while eating his breakfast cereal. The idea is so simple, but the education and fun will last a long time.

How to Make a Kids Activity Book & Educational Placemat

Kids Wipe-off Place Mats

The supplies you will need are as follows:

• Laminating – Hot laminating pouches with a Laminating Machine or Self Seal Laminating (no laminating machine needed). This is what makes the activity books and placemats wipe-clean from milk spills.
• Wipe-off Crayons or Wipe-off Markers – Your children can use these writing utensils to write on their activity books and place mats and easily wipe them off.
• Fun activities, puzzles, stories, and Educational Worksheets – You will find out to locate these items in Step 1.
• Computer, printer and paper

Kids Activity Books

You will need the same supplies as the placemats plus the following:

• A 1″ binder – to hold your activity sheets together in a book fashion
• Hole Punch

What is so cool about making your own place mats and activity books for your children is that you can design them to meet your child’s educational level, age, skills and what the child enjoys. So, ask your child to help design it with you…. make it a fun family project.

Step 1 – Find activities

Great places to find fun activities to help build your Kids Activity Book and Placemat

• Sunday Paper – The Sunday Newspaper has great comic strips. If you have a child that knows how to read then comic strips are a perfect filler for this project. Cut out some comic strips and tape them on a piece of paper…. the size you are using for this project. The newspaper also has puzzles as well.
• School Backpacks – I don’t know about you, but when I go through my children’s school backpacks I always find a tons of undone worksheets and activities sent home from the teachers. These are also great ideas to laminate and let the children read or work on during breakfast. Perfect fun & educational activities for kids.
• School Websites – Most schools have their own websites and many of them will have links to educational websites that they use at school with your children. Many of these educational websites will have printable worksheets and activities to assist your children will their studies. If you are unsure whether your School District has a website give them a call. I am sure they will be happy to assist you.
• Children’s Activity Sites – There are tons of educational sites on the Internet that offer free printables. Find things that your child will be interested in and print off a bunch. Laminate and you have yourself an activity book that’s completely wipe-off.

Fun Activities and Puzzles for Young Children

• Find-a-Words
• Dot-to-Dots
• Hidden Objects
• Mazes
• Spot the Difference

More Challenging Activities and Puzzles for Older Children

• Optical Illusions
• Crossword Puzzles
• Logic Puzzles
• Riddles

Educational Activities for Kids

• Telling Time
• Short Stories
• Addition Worksheets
• Subtraction Worksheets
• Multiplication Worksheets
• Division Worksheets
• Algebra Worksheets
• Word Problems

Now, these are just ideas. You don’t have to limit your choices to just the ideas above…. use your imagination. Or, better yet, let you children tell you what he wants.

Step 2 Print off the Kids Activities

Kids Activity Books

• Decide how large you want the activity book. Do you want it all Find-A-Words? Do you want it all Short Stories? What are you including in this book?
• Books are best when there is a front & back to each page. In order to be environmentally friendly I would suggest using one printer paper and printing on the front and back. Most printers have this ability… you just might need to do it manually. Check your printer’s handbook to find out how to do this.
• Once you have everything printed make sure it is in the order you would like and you are ready for the next step.

Kids Placemats

• Open up your favorite Word Processor. If you don’t have one already on your computer there are a couple of online word processors you can use for free. Try Zoho Writer or Google Docs.
• Open up a blank document page on your Word Processor and place the activities, clip-art, puzzles, short stories, riddles…. or whatever you choose onto the blank document.
• You might find that an easier way to insert the puzzles into a blank document is to save them as images first.

Here is an easy way to find puzzle images perfect for your kids placemats.

• Go to Google Image Search and Search for Printable Puzzles. You will see image shots of puzzles that you can print. You should be able to locate plenty of puzzles to put on your placemat. You can search for other things too. If you want to find logic puzzles you can search for that in Google Image Search as well.

• Once your find the thumbnail image of a puzzle that looks like something you would like click on it…. doing so will take you to the site. However you will still be in Google Image Search in the top frame and the site on the bottom. You will see what I mean by the image below.

• Once you click on “See Full Size Image” the image will appear on its own on the web page…. This is the image you would use on your placemat. See, the image below shows that the puzzle in its actual size and it will be perfect for a kids placemat. They can see it enough to do it and yet small enough that you will be able to add plenty of more kids activities to the placemat.

• Continue doing the above and simply use whatever Word Processor software you are using to add your puzzles, short stories and activities to your document. You can add bright clip-art too to liven it up as well. Feel free to use your imagination.
• When you are happy with how it turned out it is time to print off the masterpiece.

**Note – Using these images for personal print-offs for your family should not be a problem. After all, the whole purpose of their website is to offer its viewers printable puzzles. It is still a good idea to make sure that their website allows using their images for personal use.

Step 3 – Laminate

Kids Activity Books

• Laminate each page of the activity book.

• Punch holes in each laminated page.

• Put the page into the 3-ring binder and your book is complete and ready for use.

Kids Placemats

• Once laminated the placemat is complete and ready to go. Check out my placemat design:

In conclusion

Breakfast time is the perfect time for your children to absorb. They are well rested, they are being satiated, they are happy. Your children crave using their minds while eating their breakfast cereal. Give your children exactly what they want… fun activities, kids educational puzzles, and silly stories. It doesn’t have to be on a cereal box for our kids to read…. it just needs to be entertaining.

Cereal and I go way back. As a kid I was utterly fascinated by cereal flotillas sailing on a sea of skim milk in my coveted plastic Tony the Tiger bowl. I lived for that morning bowl of Frosted Flakes.

I had a wholesome devotion to my favorite breakfast cereal brands, but sometimes made exceptions if the right color GoGo Gadget magnifying glass lucky-mood-ring came along with it. My mom was only too happy to sponsor my steady diet of bran cereals to promote regular bathroom visits, but the best ideas for breakfast in my mind, were the ones with cartoon spokespeople on the package. It was a glorious day when my mother would put away her coupon collection, overlook the ingredients and let ME do the cereal shopping for the newest addition to the pantry.

Weekends Were Made For Cereal & Milk

Saturday & Sunday were always highlight-reel cereal days. I’d wake up before anybody else in my family and sneak down the hall in my one piece Darkwing Duck pajamas, with two things on my mind: Apple Jacks & cartoons.

Back then a well “balanced breakfast” simply meant making it to the couch with a bowl full of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a gallon of milk, and the remote control for morning cartoons. I can still hear my mom call from her bedroom, “Manny, don’t make a mess in the family room!” (Yes mom, I know,…don’t make a mess in the famly room)

Some of my fondest memories of friends center around some coveted box of cereal. My best friend Charles and I had a game that we would play whenever we ate breakfast together. We’d each take a cereal box and try to guess the other’s nutritional facts. It was a simple game, but to this day I can still tell you that Lucky Charms has 2.1 grams of protein in a serving. Who says that children aren’t concerned with the nutritional value of the things they eat?

At the prodigal old age of 9, it somehow boggled my mind that anyone could willingly reach for the healthy whole grain, low carb, high fiber, NO FUN bland bran. Now that I’m older my taste has changed…slightly.

I still pay attention to the nutrition facts, not for playing the patented nutrition label guessing game, but for breakfast cereal’s actual value in my diet. My childhood favorites will always have a place in my heart. I confess. Sometimes, when the sun rises just right, you’ll find me sneaking down the hall in my one piece CSI pajamas with two things on my mind: Apple Jacks & Good Morning America.