When children return from their first day of school, they can experience mixed feelings. They might have made friends, learned something new or felt a feeling they never felt before. Some phrases mamas can say in these instances are affirmations of support, others are questions to help children reconnect with home and express how they felt throughout the day.

Here are nine encouraging phrases to say to your child after their first day of school:

1. "What are you most proud of today?

This will give your child the opportunity to develop retrospection, which is a life skill that will be used throughout adulthood. Life will not always be perfect but when it gets tough, it helps to concentrate on your accomplishments.

2. "Tell me about your day."

This phrase helps your child recognize that you are someone with whom they can share the successes and struggles. It will also give you a head start when it comes to building that trust between you and your child now that they will be in school most of the day, away from you.

3. "I am proud of you."

The first day of school can be overwhelming and saying this simple sentence to your child can make a big difference in how they feel about themselves. Children tend to doubt themselves, and after their first day of school, they want to know their parents are proud. This phrase encourages them to keep up their good attitude.

4. "Congrats! You faced the challenge of the day head-on, and succeeded!"

Aside from letting your child know you are proud, it is important to put their accomplishments into perspective. It is not an entirely easy thing to go to school on the first day, and yet they faced the challenge head-on. That is a success and not only should you be proud of them but they should be proud of themselves.

5. "Did you learn something new? Tell me about it."

Asking this question will let your child know that you are open and present to hearing about what they learn. If your child read a new story, learned a new concept or took part in a new assignment, ask them how they felt, how they think they did, and give them advice based on your experiences.

6. "Thank you for trying your best."

Always acknowledge your child's feelings and challenges. Thanking them for getting ready in a timely fashion, going to school and trying their hardest help them signal that these actions are positive and have an impact in their world.

7. "What made you feel happy (or sad) today?"

Letting your child talk about things that made their day is helpful for them to relive the positive moments and attribute it to school. This is also helpful as parents to understand the kinds of things your son or daughter enjoys about school.

There might also be some downs. At an early age, you want your child to feel comfortable saying all the great things that made mom and dad proud, but you also want your child to feel safe talking about the bad things. They should also learn to acknowledge that they won't have a good day every day and that its part of life.

8. "What's your goal for tomorrow?"

Children need parents to help them find their passion, and goal setting could be a great way for them to express what they want to be better at. Whether your child had a good day or a bad day, asking them what their goal is for the next day will help them tackle their challenges.

9. "If you ever need me, I am here for you."

Finally, always remember to let them know they have a parent who is there for them with unconditional love. It is good for children to know they can run to you when the going gets tough. While children gain confidence and toughness throughout their life, you want them to feel like they can trust that you will be there to guide them when the going gets tough.

source: Dr. Hafeez 

I have made a lot of birthday cakes over the years. Today I’m sharing my top tips for making it simple. Take these easy kid’s birthday cake ideas as an inspiration for your own child’s birthday party. I get commissions for purchases made through the affiliate links in this post. 

Easy Kid’s Birthday Cake Ideas

Top with Toys

My favorite way of making a themed birthday cake is to choose some toys to top the cake. Sometimes you’ll actually find cake topper toys, but you can use regular toys, too. Just be sure the toys are washable (at least the part that will touch the frosting). You’ll also want to watch out for crevices on the toys that the frosting can get stuck in. You could add a bit of fondant for the toys to rest on. Wash the toys before placing them on the cake (allowing for drying time).

My family loves a boxed chocolate cake with store bought chocolate fudge frosting. My kids wanted a How to Train Your Dragon birthday cake with Toothless and the Light Fury. We had the perfect cake with the Dragons Hidden World Gift Set I bought online at Target.

Another option is to choose a white frosting (I like cream cheese frosting) and add icing color. (I use the gel icing colors from Wilton.) I did this for our Troll Hunters birthday party. If you get the white icing with confetti, you can add an extra special pop of rainbow color to the cake.

Add Candy to Decorate the Birthday Cake

When my daughter turned one, I decided to have a polka dot birthday party. She had this adorable polka dot outfit and it was the perfect inspiration for party. I made her a special mini applesauce cake that wasn’t very sweet.

For the rest of the party goers, I baked a simple 2-layer chocolate cake. I iced it with cream cheese frosting and added M&M’s to dot the cake. Super easy and super festive!

My niece asked for a Willy Wonka themed birthday cake when she turned 7. The inside of the cake is rainbow with 4 layers each a different color. I used the store bought colored cake mixes to make it easy. The cake is supposed to look sort of like Willy Wonka’s hat so the brim of the hat was made from purple fondant. We added a variety of candies to complete the picture.

Use a Special Shaped Pan

Wilton makes a ton of cake pans in different shapes. I created an airplane birthday cake using their airplane shaped pan. Before buying the pan, check to see if your library or some other local place lets you borrow the shaped pans. Otherwise, use a coupon if you buy it at Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, or Jo-Ann’s.

The cake pans come with instructions and ideas for decorating the cake. Be sure to grease and flour your cake pans so the cake comes out clean. Or you can use Wilton’s Bake Easy. This non-stick spray makes the cakes come out super clean.

For the airplane birthday cake, I used store bought chocolate frosting and vanilla frosting and used M&M’s to complete the picture.

For Lily’s Hello Kitty birthday party, I used Wilton’s Hello Kitty pan. I coated the cake in a layer of frosting and then used tubes of gel icing to make the details on Hello Kitty’s face. The gel icing was kind of difficult to work with. It didn’t want to cooperate so I ended up with a messy cake. It still turned out okay. I would probably use buttercream and proper piping tips if I had to do it all over again.

Get the Right Shape Cake Pan

For Aiden’s Minecraft birthday cake, he had to have a square cake. This meant getting square pans. I used 4 boxed cake mixes to make a square 4-layer cake. I covered the whole cake in lots of store bought chocolate frosting. I even did a crumb coat.

I used a recipe to make homemade buttercream frosting and colored it green. I used a star tip to create the grass on top of the cake. The cake is supposed to look like a block of Minecraft grass.

The final touch was adding Minecraft toys to the top of the cake. This cake was huge and pretty heavy. But totally worth the impact. Everyone loved it.

Use a Sphere Shaped Cake Pan

Wilton makes a 3D Sports Ball Cake Pan that I’ve used to create Aiden’s Jupiter cake and his Golden Snitch cake. You bake the two halves separately and then use icing to combine them. A crumb coat is definitely need in order to get this cake decorated well.

Aiden requested a Jupiter cake for his space themed birthday party. And he wanted it to be an actual ball shape not flat. Thankfully, I found the sports ball cake pan. I followed the directions for baking the cake and cut off any cake that baked above the edges. After the crumb coat was chilled, I added more store-bought frosting (I love that shortcut). I colored some of the frosting using Wilton’s icing colors.

My first and only attempt at making cake pops was to have Jupiter’s moons go along with the spherical planet. The cake pops were absolutely delicious but they took forever to make. I wasn’t very good a dipping the cake pops in melted chocolate. The cake pops came out lopsided and uneven. Since they are Jupiter’s moons this were perfectly acceptable and maybe even looked as if I did it on purpose. The cake is sitting on a piece of foam wrapped with aluminum foil. This makes it easy to stick the cake pops in.

For Aiden’s Harry Potter birthday party, he wanted a Golden Snitch cake. This cake did not turn out exactly how I imagined but he loved it nonetheless. I used Wilton’s buttercream yellow icing color to color cream cheese frosting. I used more buttercream yellow to add the details of the snitch. Aiden wanted the wings of the snitch to be made out of edible paper. I used Wilton’s sugar sheets but they were heavier than I thought. Wafer paper would have been a better choice.

Combine Cake Pan Shapes

To make Elon’s volcano cake, I use a small bundt cake pan and a 6 inch round cake pan. The bottom of the bundt cake pan was the same size as the round cake pan. After baking and leveling the cakes, I stacked the bundt cake on top of the round cake. I added the cake scraps cut off from leveling to the sides of the cake. This helped make the sides of the volcano more mountain like.

Next, I added colorful homemade buttercream. I wish the buttercream was a little tighter. It would have piped easier onto the cake. Overall, we ended up with a pretty cool volcano birthday cake.

Use Modeling Chocolate

If you can’t find toys to match your birthday party themed, you can make your own cake toppers out of modeling chocolate. It’s surprisingly easy to work with. It handles just like modeling clay. The modeling chocolate becomes softer and easier to manipulate as you heat it up with your hands. Check out how I used modeling chocolate to make the cake for our Dragons Love Tacos birthday party. The method is easy but it is time consuming. It took quite a while to get the dragon just right.

My Final Advice

Don’t be afraid of decorating a cake yourself. My cakes never look like a professional did them. I’m totally okay with that. They are personalized for my children. Some of them take time to get just right. Others are ridiculously easy.

source: inspirationlaboratories

The warmer months have arrived and, if your family is anything like mine, you are ready to spend as much time outside as possible soaking up the sun and enjoying nature. Spending time outside in the sunshine is sure to lighten the mood but using the outdoor time to plant flowers and vegetables can be rewarding for your entire family.

Family bonding time

Gardening is a great way to get kids involved in a project the whole family can do together. Planting flowers and vegetables gives everyone a chance to set aside electronics and spend time enjoying time outside while working on a family project. You will have a chance to see your kids explore new sensations as they dig in the dirt, plant seeds, and water. The best family bonding usually happens when everyone is working on a shared goal.

Educational

Gardening is a great way to teach your kids about nature, science, and math. They will learn how plants grow, names of plants, how to measure how far apart to plant seeds, and how to protect your garden. You could take the lessons one step farther and check out books from the library about gardening, watch an educational video about gardening, or visit a community garden to learn more about plants and flowers. Some families also find that starting a compost bin helps teach their kids about the environment and how our waste effects it. The compost gives your garden a natural boost as well reducing waste.

Gardening teaches life lessons

In the process of starting and caring for your garden your child will have the opportunity to learn the value of hard work, the importance of patience while waiting for their seeds to grow, the responsibility of caring for the garden each day, and will be rewarded with the fruits (or vegetables) of their labor. The best life lessons often happen when you don’t know you are learning them.

Encourages healthy eating habits

The best reason to plant and take care of a garden is the reward of tasting your crop. Kids who would not normally try tomatoes, bell peppers, or cucumbers will be much more likely to give them a try if they have planted, cared for, and watched them grow themselves. Cultivating a love of eating healthy fruits and vegetables at a young age is a great way to encourage lifelong healthy eating habits.

No one will tell you that planting and caring for a garden is easy but most will say it is well worth the effort when you are able to harvest your own fresh produce or flowers to enjoy.

source: Sarah Lyons