It could be one of the common house rules that small children like toddlers should not be allowed in the kitchen. Though it is common, it is probably the most frequently violated house rules simply because small children can not be controlled easily and preventing them from going into the kitchen an easy task.

The kitchen just seems to be not the place for toddlers to play or learn. But making your kitchen child-friendly can definitely change that belief and turn the kitchen to a safe and conducive place for learning for your small children.

Number one rule in creating a child-friendly kitchen is safety. Make sure that all containers within your child’s reach are replaced with clear plastic ones and with sealing covers. This is to avoid glass pieces littering on the kitchen floor. Another safety concern is the cutlery set and all those sharp and pointed materials. Keep these dangerous pieces to high storage places. Create a note and post it on the fridge’s door or at the storage place of the cutlery set to inform other people to always put back a knife or fork back to the cutlery set container. And for the learning part, the clear plastic containers should be especially used to store the toddler’s favorite food, fruits, and vegetables. Storing these things to such containers will allow small children to familiarize themselves with new stuffs by identifying their shapes and colors. And to keep your toddlers busy while you are being busy with kitchen chores, always prepare a large paper on the kitchen table or kitchen island where the toddler will sit. Together with the large paper, hand him coloring materials to encourage him to draw and make him busy.

Frequent trips to the grocery or shopping definitely mean more plastic and/or paper bags for a household. And perhaps, only a few people are practicing reusing these plastic and paper bags. But if one would consider reusing these bags, it will be of great help to use reusable bag sorter.

A reusable bag sorter is a simple improvised bin that sorts and organizes plastic and paper bags. To create one, only two things are needed – First is the bin and second are the hooks. A tall slim bin, not more than one foot wide, is more preferred than a very wide short one. This is for the purpose of accommodating big sizes of bags. And lastly, find four big circle hooks that have adhesives or can be bolted on the bin. To put up the reusable bag sorter, put one hook at the top middle portion on one of the long sides. This hook will hold the straps or strings of the paper bags put in the bin. Next, install the last three hooks at the remaining long side. The first hook should be aligned to the hook installed on the opposite long side. Then position the remaining two hooks at equal distances away from the middle hook. The hand holes of a big plastic bag shall use the two outside hooks while those of the small plastic bags shall use the middle hook and either one of the outside hooks.

By using a reusable bag sorter, reusing plastic and paper bags will be practiced more because the bags are sorted in a proper storage and piled in an orderly fashion. Of course, one should not forget that the best location for this improvised bin will be in the kitchen.

Usually children especially teenagers detest having their meals at home because they end up eating the same kind of food from time to time. Now to change this kind of setting in your home, the parents should find a way to monitor the dishes cooked and served at home.

A menu tracker can help in keeping track of the dishes that you have already served and how many times have you served them in a month. In this way, the repetition of dishes can be easily seen.

Creating a menu tracker for your kitchen is very easy. It only requires a large paper like the A3 size, colored markers and Post-Its. On a large paper create gridlines of eight by five. That means eight columns and four rows. The gridlines and content should be similar to the monthly layout of a calendar. Then for every cell, write the meals served to it. Instruct your children to use the Post-Its to suggest new meals or complain about repeating meals, use two colors to differentiate the suggestions from the complaints. Then post the menu tracker on the door of the fridge so that everyone can easily read and use it. Just check the tracker every now and then to read the suggestions and complaints. To make the menu tracker more fun and effective for your children, you can provide a reward for every suggestion of a new meal so that they will be encouraged to use it.

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