TOS Crew Review: Vintage Remedies For Kids

Long term readers of my blog might remember that we were using Vintage Remedies for Girls to learn about nutrition last spring. We LOVED it (and I keep wanting to continue with it, we stopped when another review product overlapped it, and haven't gotten back into it, we need to). So when I saw that Vintage Remedies was a potential review product on the TOS Crew I was thrilled!! I was hoping that since their book for younger children is a new offering, it would be the review product, but figured it was more likely they'd be reviewing the "for girls" book we already have. 

But guess what, they gave us OPTIONS!! We were able to choose between "for Girls", "for Guys" (which I'm sure is lovely, but we're abit short on "guys" (of school-age) in this house, hee hee), and the one I was hoping for, Vintage Remedies for Kids, woo-hoo!!! I was so excited!!! 

Vintage Remedies for Kids teaches about healthy living for younger children, the recommended age range is 2-6, so since Little Bit is almost 3, and loves to do things like her big sisters, I figured this would be fun.  I was right!! Just this weekend she was proudly telling my mom that "I made pizza and ice cream" (the 2 projects we've done so far).  The text is still over her head, and too long for her attention span, but I think would be great for 4-6 year olds. With her, I skim/summarize and then we move on to the fun part, COOKING!! The first lesson talked about healthy food choices and then the project was to make individual pizzas. I set the older girls to work making the dough (a nice healthy, easy recipe that we'll be using regularly now!) and prepping the toppings and then once that was ready I spread the sauce on and let Little Bit put on the rest of the toppings. She was sooo excited to ask each of us what we wanted, and make each of our pizzas accordingly.  Another thing I LOVED about this recipe is that it only bakes for 10 minutes. My normal pizza recipe bakes longer, which is fine normally, but I think it was BRILLIANT of them to have such a short bake time on a recipe for little kids!! I tried to take pictures, but since she still thinks that clothes are only for when we leave the house, she was, as usually au naturale when we were ready to cook, and somehow telling her to put clothes ON for a potentially messy project seemed counter productive, nice as pictures would have been.

I did manage some so-so pictures of her making "ice cream" (I'd call it a berry smoothie, but the book called it ice cream, and she was all about that LOL). So, the review. For an oldest child, I would say hold off until they're 4+ (I can see my friend's 4 yr old really enjoying this), however if, like me, you have a younger preschooler who desperately wants to "do school" like the big kids, then I'd agree that 2+ works. The projects are easy enough for them to feel like they are doing them (I had to giggle at Little Bit though, she has a hatred of anything "noisy" so "she" made the "ice cream" by putting the berries, etc. in the blender, but then she ran to the family room to be "safe" from the noise while I ran the blender LOL.

This curriculum, like the "for Girls" curriculum (and I assume the "for Guys" is similar, but haven't seen it), focuses on real whole foods, avoiding chemicals and processed foods. Later in the book it also talks about health & wellness, with chapters on herbal medicines, natural care of scrapes and bruises, etc.  As well staying clean, avoiding germs, and things like that..

I would recommend this to anyone looking to help their children learn to make good choices about health and wellness. While the "for Girls" book is much more in depth, and I'm glad we have it for the older girls, and for Little Bit when she's older, I do think that children in the 7-10 range could still enjoy the "for Kids" book, especially if you have younger children as well and want them to all be able to learn together. One thing to note is that the "for Kids" book is a much smaller book, so not only is it written in simpler terms, with less detail, but it also doesn't have nearly as much in it. This would make it a great option if you're wanting to do a quick summer unit or if your children are in school but you'd like them to learn real nutrition at home, this book is short enough that you could do a lesson per week or work through it in a couple weeks in the summer.  This book is also very reasonably priced, at $25.

Be sure to check out the TOS Crew blog for more reviews on all three of these curriculum options. Also check out the Vintage Remedies site for classes and books on herbal medicines for grown-ups as well as kits to make your own herbal medicines and such.