Fun Learning Activities Kids
I have been drooling over the anthropologie-style wall letters (like these at Tip Junkie) and Elmers & Xacto gave me the perfect opportunity to make my own set with an Elmer’s Summer Craft Party! They sent me a big box of goodies including foam boards, glue sticks, glue dots, markers and more! They also sent [...]
I have been drooling over the anthropologie-style wall letters (like these at Tip Junkie) and Elmers & Xacto gave me the perfect opportunity to make my own set with an Elmer’s Summer Craft Party! They sent me a big box of goodies including foam boards, glue sticks, glue dots, markers and more! They also sent [...]
Last week my family visited the Genghis Khan Exhibit at the Iriving Arts Center. As part of the exhibit, there was a real life size trebuchet and a smaller model catapult made out of wood that the boys could send ping pong balls shooting across the museum. It was a crowd-pleaser. Ryan, my 10 year [...]
Is your recycling bin overflowing? Mine is! Here are four ideas of ways you can turn your trash into treasure – or at least half an hour of play and exploration! . Melissa over at The Chocolate Muffin Tree (one of my favorite blogs!) used the lid of a dish soap bottle, an old CD [...]
Do your kids love Angry Birds? Mine do! Here are some ideas of ways to bring the silly birds, mean pigs, and crashing blocks into reality. If we weren’t already planning a reptile birthday party we would do an angry birds one! Don’t these DIY Yarn Pom-pom birds look like great? Marie, over at Makes [...]
We wanted a place for our family calendar, something durable and big enough for all of our “plans”. Organization is not one of my gifts, I struggle to organize our schedule and our bills! Over our sink we added a chalkboard calendar to help us organize all of our daily events and activities. I [...]
Do you remember our post with painters tape and stripes? We went through a painting kick for several weeks… my hubby had a large strip (about a foot wide and 8 feet long) of painted plywood 1/4th an inch thick. He saw trash, I saw fun! We chopped it into 5 different pieces and the [...]
Cardboard Boxes – There are so many fun things that my preschoolers and I can do with them! They among my kids favorite “toys”. Rachele from Tinkerlab, in honor of her 1-year blogging birthday, is having a round-up of activities you can do with cardboard boxes. Fun! We had fun “throwing paint” onto our box [...]
Want the perfect babysitter meal for the kiddos? I mentioned that I recently found a deal on restaurant meals (Thanks Ebates). Now add the perfect meal for the babysitter to make with the kids and we have a terrific “date night” plan. All you need is pasta and hot-dogs. We broke the spaghetti in half. [...]
Flowers, nothing says spring, more than a bunch of flowers! Here are ten different ways you can make flowers with your preschoolers this week – or maybe you can convince Grandma to make them with your kids – as your mother’s day gift! Don’t want to make your own flowers? Check out our sponsor for [...]
I have a preschooler who loves her Polly Pocket dolls and accessories and an infant who wants to put the tiny brightly colored bits into her mouth! We tried keeping the tiny shoes, combs and purses contained and tidy – but were not successful. Solution: Make a Polly Pocket Bracelet! This was a perfect early [...]
My youngest preschooler loves pretend food and is obsessed with “cooking” right now. Thanks to some homemade felt from my sister-in-law, we have all the supplies we need to make a whole assortment of pretend felt food. We have all the fun with none of the sugar-rush. Thanks Jeanette! . How to make your own [...]
The combination of packing to move (we move into our new home in 2 weeks!!!) and preparation for a busy holiday season means that we have moved to being a disposable, paper plate loving family. Dishwashing with our preschoolers is not as feasible as it has been in the past. Hefty must have known the [...]
Have you noticed a theme this past week? We have been learning about things that begin with the letter B in this months Activity-a-Day Calendar. These are just a few of the “B” things I’ve come across this past week: . If it weren’t for the fact that my youngest preschooler has recently decided bath [...]
This post idea, to test our sunscreen by painting on our paper with sunscreen and leaving them out in the sun, was inspired by the comment by Lady in a Small Town in my earlier post, Sun-bleached Alphabet Puzzle. She said that she’d heard of an experiment where they painted with sunscreen and watched the [...]
Looking for a fun craft that makes a perfect gift for grandparents or teachers? Something simple but with a “wow-factor”? I just love the snazzy clothespin art that my kids made for me! We use our decorated clothespins for helping my pre-writing kiddos practice “gripping” – clothespins are great for fine motor development. We also [...]
Anna of The Lawrence Girls and Daddy, has three crafty girls. The stories of their lives and interactions has me laughing almost every time I read her blog! In 2-3 weeks our little girl will arrive and I am both terrified and curious what life with three girls is like – curious, read her blog! [...]
Liz from A Belle, a Bean and a Chicago Dog, reminded me about the joys of letting our kids explore. We have a camera for the kids to use, one of our old ones, but it has been up on a high shelf for quite sometime. Kids love documenting events with photos and I love [...]
I first found out about Shakey Bottles from a stay-at-home Dad/friend, he made them for his son to enjoy and also gave them out as gifts. I loved the concept and have had my eyes peeled for a number of weeks, looking for the perfect bottles! I finally found some at during a trip to [...]
My kids love to paint and I hate to waste stuff. Every Spring we weed through the cabinet under the bathroom sink and get rid of all the expired lotions and what-not. Sunscreen isn’t effective if it is old (and one of my kids burns badly – I learned this the hard way!). So what [...]
Who doesn’t have a matchless sock hanging around the laundry pile? Sock puppets are easy to make and a ton of fun to play with this is a great way to inspire creativity and use those lone socks! . What you’ll need to make a sock puppet: A sock – the more colorful the better! [...]
We had leftover egg dye from dying our eggs a few days ago, and if you know anything about the Quirky household from reading this blog over the last few months, our preschoolers love to paint! We used a wide variety of dripping/spraying tools from paintbrushes that we flicked, old toothbrushes that we sprayed, straws [...]
Combine play sand with cornstarch and you get lots of sand fun! What is great about this mixture is that unlike regular sand, it cakes together when slightly damp. Almost becoming hard, but smashes back into sand. All of my kids enjoyed playing with there new “outdoor only” tub! I will warn you though, they [...]
Do your preschoolers use a ton of chapstick? Mine do! And I needed an alternative to help their cracking lips (gotta love winter weather) and something that I felt safe with them ingesting. I was inspired after reading about a friend who mixed shortening and a juice mix to create a yummy edible lip balm. [...]
Do you remember Cootie Catchers from when you were a kid? I loved them! Here is a cootie catcher perfect for the learning to read kiddo in your life! For our paper we used one of the sheets of Shaving Cream Painted works from yesterday. I was inspired by Jimmie and her daughter Sprite (love [...]
This is my preschoolers favorite way to paint! Basically, it is what it sounds like; shaving cream mixed with paint. We usually mix the shaving cream with tempera paint as it has the smoothest consistency and is the cheapest! We have three tubs of primary colored paint: red, blue and yellow that we mix to [...]
Joelle of Homeschool Blogger worked with her kids during their Body Unit, creating some model arms from houshold items. Thanks for sharing your instructions and photos with us! … Preschoolers Learn About Arms Supplies to make your Model Arms: Ping Pong balls Cardboard Tubes (centers of paper towel rolls) Glue Paper Clips Tape Rubber Bands [...]
This is a great activity to teach our kids color, what bugs need to eat (nectar) as well as the important roll of bugs as pollinators. All while having fun with a craft project! Materials Needed: -coffee filters or paper towel cut into circles – watery tempera paint or food coloring and water – Pipe [...]
This week we are studying birds. We used birdseed in a tactile or blind, “I Spy” as well as practiced gross motor skills by pouring bird seed from cup to cup. … Materials needed: Bucket Birdseed items and small trinkets What we did: The kids love feeling birdseed sifting through their fingers! They picked three [...]
Chalkboard paint is great. You can use it to transform any blank surface into a creative masterpiece (or at least a place for notes). Kristen had a terrific idea! She painted the side of her refrigerator with chalkboard paint to use it as a note or list making area. She inspired me and we painted [...]
