Fun Learning Activities Kids
Do you have a toddler in your residence? Only a year or months ago, they happily sat wherever you placed them. Now they roam your home freely. E is my current toddler-in-residence. His little feet have been taking him to the art & craft table. Set up the invitation to play with block printing: Toddlers [...]
Let’s face it, some days we just don’t get out of the house. On these days, by the afternoon, we have exhausted all of our toys and are starting to go a bit stir crazy. My son has a sand table in the yard which he loves, but again, some days, even that loses its [...]
I plan. Materials are sourced. The stage has been set. The invitation to play has been accepted. Game on. A few short minutes after play commences, the phrase “What was I thinking?!” rambles repeatedly in my head or through my mouth, I know not because I’m consumed by the disaster of my planned activity. Such [...]
Do your kids like dressing up? Both my girls love to wear different outfits when they’re playing or even when we’re heading out and about on errands or to the park. Wearing the right clothes, whether it’s a crown, swirling ballet skirt or builders hard hat seems to complete their play and let them really [...]
I have been enjoying a series called Kids Get Arty which promotes exploration of great artists. The idea behind the series is simple: 1) choose an artist to explore with your child and 2) allow a piece of work by the particular artist to inspire your child (and you) to create an original piece of [...]
My son’s preschool celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week a little bit ago. I told him that teachers love to be pampered, so we decided to make some bath bombs (because with a name like that, who wouldn’t want to make them?) and some homemade sugar scrub. This week I am going to share our simple kid-made [...]
My son made up this game. He calls it The Bathtub Alphabet Soup Game. It is easy to play, fun, educational, and very clean! I recently purchased some foam letters – the ones I have are not specifically for the tub, but I see no reason why I couldn’t use them there. So, one day, [...]
When my sister and I were growing up we had a steamer trunk full of paper dolls. It was probably our favorite thing to play together. Now that I have two daughters who are old enough to play with dolls I thought it would be fun to introduce them to some of the many paper [...]
Dirt Cake? What’s that?! Dirt Cake can be made in various ways but typically involves a chocolate treat made to look like dirt but it is completely edible – and yummy! There are some great recipes for Dirt Cake out there. Here’s a fun recipe for Edible Dirt Pudding by another great Quirky Momma! However, [...]
Finger painting fun! Rory and I had nothing planned today so we decided to make our own finger paint! I chose to make our own paints because I know Rory is getting her molars now and so everything is in her mouth. I did just a basic flour, salt and water mixture so that if [...]
My son was bored. He had exhausted all of his toys. It was time for a new sensory bin or some kind of different and unique activity. I sent him out for a walk with his grandparents who happened to be visiting and promised him something new when he came home. I scrambled around picking [...]
Sometimes you hold onto an object to use a craft for a long time waiting for the perfect idea for a recycled craft to come to you. This cup holder has been in my craft bin for several months waiting for inspiration to come. I would look at it almost every time I opened the [...]
A friend approached me the other day with a box full of biodegradable packing peanuts left over from a package she received. I was so excited when she started showing me some different things she discovered about them and grabbed a handful to bring home to my son. The first thing she told me was [...]
Great spring & summer weather takes us all outdoors. We love to explore on trails, parks, and even walks in the neighborhood. Though it is totally against my personality, I am intentionally slowing down my pace and allowing my kids to take in nature at it’s best. We ohh & awe over the various colored [...]
Our kids love the memory game, and I love playing it with them because it helps them practice taking turns, good sportsmanship, and of course, it strengthens their memorizing skills! I really liked the fun seashells and stickers version of the game that Chasing Cheerios came up with a while ago, and thought that I [...]
One thing Rory loves to play with at our local library is a felt board. For weeks, I’ve been eyeing it up and have wanted to make one! For those that are not familiar what a felt board is, it’s just a board wrapped in felt. But what makes it so special is that other pieces [...]
We recently took a day trip to our local zoo. My 16 month old daughter loved every part of the trip and was so excited about each animal. As we explored, I snapped pictures of her favorite animals so that we could talk about them more when we got home. Once we got home, I [...]
I love cooking with my kids! My son has been cooking a lot at preschool lately, so we’ve been practicing many of the recipes at home! I love all the skills that can be practiced while we cook together, including reading, following directions, measuring, strengthening fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, and learning early math [...]
5 Earth Day Activities to Do with Children of All Ages Earth Day is a worldwide celebration of our beautiful planet. It is also a reminder that we need to promote awareness of Earth’s need for protection through conservation and recycling. It is important to teach our children at an early age to take care [...]
Earth Day is always are wonderful reminder to recycle or upcycle items that we have in our homes and try to find new uses for some of them. If you are like me, you have piles of old magazines waiting to be given a reason to stay rather than end up I in the recycling [...]
Having a good memory is a great skill to have in life. Every time we count, read, spell or use our times tables we’re calling on knowledge we’ve memorized. There are so many practical applications of using your memory in life too – as you recall your shopping list or cook a meal without a [...]
Did you grow up eating candy buttons? I used to love them and recently bought some giant ones for my son’s Lego birthday party. I cut the candy buttons into a variety of shapes and passed them out in goodie bags. I tend to overbuy for parties… so I still have a lot lying around. [...]
Earth Day is coming up and Rory and I have decided to make a few “earthy” crafts for the next few weeks! One thing we do, almost on a daily basis, is go on a nature walk. Our nature walks range anywhere from our own back yard, picking out colors of flowers and watching squirrels, [...]
Once you become an adult, so many things in life become automatic. We eat, we bathe, we get dressed, and we rarely take the time to examine how we do those things. For our little ones, some of these tasks are still relatively new and can also be challenging. We used a mirror to “follow” [...]
I love the sense of awe that gardening with my kids gives them. They just love watching new life spring from a seed (and let’s be honest, they also LOVE to get muddy). This is our favorite time of year. It must be many of yours too as we had a bunch of gardening activities [...]
Are you looking for things to do with a toddler? I was wandering through the dollar store the other day looking for more items to play with and explore at home. I came across a bag of clothespins. I put them in my cart, and waited for my inspiration. One of my fondest memories from [...]
Kids love playing with ink stamp pads. They use rubber stamps with them but they also like to stamp their hand or even their thumbprints. Why not turn those simple thumbprints into a cute piece of art – Thumbprint Art! All you need is some paper, ink stamps and a thin black marker. Let you [...]
We are still getting ready for Easter! As many of you may know, I love making crafts and activities with Rorys hands, feet, and fingerprints. I have all of her crafts in an album and think its neat to see how her hands and feet grow! We thought we could make some Easter Chicks with [...]
We had fun this past week learning map skills together thanks to a recent conversation in the Horizon Healthy Families community. Caroline of Food and Art had the idea of hiding food all around a room for kids to find – sounds like fun! We decided to mix it up a bit and added a [...]
“Upcycled” or recycled art is a great way to re-use items that would otherwise end up in the dump or at a recycling plant. It’s a great way to get creative and use free art materials! We recently created recycled art with biodegradable packing peanuts. Biodegradable packing peanuts are not like styrofoam packing peanuts which [...]
