Activities «

Archive for the ‘Activities’ Category

Goal For It!

Friday, September 18th, 2009

step1-side-info

Chore charts are becoming something that is very needed in our home. My boys are certainly old enough to be helping and generally do a great job when I ask them to help, but I am guessing they will do an even better job if there is an obvious reward for their work. I found a great resource online for making chore charts. It is called Goal For It. Go check it out by clicking here.

First you will need to set up an account, and then it is just 4 simple steps to printing off a completely personalized chore chart. You can chose from about 10 different templates ranging from this….

18_boy_soccer

to this….

13_girl_polka

After you have chosen your template, choose the chores you want on your chart. There are many different choices with pictures included so that if your child is unable to read, they have no excuse. Pictures tell all. If you have a chore that isn’t listed, you can make your own. Perfect!!!

My plan is this:

I am going to assign a reward amount to each chore that is on the boys chart. For example, making your bed will be worth 1 point. If they do it, I will give them a glass marble to put into their chore jar. When their chore jar is full they will get to buy a new toy or something fun of that nature.

So get on it! And let me know how it goes. I am just hoping J will respond to something like this. He is much more hard headed than H who I KNOW without a doubt will eat this up. If you have your own way of getting your kids to do chores, please share!

Posted in Activities, Tips of Randomness | No Comments »

Shake Shake Shake

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I am not going to lie. Sometimes I struggle to find fun activities to do with my kids. I really try to do at least one fun project/play thing my boys each day. Most days we succeed. Others we don’t.

On those days that I struggle find the motivation for an ultra awesome time hogging project (like the other day) we do something quick and easy like this treat. The best part about it, is that my boys had no idea that it was one my off days.

Grab a plastic baggy and go to town throwing what little fun treats you have in there. Our consisted of the mini marshmellows, pretzels, chex cereal, and M&M’s. Really though, anything would be good. Make sure your bag is good and closed, let your kids do the booty dance, and you’ve got yourself a treat (and in my case, my project/play thing done).

Posted in Activities, Kid Approved Recipes | 1 Comment »

Crayons

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Crayons break easily. If your kids are anything like mine, they don’t like to use the broken crayons, so they go to waste. Here is a fun idea on making new crayons that your kids will love….

{First} Take the paper off of all your broken crayons.

{Second} Put your broken crayons in a cupcake tin. You can do them by color or just randomly. We did a little of both. To be honest, the more random the colors are, the more fun they are when it is done.

{Third} Put in the oven at 200 degrees for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, put the cupcake tin in the freezer for about 10 minutes. When your crayons are solid, they will pop right out of the pan with a little tap on the back of it.

{End Result} Lots of fun new crayons. My boys can’t seem to get enough!

Posted in Activities | No Comments »

Coloring Fun

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Roll 144 This is such a fun and quick craft project to do with your kids. It is perfect when teaching your children about mixing colors too.

{What you will need}

cardstock of any color, a coffee filter, washable markers, tape, and a spray bottle.

{Instructions}

Tape a coffee filter onto your piece of cardstock and let your child color the filter. When the coloring is complete, lightly spray the filter with water, hold it vertically and watch the colors run.

H’s (on the left) is a “crazy monster man” (his words, not mine) and J’s (on the right) is a “rainbow O”. How do brothers so close in age who do everything together have such different personalities?

Posted in Activities, Preschool Activities | No Comments »

Kites

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Yesterday we spent some time learning about Benjamin Franklin and making homemade kites. We read this book….

14330869

It is such a fun book! I had no idea that he was responsible for inventing so many things!

After reading this book we made some homemade kites in honor of Mr. Franklin. They are so easy to do. Here are some simple instructions:

Supplies needed are:

Roll 143 Yarn, computer paper, scissors, crepe paper, skewer, tape, hole punch, and markers.

{Step 1} Color your paper, or dont’, whichever you would like. My boys like coloring, so we colored it.

{Step 2} Fold paper in half and then fold like this…

Roll 1438

Roll 1431-1 About 3″ on one side and 1″ on the other.

{Step 3} Open paper with the folded part underneath like this….

Roll 1432

and tape into place on the folded edges that meet in the middle.

{Step 4} Using a hole punch, punch a hole on the back side about 2 inches from top (top is the wider side, bottom is the smaller side). Does that make any sense at all? Oh just look at the picture…that explains it better. Cut your yarn about 3′ long and tie in the hole.

Roll 1439 {Step 5} Cut skewer so that it fits from cornor to cornor and tape into place

Roll 1433

{Step 6} Cut crepe paper about 4′ long and tape to bottom of kite (the shorter side). And you are done! [My picture won't upload, just know that the finished product is really cool]

Posted in Activities, Craftiness, Preschool Activities | No Comments »

Fun With Sidewalk Chalk

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Are you looking for a cheap activity to waste these lllllloooooonnnnnggggg summer days away?? How about trying some of this…..

350_toy0000458-2-02 What can you do with sidewalk chalk you ask? Well, let me show you….

1. {Body Shapes}

Trace each other like this….

Or to make it even more challenging…trace someones shadow.

2. {Mr. Artistic}

Draw each other like this….

sidewalk-chalk-300x225

3. {Hopscotch}

hopscotch

My sweet neighbors introduced my boys to this game and now they BEG to play it whenever we pull out the chalk. They (OK, me too) have a blast!

4. {Bean Bag Toss}

Draw a bunch of different circles on the ground, some big and some small, and put a number in the middle (points) . Whoever gets the most points is the winner.

gamecraft-nylon-beanbags If your kids are still learning their shapes, draw a bunch of different shapes on the ground and tell them which one to throw it into. If the bean bag lands inside the shape they get 5 points. If it didn’t land inside but they were aiming for the right shape, give them 3 points. Whoever gets the most at the end of the game wins!

5. {Tic Tac Toe}

This one is pretty self explanatory right??

images-12

6. {Mazes}

Draw a maze with pit stops along the way. When they get to the pit stop ask them an age appropriate question. For my boys I ask questions like “What does cat start with?” or “What is 2+1?” .

7. {ABC, 123}

images-6

Shout out a letter or number for your kids to draw. To add a little creativity when doing letters, have your kids draw something that starts with the letter.

8. {Pictionary}

Draw a picture and the first one to guess what it is wins. Easy as that!

sidewalk-art-spiderman