Indoor Winter Activities

It's freezing cold here so my kids have not been able to play outside in the snow for several days now. I've been trying to bring some of the outdoor fun inside. I thought you might like to try some of these ideas with your kids too.

~ Ice Skating: Use waxed paper and rubber bands or masking tape. Tape or attach a piece of waxed paper around each foot (preferably with a sock on the foot). Put on some music and watch your children skate.

~Fill your sensory tub (I just use a big plastic bin) with snow. Put mittens on the kids, give them a few gadgets and toys to play with in the snow and they will be happy for awhile. You can also provide magnifying glasses for the children to observe the snowflakes.

~Make Snow Play dough: It's actually just regular homemade play dough with some silver glitter but we like to pretend that it's snow play dough because it sparkles like the snow. You can find a play dough recipe on the Lesson Plans Plus website.

~Simple winter science experiment: Bring a container of snow indoors. Once the snow melts, add food coloring to the water. Place the container back outside until the water freezes into a colored block of ice. Bring the container back inside. The children can observe the changes as the ice melts.

~Bird Feeders: Another fun activity for kids is making bird feeders. Roll a pine cone in peanut butter and then roll (or sprinkle) the peanut butter covered pine cone with bird seed. Tie a string around the pine cone and hang it outside for the birds and squirrels to enjoy. Be sure to hang the feeder in a location where your children can easily see it by looking out a window.

Fourth of July (Independance Day) Crafts and Activities

I've always loved the Fourth of July. Getting my kids involved in Patriotic decorating and activities is so much fun. I thought that I would share some of our red, white and blue crafts and activities with you.

American Flag: This is so easy. If you have little kids who are not good with scissors yet you will need to do some preparation while older kids can do their own cutting. Provide a piece of white construction paper to work on. Next provide strips (older kids can cut their own) of red construction paper (these are the red stripes on the flag). Let your children glue the red strips onto the white paper (leaving enough space between the red strips so that the white appears to be stripes too). After gluing the strips onto the paper glue a blue rectangle in the corner. Use white chalk to draw stars on the blue paper. Instead of chalk, you could also use foil star stickers if you happen to have any on hand.

Fireworks Art: Provide black construction paper, red, white and blue tempera paint, glitter and sponges. I like to use the round puffy dish washing type sponges but they can be hard to find so you could simply cut a rectangular sponge into a circle and them cut a few jagged edges to make it look more like a firework burst. Let the children dip the sponges into red, white and blue paint and then sprinkle glitter onto their firework.

Patriotic Shakers: Attach a few pieces of red, white and/or blue crepe paper to a paper plate (these will be streamers). Fold the paper plate in half and staple all but a small opening. Fill with dry beans and then finish stapling. I like to put clear tape across the staples so they don't poke little fingers. Let your children decorate the shakers with red and blue crayons or paint. You could also provide star cut-outs or stickers if you wish.

Flag Cake: Simply bake your favorite cake (I just use a cake mix for this cake) in a rectangle pan. After the cake has cooled, cover it with whipped topping instead of frosting. Use fresh strawberries for the stripes and fresh blueberries in the corner for the star area.

Shaving Cream Fun: Provide 3 large cookie sheets. Spray shaving cream on each cookie sheet. Leave one white but add red food coloring to one and blue to the other. Let your child play in the shaving cream. This is very messy but good clean fun. I like to put the kids in their bathing suits and do this outside so that I can just spray everything (and everyone) down with the hose when finished. If you have children who like to put everything in their mouths, you could use the spray whipped topping instead.

Red, White and Blue Bubbles: Fill 3 separate containers with bubble mixture. Leave one plain but add red food coloring to one pan and blue to another. Check out my website to make your own bubbles.

USA Map Floor Puzzle: Cover a USA map in clear contact paper. Cut the map into several pieces according to your child's ability to make a big floor puzzle.

Summer Fun Activities with Water

We have shifted over into summer mode at our house. The weather is warm and the days continue to get longer. I thought it would be fun to share a few summertime activities involving water.

Bubble Fun
Bubbles are great. You can purchase bubbles or make your own. I often just fill a big plastic tub with dish soap and water and give the kids a variety of "blowing objects". The little plastic rings form milk jugs make great bubble toys. I have a good recipe for bubbles on my Lesson Plans Plus website if you want nice big bubbles. The recipe is about halfway down the page.

Wash the Car and/or Wash Riding Toys.
My kids love doing this. I fill up a bucket with soapy water and sponges and they get everything sparkly clean.

Paint with Water
I give my kids a small bucket (sand bucket size) of water and paint brushes and let them paint the house with water. You can let them paint anything you wish, even the sidewalk. It's great clean fun for your little aspiring artists.

Make Rainbows with the Hose
Spray the water into the sunlight to see a rainbow of colors. It may seem obvious to you but kids are often easily amazed.

Set up a Water Table
I have the Water Wheel Table from Step 2 and my kids love playing with it. If you don't have a water table and don't want to purchase one, you can simply fill a plastic container with water and a few floating toys. Water wheels are a fun accessory and not very expensive.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE: Have some fun with water and be sure to teach your children about water safety. In addition to talking to your children about water safety, I would encourage you to sign them up for swim lessons. You could check with your city's parks and recreation department, local health clubs or even community pools to see if they offer swimming lessons. You could choose from a group class or individual swim lessons with a lifeguard. I signed my kids up for swim lessons last week. Our classes begin later this month and my kids are very excited.

Homemade Play dough

If your Memorial Day weekend was as busy and active as mine was then everyone might be in need of a quiet day at home. One of our favorite things to do on a lazy day at home is play with play dough. I have a couple of recipes for play dough that I've made many times. Enjoy!

Favorite Cooked Play dough
2 cups water
1/2 cup salt
Combine the salt and water then boil until dissolved. Add a few drops of food coloring.
While the mixture is still very hot add the following:
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons alum or cream of tarter
2 cups flour

Peanut Butter Play dough
2 1/2 cups of peanut butter
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups powdered milk
Mix the peanut butter and honey well and then add powdered milk until the dough is soft but not sticky. This play dough is edible.

For a few more fun recipes, visit the recipe page of my website http://www.lessonplansplus.com/recipes.html

Kids in the Garden

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I haven't posted in a several days because my kids and I have been very busy outside the past few days. We started on Friday doing yard clean-up and getting our garden area prepped. Saturday morning we went to a greenhouse way out in the country and loaded up with some of our favorite flower, fruit and vegetable plants. We don't have a very big yard but gardening has always been a big deal to me. Spending time in the garden getting my hands dirty is a wonderful stress relief. I think gardening is very therapeutic. Of course, my favorite part is reaping the fruits (and vegetables) of my labor. I love being able to grab something fresh from the garden. Even my small garden is an inspiration to eat fresh and healthy. I've tried to expose my kids to the joys of gardening ever since they were old enough to walk. I also enjoyed exposing my students to small bits of gardening when I was teaching outside the home. There's just something special about planting a seed or small plant, tending to it and watching it grow. It's a great lesson in patience and learning to care for something. I think including children in planting and gardening activities at an early age helps foster an appreciation and love for nature. I'm trying to build positive memories with my children that will carry over into their adult lives. I hope that they will always appreciate and respect nature and have a desire for fresh and healthy foods.

Weekly Challenge: Even if you don't have a large space to work with, I would encourage everyone to enjoy getting your hands a little dirty by planting something somewhere. Even if it's just a small herb garden in a patio box or some flower, herb or vegetable seeds in a Terra Cotta pot.

I'll try to post some pictures later with some of the things we planted around our house.

Some tips to make gardening/planting successful with small children:

~If you visit a greenhouse, do it close to planting day. I try to get things planted the same day or the next.

~Get all of your suppplies organized and ready ahead of time as the kids will be anxious to get started.

~Expect to get dirty (you and the kids).

~Child size gardening gloves are great for the little ones who don't love getting dirty hands. I found child size gardening gloves in the dollar bins at Target.

~If planting with a large group, it works best to work with 2 or 3 children at a time rather than have an entire class trying to do a potting activity at once. I've found that writing each child's name on a pot in permanent marker works great and eliminates confusion over ownership if you plan to send the plants home.

~Expect that young children may lose interest and/or become impatient with a gardening activity. If you are going to be involved in the project for an extended time period, plan a few low maintenance activities for the children to do alongside or near you as they tire of gardening.

Sensory Challenge

I just realized that I forgot to post a weekly challenge: My challenge to you is to enjoy a sensory activity with your children this week. Whether you fill up a bin with water or rice, roll out some cookie dough and bake, press your fingers in paint or feel the smooth and rough textures of rocks on a nature walk....have fun and let the stress of the day melt away as you think about your own childhood memories. Enjoy something simply delightful through the eyes of a child.

I would love to hear what you did! Feel free to leave a comment or email me to let me know about your simply delightful moment.

Butterfly Fun

Today my kids and I went to a playgroup at our local library. The theme was bugs and butterflies. There was a sensory bin filled with water and pretend bugs and among the bugs was one butterfly. Both of my children were especially attracted to that one butterfly so I thought it would be fun if I could find some bugs and butterflies for our own sensory table at home. After playgroup, we needed to stop by the store so I decided to take a quick look in the toy section for some pretend butterflies. I found a tube filled with an assortment of 16 bugs and butterflies for $3.99 at Target. Perfect! I also bought a couple bags of rice for our sensory table. Back at home, I poured the rice and bugs inside our sensory bin and the kids had a wonderful time playing. They even arranged some of their painted rocks (we get a lot of mileage out of those rocks!) inside the bin and made a colorful rock garden for their pretend bugs.

We also had butterfly craft time at home this evening. One of the crafts was from playgroup but my kids chose not to do it there. I actually had all of the supplies at home because I was planning a similar project later in the week. We made two variations of coffee filter butterflies. I let the kids color coffee filters with markers. When they finished coloring, I bunched the coffee filter together down the middle and secured it with a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner became the body of the butterfly as well as the antennae. The second butterfly craft was similar only I used a clothes pin as the body of the butterfly. After fastening the clothes pin in place, the kids glued on tiny wiggly eyes, drew a face and colored the body.

After completing our butterfly craft, My kids enjoyed helping me read aloud one of our favorite Eric Carle books "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".

Do your kids enjoy butterflies too? When I was teaching preschool outside the home, every year I ordered a live butterfly garden from a company called Insect Lore. It was a wonderful learning experience for the children to have such a hands-on approach and to watch butterflies unfold before their eyes. Our local botanical gardens has a wonderful butterfly exhibit every year and my own children and I spent many days there this Spring watching the butterflies bloom.

Rock On (Part 2)

I had a feeling that this activity was going to be a hit with my kids but I did not anticipate that it would delight them for over two hours.

We are really enjoying rocks at our house these days. I gave each of my kids a small bucket and we set out for another rock hunt. I told them to collect as many rocks as they wished as long as they fit inside the bucket. Being the particular children that they are, they took their time hunting and choosing rocks that appealed to them. We spent nearly 30 minutes outside wandering around looking for the most special rocks. We had a good conversation about colors, textures, shapes, sizes and even talked how some rocks may have been formed. It was a lot of fun.

Once inside, I filled a large plastic bin with soapy water and placed it on a large towel on the kitchen table. I suddenly thought to take the opportunity to toss in a bit more of a science lesson and I grabbed some food coloring from the pantry. I asked the kids what would happen if we put blue and red food coloring into the water. They already knew the answer but it was still fun to swirl their little hands around in the water mixing the colors together.

After they played in the bubbles for a bit, I told them that they could drop their rocks into the water and scrub them clean. I handed out sponges and they engrossed themselves into rock scrubbing and playing for nearly an hour. I had no idea they would have that much fun with rocks, soapy water and a sponge. I finally talked them into laying the rocks out on a towel to dry so I could clear the table for lunch. They agreed because they knew that after lunch, the next activity would be painting the rocks.

I sent them into another room to play a memory match game while I cleaned off the table and prepared lunch. As promised, after lunch, I lined the table with newspaper, set out various colors of washable tempera paint (some with added glitter) and paintbrushes and I let them paint until their hearts content. They had each collected at least 20 rocks and painted most of them with care which took over 30 minutes. They were kind enough to let me to paint a couple of rocks.

The painted rocks are now very special treasures. I suggested placing them back out into the yard but that idea did not go over at all. Instead, they have been storing them in their buckets and using them in a variety of creative ways. It's so much fun to watch the imaginations of my children soar with such simple things. I can't promise that your kids will spend over two hours on this project like mine did but I think I would be safe to promise some fun. One project became a science activity, nature activity, sensory experience, art activity, language and learning opportunity and a wonderful outlet for creative expression. Not bad for a pile of rocks.

Mother's Day Ideas

I've always enjoyed making hand print art with my students. These days, I do a lot of hand print art with my own children at home. I love saving their precious little hand prints to look back on later. Hand print art is very common but there is a good reason for it, mom's love getting hand print gifts. Hand print and fingerprint art makes for a fun art project, sensory experience and science project too.

For Mother's Day I like to do hand print flowers. Paint the child's hand with one color or use as many colors of washable tempera paint as you wish. Instruct child to keep fingers together. Press the child's hand onto a sheet of card stock paper. The child can then dip her finger into green paint and make a fingerprint stem for the hand print flower.

I like to make copies of a fingerprint poem to glue onto the hand print flower picture. One of my favorite poems to compliment Mother's Day hand print artwork is below. The author is unknown.

Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small,
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls.
But everyday I am growing,
I'll be grown up someday,
And all these tiny hand prints
Will simply fade away.
So here's a final hand print
Just so you can recall,
Exactly how my fingers looked
When I was very small.

Love, (Child's name and date)