Rainy Day Energy Burner

When it is raining outside (as it has been for a while now) and I am trapped inside with my two tiny Barbadians I have to release the energy some how! Enter- Pillow Jumping!

I grab all the couch cushions and pillows I can find and lay them down flat on the ground. Then I cover them with comforters and blankets to make a large, comfy pit. I put pillows up against any sharp edges that might be near by, then I push the Ottoman up against the pile and let the kids jump! And Jump and Jump!

Usually I turn on some upbeat music and let the kiddos burn all the energy that they can! I have to referee a lot because they think that it would be even more fun to jump on each other! But to avoid any dangerous catastrophes I enforce a strict 'don't jump until the other person is off'' rule. It actually increases the fun because you have to be quick to jump, get up and run around to jump again!

Happy Jumping!

(This is a blurred Si jumping onto our pillow pile)

Bean Play

About a year ago, my friend got me started on bean play. It is usually good for about 20 minutes of playing time once every couple of weeks!

I start 'bean play' by putting a large sheet underneath their play table (to catch all the stray beans) and then pour out a container of dried beans; kidney, black and garbanzo (nice to have a variety of colors). Then I add an eclectic mix of containers and scoops along with some cars, airplanes, lego, etc. Target dollar bins and the dollar store are great for scoops. I use random tic-tac containers, m&m tubes and any interesting, small container.

Sometimes we try to make shapes out of the beans, but mostly we fill up one container, pour it into another container and repeat.

On occasion, we have built contraptions with lego to carry the beans. It was fun, but made for a lot of extra clean up!

Happy beaning!

Supplies
-beans
-containers
-scoops
-table
-various little toys to drive through the beans

Dress Up Play

I rarely purchase dress up clothes and, as a result, our dress up box is an eclectic mix of items found around the house.

We have a little bit of everything including: baseball caps, cowboy hats, Star Wars masks, winter hats, winter gloves, Handy Manny gloves, toy cameras, old cell phones (battery removed), random dress up/Halloween costumes, play jewelry, belts, purses, etc.

My kids love to dress up, pack up the purses and pretend that they are getting on an airplane to visit one of my sisters in either Canada or New Zealand. They move around the house from bed to bed (the beds are the airplanes), unpack their belongings, and then load back up to switch planes and continue on their journey.

Recently, a friend gave me the idea of putting a full length mirror out to use during dress up play. The kids love dressing up and dancing around making funny faces in the mirror!

I truly believe that you don't need to spend a ton of money on dress up clothes. All you really need is a little imagination, and a couple extra hats and purses! :)

Spelling with Easter Eggs

My kids LOVE to hunt for Easter eggs! And, while they love the candy inside, they REALLY love the 'hunt'!

So, with Easter over I decided to repurpose those plastic eggs for a spelling game.

First, I picked short, easy words like; fish, bed, dog, ring, etc. and spelled them using letter magnets. *scrabble pieces, or pieces of paper with the letters written on them would also work.

Next, I put together a sheet with photos of each word and colored spaces for each letter depending on the egg color.  *CLICK HERE to download my spelling sheet.

Then I put each word in a different color of Easter egg. i.e. For 'fish' I used pink eggs and put an 'f' in one, an 'i' in another, an 's' in another and an 'h' in another. Then, for 'hat', I used green eggs and put each letter in a green egg. etc.

After that, I hid the eggs all over the house.

When AJ and Si woke up from their naps, they used their Halloween pumpkins to collect the Easter eggs (my kids are going to be so confused)!

Then we sat down on the floor and I asked Si to hand me all the 'pink' eggs. After she handed me all the pink eggs I passed them to AJ who opened them up and used them to spell the 'pink' word. While he was working on the word I asked Si to hand me the yellow eggs, etc.

They loved it! You could put anything in the eggs; words, parts of a bible verse, math equations, presidents to be organized... etc

Once all the eggs were open, and all the words spelled, I let the kids hide the eggs for me to find. There were some pretty good hiding spots too! I'll have to remember them for next Easter!

Cleaning Pennies

While searching the Internet, I visited the 'Kids of Integrity' website and found this activity in their lesson on Obedience.

We have a great, big jar filled with dirty pennies, so I knew that this activity was for us!

Take:

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup vinegar

1 cup water

Mix together in a bowl and add dirty pennies! Watch the results!

We also used cotton swabs to stir the pennies in the bowl.

On the 'Kids of Interity' site they recommend leaving the salt out and seeing that the pennies aren't clean, and then adding the salt and showing that we can try to be obedient on our own but it's too hard, we cannot do it on our own strength. It can be done by asking God for help.

I tried explaining this to Aj and Si, but I think that it went a bit over their heads. Either way, they both LOVED washing pennies! This is definitely a keeper in our household!

And, now all of our pennies are shiny and clean!

Still Life

About once a week I pull out an old beach towel, throw down some paper and let the kids paint. Usually it lasts for about 10 minutes, they fill up five sheets of paper, get bored and start painting themselves!

Yesterday, I decided to do things differently.

AJ received an art easel for his first birthday that has been sitting in the back of the closet for three years. I pulled it out and clipped a piece of paper to each side.

Then, I took some old egg cartons, cut them each in half and filled each 'cup' with a different paint color.

Then, put an apple on the counter and asked the kids to paint an apple!

They LOVED it!

I put out Easter eggs, apples, flowers, boxes, everything I could think of that was an easy shape! It was so great! They had SOMETHING to strive for in their painting! It was a blast and worth about 45 minutes of fun!

Yah for still life!

AJ's Apple

Si's Apple

AJ's General Store

This afternoon the kids and I played 'store'.  It is a fun game to play for the fun of it, or to teach your little one about money. You can make the counting more or less elaborate depending on the age of your children.

I have learned how to stretch this game out to encompass the most time and fun possible.

Step 1- Arranging the store.
AJ, Si and I clean up his room and get all the tables and toy bins out and ready. Then, AJ and Si set up all the products (I always include food and buckets, spoons, etc). *You could also create a sign for the store to stretch out the fun even further.

Step 2 - Preparing the Customers
AJ, Si and I rummage through the dress up clothes and pick out hats, shoes, purses, glasses, etc Then we pick dolls to ride in the cart and stroller and ensure that they are dressed up too.

Step 3 - Shopping
We take turns manning the cash register and buying supplies. I ensure that we make many trips through the store and play with all the items on display.

Step 4 - Party
AJ and Si take all the newly bought food, bowls and goods and prepare a party in the next room where we get to enjoy all of our newly purchased goods.

Happy Shopping!

Supplies:
Toys
Dress up Cloths
Pretend money (monopoly, real coins (with older kids), poker chips
Imagination
Cash register (optional)
Shopping cart, stroller, or just big bags to fill with goods

Shaving Cream Toy Wash

I found this idea online and thought it sounded like so much fun!

Truthfully, AJ enjoyed the wash station more than his sister. She was not interested in washing toys. She got bored and decided to wash her shoes, some leaves, rocks, and finally stood in the pan herself!

AJ did take time to clean his cars and toys and then made a LARGE rinse station and played in the water. I would consider it was a moderate success... worth about 30 of playing time!

I got all the supplies from around the house and the Dollar Store, so it was cheap to create and not overly messy (when done outside). I think we might just do this one again!

Supplies:
Aluminium Foil Pans
Water
Shaving Cream
Brushes
Cloths
Toys to wash

Learning Shapes

Si learns a little differently than AJ. She is like her mama... kind of stubborn and likes to do things her own way! :) Consequently, she still has not learned her shapes! Aj learned his in two days, and Si has still not learned them and it's been MONTHS! To her, everything is a circle or triangle! I called a friend for some advise and she offered up a great game.

I cut out a bunch of shapes on card stock and outlined them with a felt marker -just to make them look pretty. I kept them all white, so that we would not get confused with color vs shape.

Then I took envelopes, cut the tops off and drew each shape on it's own envelope. I cut out four of each shape and used the following shapes:
-Star            -Heart
-Circle          -Square
-Rectangle    -Triangle
-Oval            -Diamond

Then I mixed all the shapes up and AJ and Si took turns putting them into the correct envelope. BONUS: This also worked on fine motor skills!

It was great! She still doesn't get all of her shapes, but this is certainly more fun than flash cards! Plus, it taught AJ self control because he loves to blurt out the shapes without giving her a chance to guess!


Happy Shape Sorting!

Supplies:
-A couple sheets of card stock
-Scissors
-Marker
-Envelopes

Flour Power

Match box cars have been a staple in my home since Aj was just over a year old. And, on days when we were indoors with nothing to do, I would pull out the flour and let him drive his cars through it.

I would put a LARGE beach towel on the kitchen floor, put different sized  plastic lids, bowls, cooking sheets and measuring spoons out and put a cup or so of flour into each vessel. Then, he would load flour onto the dump trucks with the spoons and take it from one bowl to the other! It was great fun for about 30 minutes.

Then I would clean all the flour back into one big tuperware continer (to save for next time) and let him stand at the sink with the water running slowly and wash all of his cars, spoons and bowls. The washing was great for another 30 minutes of fun!

I speak of all of this in the past tense, because once my little barbarian, Si, came along the flour was inevidably EVERYWHERE and while it was probably more fun for them, it was a LOT more clean up for mommy!