Showing posts with label things to do. Show all posts
Showing posts with label things to do. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Christmas Traditions Box: Indoor Snowball Fight

8:58 PM 0 Comments


When we lived in California we dreamed of a typical white Christmas. But the only white Christmas we got was sand. I didn't complain and we still got some type of "snow" when we made our own snowballs for an indoor snowball fight. They were a "hit" if you know what I mean.

I posted the instructions on how to make these snowballs years ago. I am posting them again for you now.



You will need the following three things to make these:

1) Scissors

2) White or cream-colored nylons- I buy the cheap $1 pair at Walmart. (In the photo are knee-highs that I already had on hand. A full pair works better and you'll get a lot more out of them.) One knee-high can produce up to 5 snowballs. One leg of a full pair of nylons can produce about 10.)




3) Poly-fil to stuff the nylon.



What you're going to do:

1) Grab a handful of the Poly-fil and stuff your stocking (just enough for one snowball). Then make a knot.


2) Make ANOTHER knot after the one you JUST made, leaving a little space between the two knots.


3) Cut between the two knots.


4) Repeat steps 1-3. Below is something you can do but you MUST remember to do step 2 or else you will waste a whole snowball.


Here's what you'll have:


We made hundreds of these last year for a Christmas party we had.


HOW TO PLAY:

If you are going to have a snowball fight, divide the group of people into two teams and divide the snowballs equally between the two teams.

Create boundaries. You can either put some masking tape down on the carpet to divide the room in half, or play on an indoor basketball court, or anywhere that has a boundary line. The teams must stay on their side of the line and cannot cross it.

Set a timer. Let them fight for 5 minutes or however long you'd like the fight to go on. You can have "rounds" of fights if you'd like.

At your signal, the teams will begin to throw snowballs at the other team. When time is up, each team will count the remaining snowballs on their own territory. The team with the LEAST amount of snowballs on their side is deemed the WINNER! (I like this part because they have to clean up the snowballs to see who the winner is.)

This is a great game for preschool, play dates, Christmas parties, birthday parties, office parties, or at home with your own family.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Rocket Balloons

1:13 PM 0 Comments
Rocket Balloons are a great boredom buster. I have a stash of these in my rainy day (or "too cold to go outside") activity box.

I like these balloons for several reasons:

1. They are reusable (though I don't encourage sharing them. That's just gross.) Fill them up and let them go!
2. They fly high.
3. They make noise!
4. Kids love to chase them and try to catch them on their way down. I love to see the kids go wild for these.
5. Fun indoors and outdoors.

You can order them on Amazon.com or on the official Rocket Balloon website. I actually found them at a novelty candy store. Keep your eyes peeled! They cost about $5 for 30 balloons. I think it's a great deal for reusable balloons.


Monday, September 5, 2011

Easy Hand Sewing for Children

6:22 AM 2 Comments
Sewing is a skill. And, it's a great skill to have. However, it's just not as popular as it used to be. Here's an easy way to introduce your child to hand sewing. You don't need to be an expert to do this. If you are a teacher, you can do this in your classroom! It's that easy and the kids love it.

Materials:
  • burlap (easily obtained from a fabric store or the sewing section of Walmart)
  • yarn
  • yarn needle
  • masking tape


Directions:
  1. Cut a piece of burlap to desired size.
  2. Tape the sides on the back to keep the burlap from unraveling or fraying.
  3. Start sewing using your yarn and yarn needles.
This is what MJ, my 3-year old, came up with. I love it! I want to frame it. (They look super cute when they are framed.)


Monday, August 29, 2011

DIY: Tea Party Hats

11:53 AM 0 Comments


Under this hat is my cute niece. She is having a tea party with her cousins. They made their own hats, with some help from their moms.

Want to make your own hat?
  1. Cut about 3 feet of butcher paper (we used paper that was about 24" wide).
  2. Mold the paper over the child's head.
  3. Wrap some tape around the child's head to keep the shape. This way the hat will fit and stay on.
    4. Roll up the edges of the paper to form the brim of the hat.
    5. Take the hat off and DECORATE! Use feathers, bows, ribbons, sequins, pearls, tissue paper, etc.) We made some tissue paper flowers to go with the whole "paper" idea. Click HERE for a tutorial on how to make easy tissue paper flowers.


MJ had a blast with her cousins. They all looked darling in their little hats. I think we might try a tea party-themed birthday in the spring.

Dominoes

11:26 AM 0 Comments

When was the last time you or your child has played with dominoes? We inherited a huge bag of wooden dominoes from my mom- the same dominoes I used to play with when I was a kid. My brothers and sisters and I would set them all up and then knock them over, use them as little blocks and stack them up, and count all the dots on the pieces. I don't remember using them to actually play a real game of "Dominoes."

MJ likes playing with them the same way I did- knocking them over. It's fun to see her grasp the concept of cause and effect.



She also likes building with them, and even playing a REAL game of "Dominoes." She learned that she had to count the dots and then match the same numbers up.



Dominoes make a great teaching tool. Who knew?

Friday, July 29, 2011

Dating at Home: Chocolate Tasting!

8:00 AM 0 Comments
This week's dating at home idea...

Chocolate Tasting!

This is going to be a delicious date! What's better than being with your spouse and chocolate?

Today I'm going to Trader Joe's and a few other places to pick up some assorted chocolates. I'd really like to try some new chocolates rather than Hershey's and Dove (which I LOVE Dove!)

I made a Chocolate Tasting Ratings Chart. It's extremely simple and you can download it HERE if you wish to use it. Fill it in with your findings. You can either write a description in the boxes or fill it in with your ratings, on a scale of 1-10. I haven't decided how I want to rate my chocolate yet. ;)

I didn't know that chocolate tasting was so complex! Check out this chocolate tasting wheel from Chocopolis. (I chose this wheel because I thought it was the prettiest. No joke.)


For more information about chocolate tasting, check out these two sites that I liked.

Chocolate Tasting 101


Enjoy your date!

I know I will.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Make Your Own Butter

5:38 AM 2 Comments

What do you do with that leftover heavy cream in your refrigerator? Make butter!

It's easy, quick, and fun!

You will need:
Heavy cream
A smallish jar (baby food jar, jam jar, etc.)
Salt

1. For best results, make sure your cream and jar are cold. I put my jar in the freezer for 5 minutes.


2. Fill your jar about half-way full.


3. Start shaking! Shake your jar vigorously. Take turns with your child. (The smaller the jar, the quicker it takes to make your butter.) The picture below is what it looks like after 2 minutes.

4. Keep shaking. At 3 minutes it feels like nothing is moving inside but it's working. Below is what it looks like at 3 1/2 minutes.


5. Keep shaking. Here is what it looks like at 4 minutes. You can see the separation of butter and liquid.


6. Shake a little bit longer. Here's what we had at 4 1/2 minutes!


7. Drain the liquid and stir in a little salt. YOU'RE DONE! Try it! You'll be surprised! It's delicious! And you made it!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Tonight is Family Night

4:45 AM 0 Comments

picture taken from villageknight.com

Tonight for Family Night we are hitting up Barnes and Noble bookstore. We love books! We love to visit the library or any kind of bookstore. For date nights, my husband and I love going to the bookstore before a movie, when we have a little time to kill. We flip through the travel magazines to see the clear aqua ocean water of the Caribbean and remember our past life without children. Tonight MJ and Peanut will be joining us. We won't be flipping through our magazines but we will be reading plenty of children's books. It will be fun.

I'm extremely grateful that MJ loves books. I hope that Peanut grows to love books just as much as MJ does.

One of MJ's favorite books is The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss. If you don't have this book, I highly recommend obtaining a copy for your family. This is a book full of social issues and lessons. It is a great spring board for teaching. Her two favorite stories in this book are The Sneetches and The Zax. They happen to be my favorite too. For MJ at this stage of her life, at three years old, The Sneetches teaches about being nice to everyone- no matter who they are or aren't. The Zax teaches about the downfall of being stubborn but I don't think she quite understands that yet. This will be an important lesson for her as she grows older.




I have purchased the same stories on DVD for MJ. We love watching them. They have great songs. Oh yeah, and it has Green Eggs and Ham. Who doesn't love that one?



Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Alphabet Stomp Mat

4:37 AM 0 Comments
I was at an educational store a couple weeks ago and saw this cute alphabet game. I thought, "that would be fun for MJ!"
How much did they want me to pay for it? $36.95!! For that piece of plastic? No thank you! So, I made my own version, a sturdy one that won't rip, for about 11 bucks.

Supplies:

One painter's drop cloth ($7.50)
Set of fabric paints ($5.00 with 40% off coupon from JoAnn making it $3.00)
Stencil set (On clearance from $8.99 to 59 cents! at JoAnn Fabrics.)
Paint brush (had a cheap sponge brush at home. You could use a regular clean sponge too.)

1. Cut drop cloth down to the size you want it. (I cut my drop cloth into thirds. I used only one third for this mat. Now I have extra cloth for other ideas that I have. :) TIP: Once you cut your cloth, the cut edges WILL fray and sometimes they fray terribly. To avoid the problem, either hem the cut edge or tape the edge with simple masking tape. If you look closely at mine, you will see my tape. I have plans to sew mine but I just got too excited to paint it.

2. Position all the stencils on the drop cloth and put a small piece of tape on the stencils to hold them in place.

3. Sponge the paint on.


4. Let the paint dry a little before lifting the stencils off. Allow the paint to dry for 24 hours just to ensure that it's completely dry before playing.


I haven't ironed my mat yet but I love it!!!! It's nice and sturdy and MJ can stomp on it and play on it!


We've already played some fun games:
  • MJ stomps from letter to letter to spell her name or other simple words.
  • I will shout out a letter and see if she can stomp on the correct letter for letter recognition.
  • Cover up the letters with old game board pieces.
  • Use a bean bag to toss onto the letters
  • Fun practice for spelling lists for older kids.
  • Grab a set of alphabet flashcards and match the letters on the mat.


The great part about making things on your own is that you can make it how you want it. You can change the stencil style, or put cute pictures on it, etc. I would love to decorate the edges a bit.

Friday, July 8, 2011

DIY: Instant paper books

5:52 AM 2 Comments
My three-year old is very artistic. She loves to color, paint, cut, draw, etc. She is also very imaginative. We created our own little paper books to illustrate. Here's an easy way to turn a piece of paper into a little book.

I used a large piece of construction paper here. You can use a regular piece of printer paper, or get fancy with some scrapbook paper.


1. Fold the paper into eighths.


2. Fold your paper back in half "hamburger" style. On the folded seam, cut between the two "squares." Cut only one square deep. I used a marker so you can see where to cut.




3. Open your paper up again. You should have a cut in the middle of your paper.


4. Fold your paper in half again, "hot dog" style.


From the top view, it should look like this- folded seams on top.


5. Grab the ends of the paper and push them toward the middle so it looks like this:


6. Fold the pages together so they look like a little book. Tada!



Here's another version with a lot of little pages.

Here's my construction paper again.



1. Fold the paper into 4x4 "squares"


2. Cut 3 squares deep on the top and the bottom rows, cutting in the same direction. On the middle row, cut 3 squares deep going in the OPPOSITE direction. Check out the dashed lines I marked.


Cut


3. Beginning at the top corner, start folding back and forth.




4. When you get to the end of the row, fold DOWN one square and continue folding back and forth with the second row.




5. You should end up with a cute little book that looks like this.


We had a great time illustrating our books and "reading" them to each other.

When I was a high school Spanish teacher, we made these little paper books as study aids for my students. We wrote down all the Spanish verb tenses and their conjugations along with when to use the verbs, blah, blah, blah... Anyway, my point is, that they are good study aids for your older kiddos. :)

Endless possibilities.

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