Fun in the Sun: Eva
Hi One Artsy Mama readers! I’m Eva and I blog over at Tales of the Scotts. I am the wife to a really kind and very patient husband and mom to a wiggly three-year-old son and an equally wiggly almost one-year-old daughter. Life around my household is exciting to say the least! Amy is just the sweetest. I’m not sure how I started following her blog but one time she responded to a comment I left on one of her posts. I was kinda-sorta new to blogging at the time and I didn’t know how to respond to a comment through my email. So, I emailed her and asked her how she did that. We emailed back and forth while she walked me through setting up my profile the right way. So sweet! I’m excited to be here with you today to share some fun Kids’ Activities.
Unlike Amy’s son, my son doesn’t care for crafting (he’s breaking his crafting mama’s heart – hopefully he’ll grow to at least tolerate them with me). So, I’m always on the lookout for hands-on activities to help direct his rambunctiousness. Here are a few activities that he’s particularly loved this summer.
After they cooled, we grabbed some goggles, his toy hammer and my meat pounder and went outside. He really enjoyed “bashing” them and flattening them. This was great way to reiterate soft and hard textures. I love this face in this picture.
This was a huge hit. I got the idea here. Basically, I put some little dinosaurs and sea animals I picked up at the Dollar Tree a while ago in the bottom of a Tupperware. I filled it up half way with water, then added some blue dye and froze it overnight.
We grabbed a meat mallet and headed outside. I just gave it a little squeeze to get it out of the Tupperware. We dropped it on the ground and he went to town rescuing his dinosaur friends.
I made him wear his sunglasses so no glass flew up into his eyes. He kept saying, “This is cool!” Mom brownie points!
Something else that has been a huge hit is water beads! I admit, I’m obsessed with these. For some reason, just running my fingers through them makes a difficult moment that much better.
I’ve seen them all over blog land. Basically you buy a little pack of beads. I got mine at Joann’s for $5 and used a 40 or 50% off coupon making them cheap fun. Let them sit in water for 4-6 hours and watch them grow. This was fun to do throughout the day. We’d go back and forth seeing how much they’d grown. Then we used measuring cups to move them from one bowl to the next, we played with them a big bowl of shaving cream. He really loves playing with these. I just keep them in a sealed container but even if you left them out, they’d dry up but you would just need to stick them back in water.
One of the best things we made recently was Gak!
This has been super fun. I’m not sure if I’ve ever played with Gak before. It’s beyond fun. We took some household items, like a straw and a fork and had fun poking the Gak. What’s cool is it just molds back together. Hosea likes to put it on the edge of the table and let it make a “waterfall” down to the chair. He loves to make it the “monster” as it covers his Avengers and then his Avengers have to escape. Oh the mind of a child. We used this recipe by Lil’ Luna. We loved it so much, we decided to bring a Gak gift to one of his friends. We also used Lil’ Luna’s idea and free printables to put together a gift for him. His mom said he loved it too! This is a big hit, really easy and a definite must if you’ve never made Gak before.
Then we made some Baked Cotton Balls.
I pinned this idea a while ago, then saw it somewhere else recently so decided to give it a whirl. Basically, you take a cup of water, a cup of flour and mix it together. Then we divided it into three bowls, added some food coloring, mixed it really well and then dipped cotton balls in the mixture and placed them on foil-lined baking tray (do this to avoid clean up). Then we baked them for 45 minutes at 300 degrees.
After they cooled, we grabbed some goggles, his toy hammer and my meat pounder and went outside. He really enjoyed “bashing” them and flattening them. This was great way to reiterate soft and hard textures. I love this face in this picture.
Something else we do often are have Dance Parties.
Don’t ask why he was holding his toy needle-nose pliers. Who knows! Dance parties are especially great if you have an active, rambunctious kid on your hands like I do! When I can see that it’s time to exert some energy and maybe it’s too hot to go outside, we just crank up the music and dance our hearts away. A lot of times I’m holding my 11 month old so she can participate as well but my son loves when I can dance crazy with him without holding her. It ends up being a contest on who can do the craziest move. He usually wins.
And lastly, we used our imaginations while playing with some Story Jars.
This is a really great idea that I got from Play At Home Mom. She’s got tons of great ideas. Another friend of mine held a playgroup and the kids each made one. We weren’t able to attend but I still wanted to try this. My son loves for us to tell him stories and he loves to tell stories too. I don’t have a really great imagination so these are great for me. Basically just take out all of the objects and start telling a story using up all of the objects. The first time we tried it, he was a bit iffy on it. He didn’t use all the objects and then wanted to quit. He liked when I told him a story though (as usual). I really think these are great and we’re going to keep trying.
Here is what’s in my two jars. You can see that they are random items I grabbed from his room and from the craft closet.
Because I feel like I’m not imaginative, it’s really important to me to foster that in my children. One of my favorite things is to overhear my son talking to himself or to his toys while he’s playing with them. I love that he creates stories and scenarios in his mind.
I’m loving all of these ideas! Too cute :o)
Thanks again Amy for having me!!