I'm looking for more ideas on fun stuff to do with the girls. We've had over a week of blustery weather, and we're getting a little touch of cabin fever. I'm running low on arts and crafts ideas, and could use some inspiration there as well...

I love reading about what everyone else is doing... :)

We've been baking lots of bread!! At least a loaf a day, if not two... The girls love to help measure, mix and knead. And they are so good at helping clean up, too!

I also give the girls mixing bowls, flour and water, and let them make their own "batter", a good lesson in consistencies.

We made some of those bird feders out of oranges yesterday. You cut an orange in half and scoop out the insides. Poke two holes up by the rim and attach some yarn to make a hanging loop. Mix birdseed and peanut butter (natrul PB is best, not loaded with sugar) together and scoop into orange cups.

We got some butcher paper at the store, and the girls have had fun drawing on *big paper* on the kitchen floor. I traced each of the girls and they had fun drawing on the faces and clothes.

I've been setting up lots of obstacle courses and the girls love to go through them! We have a set of 4 tables (I think they're actually called TV trays?) and the girls crawl under those, over big stacks of pillows, behind the couch and so on.

We've also been playing a lot of "basketball", which is actually just beanbags and felted wool balls being tossed into a bushel basket.

Other than that, it seems like we've just been doing the usual homeschooling, drawing, reading, dancing and having fairy princess tea parties... *lol*

What fun things have you been doing with your children??

its been more worksheets(he loves them) and computer learning(reader rabbit). We did keep out some foamies and glitter glue and he still has his any farm and worm terrarium going. I can't wait to get to CO and get all his art stuff set up again!

Anyone got any good idea's for travel crafts and hotel crafts activities for a 3yo? We most likely will be driving for 3-4days and displaced in a military hotel for a few weeks till our stuff meets us there.

Normally though we have kind of a station system in the house...A craft at the table, a worksheet, his math computer game, his rice bucket with measuring cups, his WORMS, and usually some kind of dexterity project(clay, beads, something for him to sort/stack). He helps with the cooking now also. I so miss all this but 3 weeks notice to move has made this a mad house!
Many Blessings
Jennifer

WHere do you ahve all the energy???? Oh yeash I forgot you are a young thang *lol*

Well I love this mild winter days. Our dryer is broke so we are hanging all our laundry on the line. Thank goodness for sun and a breeze! My toddler comes out and pees in the trees and stuff, but it has helped his potty training so much!
Since there is no snow on the ground he jsut loves to play with the leaves.

Then on days we are able to, we walk around the lake. THere are Canadian geese that live there and a small forest to walk through and a few bridges and twice we walk over a river. It is a wonderful walk that is aobut 2 miles long.

I bvought oranges the other day and thinking of doign the bird feeder thing too when I find my bird seed. Dont know what happened to it.

We made some paper 'anew'! It was a lot easier and a lot not messier than I thought! (Is that even a word?) We made green glittery paper. Very cool!

Last night we...TIE DYED!!! Woo-hoo. After we were done last night, I thought that was a lot of work, they are gonna look stupid, and then tonight after they went to sleep, I went in to rinse them and wash them and they are so COOL!! I am gonna do it again, and invite friends to bring their own stuff to dye. It was awesome! (I think I was stressed because I had never done it before, and wasn't sure how it was gonna look.)

My oldest dd (4) helps me cross-stich. She pulls the needle through.

Those are the coolest things we have done lately, hope to read some more cool stuff to do.

~Amy

We made goop with cornstarch and water.
snowflakes out of coffee filters
little animals with pom poms and pipecleaners
bath fizzies (from a kit)
We may make borox snowflakes this weekend

Gabe got a TON of art's and crafts supplies for Christmas per my request, so we have been making all kinds of fun art projects!
He really really seems to like eyeballs. :p I keep encouraging him to glue some other things on the paper... we have feathers, little foam bugs, puff balls, etc... so he'll glue a feather on the paper and then glue 4 eyeballs onto it. LOL!

We just finished our play room, just in time to move, so we have been bowling and playing basketball and tea parties.

We have been playing with Gabe's Grow with Me RC for hours, kids love cause and effect! They just keep stacking things up and running them over with the RC car :p

Oh, I can't forget the coloring... ohhhh... the coloring... I got out of the shower today and found my kitchen floor redecorated! Beautiful blue and green swirls, it was lovely! I asked Gabe where he was supposed to color and he said, "on the paper.". I asked him where the paper was, he said "on the floor.". *smacking forehead* Thank God for the Magic Eraser, it all came right up.

We were able to make a snowman last week in all of our snow! It slowly fell over this week, I have some pretty funny pictures of its demise...

Gabe has been digging his wooden train set. Everyday we have to make a track, no matter how small... tha baby has fun playing Baby Zilla. Hee Hee

Washing dishes is always fun around here as well... It does double duty because I always have to wash my floor afterwards...

Lots of books, I should post the pic of all boys in bed at night reading, it's just adorable!

I love winter for its quiet days and calm nights...

Jessica

We've been creating a life-size replica of the Taj Mahal in our backyard, out of macoroni, glue, string, and dixie cups. Next up...the Eiffel Tower! :D

Mainly we color.
It's not crafty, but we plant a lot in the Winter. We have reverse seasons here in Central California. Winter anywhere is a good time to start indoor seedlings.

FORTS! When we were stuck inside for days we made lots and lots of forts. Pull out all the sheets from your linen closet and see if you can make the entire room into a fort. We accomplished that with our living room - it was SO much fun! And just about anything is more fun in a fort ( hee hee okay, so you might need to save some fun for after the kids go to bed ;) ), but- even the book they ask to read a million times over is more fun in a fort! We took naps in our fort and had a picnic in it.

:thumbsup:

My ds could keep himself busy all day with the cushions from our couches. They can be caves, water, pirate ships, anything!

He also *loves* to cut up my junk mail. I just give him a pair of kid scissors and let him go to town.:D

Making people out cardboard toilet paper rolls is fun too. Just cover the roll with construction paper (or leave it plain) and color faces and clothes on it. Cut out strips of paper for arms and legs and glue them on. We made Peter Pan and Captain Hook a few weeks ago and have had lots of sword-fighting fun with them.

When I am all out of ideas I let him play in the tub while I sit in the bathroom with him and read a magazine.

Thanks for the orange bird feeder idea. I'm gonna have to try that!

We were watching one of DS's friends for a few hours this afternoon so together the 3 of us made 5 batches of homemade playdough and then spent hours playing with it all. A great activity for a cold. rainy/snowy day. And personally, I find that I prefer the homemade stuff to the "real" playdoh.

DS has also been doing plenty of coloring, cutting, pasting, etc. and we as a family made a ton of paper snowflakes and hung them on our front window.

2 nights ago I covered the bathtub walls in foam paint and let the boys go at it. They love that. Then I just turn on the sprayer and wash it all down and give them a bath.

Yesterday DS pulled out his collage box I made at Chistmas. (Big box with tons of chinese food containers filled with all sorts of collage doo dads). He used glitter glue and the collage stuff to make cards for the grandmas.

Today we pulled out clay and I hid little treasures in it while they pulled it apart looking for them Great fine motor play! Also made it out to the park and library to enjoy this beautiful southern cali weather!

I just love playing and creating with these boys. i love hearing about everyone elses adventures as well! I feel very very lucky to be able to stay home with them right now.

:)Jenn

Well, nothing too 'natural'. lol My brother, who is a film student, is working on a stop -action clay animation film with my kids. My middle children created femo clay people and my brother is filming each bit of action. lol . They did these awesome cartoon boards and all. It takes about two days to film each scene in clay animation, but my oldest daughter is so into it lol I think they are at about frame 5. Maybe you will see them at Sundance someday. About 2010! lol As if! lol They are having a blast and I love to watch their delight. My brother has so much patience!! Bless him. :)


Laurie

we have been making flower fairies, painting the windows with window crayons, working with clay and we are going to try silk painting when i get a chance.
Great thread! Keeps me on my toes! LOL!

Hmmm, 125 Mamas have read this post, and only 12 have done anything fun with their children??

I don't believe that!!

I love collages, we're going to have to get out our collage box again too! Our library had used magazines for 10 cents a piece, so I always pick up the Mothering and photography mags for collages... I also get a catalog from www.pyramidcollection that has some neat collage material.

Laurie, that clay animation sounds so awesome!! What a great project!!

I love all of these great ideas!! Let's keep them coming!! :D

it actually motivates me to get off my butt and do something new! LOL

We have been coloring noodles this week, to make necklaces next week, and pictures, or whatever else the kids can think of with the noodles.

And dd has been stuck on making cupcake wrapper flowers. We have made 2 packages worth of them this month :rolleyes:

She just glues the cupcake paper thingy to a piece of paper, than decorates it a bit, adds a stem (Sometimes we use pipe cleaners) and voila!

Hee hee! I don't believe it either. I subscribed to this thread so I could see what others were doing.

But, I didn't post to it, because I don't know if you want to know what we have been doing! We have gorgeous weather and are spending most of our days outside in the yard, or out at a park or in the woods. For us the summertime is the "inside time," unless we are in the pool.

We also do lots of things that have already been posted. Particularly fun is washing dishes, playing w/cornstarch and water, making playdough, baking (keeps the house warm, too). We have an Easy Bake Oven and Katie loves to make little cakes in it if we're not up for a big baking session.

I don't think you can do this inside, but I get out some old paintbrushes and fill a pail with water. The kids can "paint" the house. They love this and will do it for quite a long time!

We are getting ready to prepare our garden, so we are reading about gardening in Florida. We have a tie-dye kit so that's on our list to do next week, once I get buckets (we'll do it outside).

I also love to use the wintertime to purge. We are doing massive decluttering, and Katie enjoys helping to decide which toys to keep and which to give away. She does like to give toys away and is happy to know they are going to kids who need them.

Hey, Jodi! We do the same thing, too, only we use coffee filters instead of muffin cups (though, we're going to have to try those and make mini flowers!) And the girls color the filters with markers and then spritz with water, which makes them look kind of tie-dyed...

Lauren, I am so envious, want a few houseguests?? I love going outside, but it really has been TOO cold for the last 2 weeks...

We've been doing a lot of home-ec sorts of things as well... Nico is getting so good at folding clothes, and Kaya can do a great job with the napkins, washcloths and dish towels. Nico washes the non breakable dishes, and Kaya can dry them... That sort of thing.

We also do the couch cushion pile-up at least once a day. We've got two couches and two chairs with cushions that pull off, so that makes for one big climbing structure/somersault mat!

ellie and i have been really into making artists trading cards. they're sort of an in thing in the art world right now, and we've actually been altering teddy's excess yugioh cards, and then trading with other artists around the world. she just loves it when she gets another little pack in the mail! we've even started an exchange just for kids. i'm attaching a photo of one of mine so you can get some idea.

yesterday, we went to a bakery one of my friends owns. ellie got a private tour, and then she got to watch them decorate the special cookies and make croissants. all of this was to prepare us for a bread baking session on saturday :) unfortunately, my meager bread baking skills don't involve the amazing stuff we got to see on our visit!

we are also working on some stuff for granny's surprise 70th birthday. we're collaging an old broomstick to make a sceptre, and we're going to hang little dog statues from the top (she's a dog breeder). not exactly your basic waldorf project, but it's a hoot and lots of fun!

we don't do alot of arts and crafts. There is one thing that the girls usually do everyday though - the stuff is kept with the school supplies. I got the large popcycle sticks from the craft store and the girls use markers and color faces and bodies on them and make lil' puppets out of them.

Anyway, we got the girls a couple of board games & puzzles for christmas, and we play them all the time. Hungry hungry hippos, Candyland, Memory, and Chutes & Ladders. We usually play one a night. Even Olivia has fun trying to wreck the board - she plays HHH right along with the other girls.

Meeshi, you are more than welcome to come on down here and visit for some sun! That goes for any Amity's mama. ((((( I'm serious. We just drove to and from NY (Long Island, so about 6 hrs from the Finger Lakes, or we would've come for a visit), but looked at airfares and they were only about $140 round trip.

We have a pull-out queen sofa and a double futon couch/bed in our living room, and twin bunkbeds in the kids' room that they do not yet sleep in. So we can comfortably sleep at least 2 adults and 4-6 kids!

Joyce, wow...a sceptre! Cool! And I would love to see the artist trading cards. They sound awesome. The photo didn't attach, though.

I am getting some wonderful ideas from this thread...keep 'em coming!

We do our usual ton of coloring (Lauren has loved to color since she was about 18mo and the charm doesnt seem to have worn off any!), but the big thing yesterday was that we finally put sand in her sandbox and she spent about an hour outside playing in it. It was sooo much fun. Then she colored on the patio with her sidewalk chalks for a while. I bought some cheap wooden shapes at Joanns and if I'm feeling adventurous I'll let her color those with markers from time to time (which she really loves). We do playdoh occassionally, but she's not all that thrilled with it. Today we'll probably go to the park or go play with some friends...I'd like to let her give fingerpainting a shot...who knows. I think she has the potential for being very crafty;) I need to get some clear contact paper and help her make some collages, but I just havent done that yet. Looks like there are some fun ideas to try on here!

J

Fun thread!

DD is bigtime into her lincoln logs right now, so we build a lot of houses. We build castles out of regular blocks. She loves tea parties and her new dollhouse too.

We do a lot of the following:

bathtub painting

paint with water books

lacing beads (her "sewing")

we do finger painting occasionally

I bought her a pair of roller skates from the thrift store for $1 (too big though lol) and she skates around on the carpet.

She helps "clean" alot which is just wiping up messes mostly.

Listening to a lot of fun music and playing dress up.

We recently made bird feeders out of our leftover corn cobs from fall. We just spread with p.b. and rolled in birdseed.

She plays with pipe cleaners some.

She LOVE to play the game Perfection - remember that one? It has 25 shape holes and she can do them all pretty quickly too and she dies laughing when they pop up.

We play with "counting bears" and sort them in muffin tins. She also likes to fill different sized cups with them and see how many they will hold.



*A fun idea with coffee filters: flatten one out, tape together 5 markers in the order of rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) and draw a rainbow on the filter and then sprtiz with water. So pretty and you can hang in windows.

Meeshi,

Have you seen those little tiny bread pans before? I got mine from my mother-in-law so I know they are old. When we bake bread, the children make their own loaves with those mini pans and they love it.

I'm just going to share craft activities below and am not adding our playtime. things.

Our recent activities during the day: (I only have one four year old at home)

*Preschool Story Hour at the Public library where there is always a hands on craft.

*Working in our familiy scrapbook together.

*Making his fave animals with modeling beeswax

*Making a weather thingie for the wall. Used posterboard and made the little boy look like my ds. Made clothes for him w/velcro on back and a window w/various weather scenes that velcro on. Each morning we dress our boy depending on the weather outside. This was fun to make!! (but time consuming)

*Homemade stickers using old wrapping paper or any other kind of paper.

That is about it. Next week a lot of community classes start that I signed us up for. My ds will be taking a pottery class, craft class, and tumbling class.

Hugs,

Michelle

Originally posted by lassie

I bought her a pair of roller skates from the thrift store for $1 (too big though lol) and she skates around on the carpet.



My kids love to do this! DD outgrew her old pair of Barbie skates, so I got her another pair (also happened to be Barbie) at a thrift store for $1 for Christmas, and I put her old pair in the garage for Goodwill. But when DS saw his sister get "new" skates, he wanted to know where the other ones were, so now he wears those, and says "I'm a beautiful princess." LOL.

Anyway, we haven't been doing anything crafty, even though my van is broke down and we've been stuck at home all week. DS does not like to color, but DD will color and do workbooks I give her. We've made bread 3 times this week. The kids really like their new wooden train stuff, so we've been playing with that. I got them a playstand and playsilks, but they think the playstand is like monkey bars and want to climb on it all the time. We've rode bikes, played frisbee, read books, cooked "food", but nothing crafty.

Maybe we'll do something with coffee filters tomorrow, that sounds like fun. Maybe the cupcake flowers too, as I have some leftover valentine cupcake papers (and when I buy flowers for the table the kids pull off all the petals).

I also get Family Fun magazine, and they have lots of great ideas for crafts, and a website, www.familyfun.com.

our new thing is dora uno :p.

Elliebelly~
Artist's trading cards sounds really cool! I would LOVE to see a pic and the story behind it:)

As for us, we bake a lot! Muffins and quick breads and cookies mostly. And dd loves to make her own collages, she will draw a background, then draw the people etc. to cut out and glue on. I always feel like we could do more if I was more organized! Let's see what else, she loves to string beads and do alphabet cards, and play rhyming games. But the biggest thing is drawing, she will go through 50 pieces of paper a day sometimes! She just draws these amazing pictures so fast like they just need to come out-lol! I don't seem to do enough with my younger dd though, she's 2- I have to try and remember what I did with older dd(4) when she was that age!
:)

Jen