Volcanoes and Dancing Raisins

My 3 year old is obsessed with volcanoes.

A few months ago we had done baking soda and vinegar volcanoes and I was looking through those pictures at the huge smile on his face and I knew we needed to do it again!
This time we took it up a notch and we ended up playing with this for almost an hour.

When we first started out we were planning on just making some volcanic eruptions.

Reindeer Wreath Toss

For the Relief Society Christmas party I planned a few weeks ago we had dinner and minute-to-win-it type games.

I found a couple of ideas on Pinterest and then came up with a few of my own.

I had seen a reindeer game for sale where someone wears balloon antlers on their head and the other players tossed rings to catch on the antlers, but I didn't want to spend our budget money on that, so I made my own version of the game.

This could also be great to make for your little ones at home!

Scratch Art Craft

A few weeks ago I saw a time-lapse video tutorial for these 'Scratch Art cards'

They looked really quick and easy to put together, so I thought we'd give them a try.

I think I was also just curious to see if it really worked as well as they say.

I was surprised that it did end up working pretty well!

This does take a little bit of prep work, so you can make these ahead of time for your little ones to scratch off the black part, or let them be apart of the whole process.

DIY Indoor Golf Game

I must say I have kind of really been loving the warmer winter we've been having here.

Don't get me wrong, I love the snow, but it's nice to not have it so harshly cold with my baby only being 6 months old.

There have been a couple of days where we did get some snow and we didn't really want to venture outside, so my son and I got our crafting on.

I pinned this idea last year, but when I clicked on the picture that's all it was. No website, no instructions, nothing.

It looked simple enough to figure out, so we made our own version.

This was really easy to put together.

Snow Paint

Last year I saw this idea for snow paint on Pinterest, but we were living in California at the time, so I put it in the back of my mind.
Well, since we moved from California I knew I wanted to try this once it snowed.
The first snowfall we had my son REALLY wanted to build a fort.
So that's what we did.
It looks smaller in the picture than it really is...
The next time we went to play in the snow my husband wanted to take my son out to play, so we made some snow paint for them.

It's SO super simple!

Easy Halloween Crafts

Last year for Halloween I had my son help me make some decor for our apartment.
We made a Halloween paper plate craft.
Since we just moved a few weeks ago we figured the plates would not survive, so I decided to let my son make some more Halloween crafts.
I first had it in my mind to do all hand-print crafts, but after the first one my son said he didn't want to have to keep washing his hands, and I wanted him to kind of take full reign of what and how we were to do the crafts, so these were all him.

To make the spider just paint your child's palm and 4 fingers.

Then have them place their hand down facing one way, and then overlap the palm of the hand with the fingers pointing the other way.

(My son's favorite color is green, and he really wanted a green spider :) )

Jumping Minions

We are big Despicable Me fans over here at our house.

One of the things my son loves are of course are the minions :)

So, when I saw this craft over at All for the Boys, I knew we had to make our own version.

One day while my son and I were babystitting we made this craft with the kids.

These are their minions :)

Kitchen Utensils and Bubbles

Today I have a super fun, simple and FREE Summer activity for you.

You can't go wrong with that!

A couple of weeks ago my son and I were babysitting and it was pretty hot outside.

I didn't want to take the kids to the park, because I knew they wouldn't last long there, but we needed to get outside.

I looked around their kitchen and found a few objects I thought we could use.

A little spelling, reading, and math

Not too long ago my son really, really wanted this game one of his friends had.

We told him if he wanted it, he had to save up enough money to cover half of the cost, and we would cover the rest.

(I'm sure most of you have heard of it, it's an X-box game called Skylanders).

Long story short, he did what was asked, and we held up our end of the deal.

There is a rule though, he can only play on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and only for 30 minutes each day.

For a while we had been doing 'learning activities', but those somehow slipped through the cracks as we've gotten busier.

We decided to give my son the chance to earn more 'Skylanders time' by doing a learning activity.
For 25 minutes of learning, he gets 5 extra minutes of Skylanders time.

To keep track, each time he finishes his 25 minutes he gets to pick out a sticker and put it on this paper.

Once we've used the extra 5 minutes of X-box time, we cross the sticker off.

So, this activity is one of my favorites.

Kid approved activities :)

Hello all :)

We have been out and enjoying some sunshine in our neck of the woods.

We haven't been up to much crafting, but we have been coming up with many new games and activities for my little guy.
I thought I would take a moment to share them with you!

1. UNO adding

My husband and I have been talking about incorporating more math type games for our son.

When I saw this idea on Pinterest from E is for explore I knew I had to try it out.
My son loves this game!
You just need to pick out cards that will add up to a certain number.
We've done 10 and 5.

Numbers adding up to 10.
Matches include 6 and 4, 5 and 5, 7 and 3, 8 and 2, 9 and 1.
I showed all the 'matches' to my son before we started so he would know what to add up, and then flipped them all over.
Once you find two cards that add up to the answer you take them out and go again.

Fine motor activity

Hello everyone!

Hope you are all having a great week :)

Thanksgiving is just 1 week away! Can you believe it??

I am very excited to be able to see family for the holiday, nothing beats that!

Today I've got an awesome activity for the littles.

I actually made this for my son probably a year or so ago, but with our big move 2 months ago, it got thrown away.

The other day my son asked to do this activity again, and it was great because it didn't cost me anything to make it again, I already had everything on hand! 

Yay!

I love this activity because it promotes fine motor skills, and counting.

(Just a side note, I tried to find the blog I got the idea from, but to no avail. If you are out there, sorry I can't link back to you, but thanks for the idea!)

Pipe cleaner activity

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a pack of pipe cleaners, I was going to do an activity with my son I had seen on Pinterest. 

It was the one where you cut up the pipe cleaners, place them in a bottle, and use a magnet to move them around.

It looked really fun, but I couldn't find a magnet anywhere.

So, this is what I came up with instead.

Supplies

pipe cleaners

empty bottle (I just used an orange juice bottle)

a sharp knife

a push pin

a nail

Felt pumpkin activity

You might remember in my post the other day, my son and I made Halloween paper plate crafts to decorate our house, and my son came up with the creative idea to make the witch's hat out of felt...

well, if you don't remember, that's what happened :)

Anyways, I saw this felt pumpkin idea over at 

Learning to be a mom.

I decided, since we had the felt out, and the paper plates were drying,

that we should give this craft a try as well.

Supplies

orange felt

black felt

scissors

I first cut out two orange circles for the pumpkin body.  I wanted to do two so my son could mix and match faces.

I then cut out different shapes for the eyes, nose, and mouths.

 Let the fun begin!

Grocery Store ABC's

So, a couple of awesome things about this post;
1. It's educational
2. It keeps your child/children busy and in the shopping cart while you shop, and,
3. it involves stickers, so they'll love it!
Last year, when my son was about 2 1/2, I wanted to find a new way to teach him his ABC's.  Whenever we would go grocery shopping, he would hold onto my list and pretend to 'read' it, and help me shop.  I thought it would be cute for him to have his own 'list'.  My Grocery Store ABC's idea was born!  Each week before we would go shopping I would draw a few pictures of things that started with the letter we were on.  While we were shopping my son would have to point out the items on 'his grocery list' (as he called it), and then he got to pick out a sticker to place by the item he found.  He was also doing pretty well recognizing letters, so I would show him the letter we were looking for, and if he found it in a word on a label, or anywhere else, he got an extra sticker on his paper.  He loved searching for letters, and I was really surprised at how well he was paying attention to words and looking around.
By the way, I am such an awesome artist ;) don't you think?

DIY Captain America Shield

My son has become OBSESSED with superheros!  It's kind of sad, he went from toddler to BOY overnight.  

I'm still adjusting.  

Something fun that has come from this new obsession is we now get to play superheros, A LOT.  We switch back and forth between them, usually playing Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk.    

In order to play we've come up with different things we use.  My son got a little hammer/screwdriver toy set, maybe 2 years ago, so we use the hammer as Thor's hammer.  For Hulk he just runs around and 'Hulk smashes' things :), and for Iron Man he pretends to shoot 'blue lasers' (is what he calls them).  We had a birthday party to go to a couple of weeks ago, so I took my son to the toy section at Wal-mart.  

 He wanted to buy EVERYTHING!  Afterwards the one thing he kept talking about was this Captain America shield he had seen, and how badly he wanted it.  It was like $15, and it was just basically a frisbee with a little hand strap, so it gave me an idea!

We were out of milk, so I made a trip to Costco, (I could have gone to Wal-mart, but I knew if I went to Costco the milk would come in this box, and it is the perfect size).

We first cut out a circle...

Baking Soda and Vinegar

I found this awesome idea and wanted to try it out with my little guy, he LOVED it!!  He calls this his 'science experiment'.  Great for a rainy day, it kept him occupied for over a 1/2 hour!

What you need:

• a pan of baking soda
• bowls with vinegar 
• food coloring
• and something to squirt out the vinegar.  I used one of those baby medicine syringes.  (see picture further down).

 We took the syringe and pulled up the back to suck up some vinegar, my son then squirted it into the baking soda.  He loved the reaction it made!  It foams up, and then down and turns into this soft feeling almost moon sand texture.

DIY Stamps

After seeing this idea a while ago on Pinterest, I finally got around to trying it out for myself.

I have to say, this makes my crafty little self very happy!

The possibilities are endless!

To get started you will need:
milk or juice lids

hot glue gun

scissors

an ink pad or paint

foam sheets (I got a 32 pack for $1 from the Dollar Store)

Now let your imagination run wild!  

All you do is cut out the picture/shape from the foam sheet, glue it onto the milk/juice lid and let it dry. 

Once it's dry, stamp away!  

I love this because the sky is the limit, it was fun asking my son what shapes he wanted and seeing what he came up with.

Over the last couple of months we've gradually collected more lids and just added to our collection.

We started collecting lids from the Simply Orange Juice bottles, those ones are BIG.  We've added a sun, a car, a house, a pumpkin, an arrow, a smiley face, a flower, a lightning bolt, a stick figure 'daddy' and 'big boy', and a stick figure 'mommy'.  I know they look so messy, they've just been used a lot, and as you can see we started using paint on the stamps as well.

Hope you enjoy!

Idea adapted from Vanessa's Values.