Tag Archives: kid activities

Mar5

2nd Birthday Pin-sanity!

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(This is my first time entering The Pinterest Challenge!  Be sure to check out the talented hostesses, Sherry at Young House Love, Katie at Bower Power, Cassie of Hi Sugarplum, and Erin at The Great Indoors, and go scope out their great Pinspirations!)

Oh. My. Gosh.

I had so much fun this weekend.  Scratch that. I’ve had so much fun over the past FEW WEEKS, planning His Majesty’s 2nd Birthday party.

My party planning board is one of my favorites, because it not only gives me ideas for parties, but it makes me want to throw parties.  Lots of parties.  When I started pinning, the party board was the first board that I got going on, and the barnyard theme stuck out immediately as a great idea for His Majesty’s birthday.  And barnyard/farm is such a popular toddler theme that you can definitely reach information overload, trying to filter through ideas, so it was nice for me to have a place to keep all of the great ideas that I wanted to try in one place, to refer back to.

March is a tough time to plan a party with an outdoor theme.  Some might say it is a bad time to try to plan a party with an outdoor theme.  But the truth is, where I live, it could be 75 degrees in March, or it could snow.  And while it would suck to play an outdoor party and have it snow, it would suck to stick with an indoor party because you were afraid, only to wake up to a perfect Carolina blue sky and 75 degree temps.  NC springs are glorious (minus the thick coating of pollen, but hey, that’s what Elderberry syrup is for), and I wanted His Majesty wanted a petting zoo.

So, I planned a party with outdoor themed elements, mainly a traveling petting zoo, but I figured we’d spend some time indoors, too, playing games and such.  As luck would have it, rain was forecast the entire day of the party.  My friends started giving me sympathetic looks about mid week, when it became clear that I was going to have to do something with the party plan.  I realized that I had to suck up the idea that farm animals were going to end up in my garage, and as much as that horrified me in theory, it wasn’t too bad when it became a reality.  It actually didn’t rain the entire time of the party, but it was wet out from rain all that morning, so we put the large animals in the garage, just in case the sky opened up.  The smaller animals were penned in on the grass, and it worked out perfectly.  Turns out, these mobile petting zoos know what they are doing like “whoa”.  They put down a little outdoor carpet in the garage, and kept a big brooms handy, plus, they cleaned up everything.  Seriously, when they were gone, I couldn’t tell they’d ever even been here.  Very professional people. I was so pleased.

So, crisis averted, thanks be to God, and the show went on.

Want to see what we ended up with?

Invitation:

Theme/Decor:

Gingham tablecloth made by stitching the cut edges of a 36 inch by 80 inch piece of fabric; Mason jars decorated with gingham ribbon, filled with crayons and flowers; free farm animal coloring pages; dollar store wicker baskets with gingham ribbon hot-glued for accent; Metal pails from Hobby Lobby filled with apples; Barn Door wall decor from Oriental trading company. Folding chairs rented for something ridiculously cheap like $1 each/day.

Cow print fabric and gingham ribbon banner, with felt letters; Accented with wooden farm animal accents from Hobby Lobby.

"2" Photo collage, done with the help and awesome innovation of my super smart husband. Just wait until I show you how he helped me do this. The man is a problem solver.

Streamers and string of balloons hung by my adorable (and previously mentioned) husband.

Another angle of the streamers and balloons.

Table covered with fabric leftover from making the tablecloths; Lollipops covered in barns/farm animals made from cardstock in mason jars filled with popcorn kernels; Barn themed gift boxes from Hobby Lobby filled with farm animal stickers and tattoos from Oriental Trading Company, and farm themed activity book from Hobby Lobby;

Menu:

Barn cake and cupcakes made by a lovely woman who donates the proceeds of her cakes to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Talk about a noble cause.

Veggie platter with tomato, cucumber, bell peppers, carrots, and celery with hummus and french onion dip; Fruit platter with grapes, blueberries, cantaloupe, and oranges; Bite sized pigs in a blanket.

Sandwich Ring from our grocery store deli with Dukes Mayo and Comeback Sauce; PBJ and sandwich thins;

Cow print cake pops and white chocolate covered marshmallows. Cake pops, YUM. White chocolate covered marshmallows... marshmallow-y... I guess I forgot that I really don't like marshmallows, and as it turns out, neither do my kids.

Games/Fun

Pink "Pig" Pom Pom Poppers and "pig pen"

"Pig Pong"

Coloring break!

Sensory play "scavenger hunt"-- I had no idea that even the big kids would enjoy this so much!

Ribbon pull bar pinata from The Paper Factory.

And, my favorite part of the day, playing with the animals!  They had traditional farm animals, like goats, a donkey and sheep, and then a lizard, a ferret, a duck, several bunnies, an Alpaca, guinea pigs, a tortoise, a pot bellied pig, and a few snakes, like this ball python.  They had a hedge hog, but he was sick, so they didn’t bring him.  Bummer.  Maybe next time.  The animals were all super friendly (two of the bunnies even tried to get extra friendly, if you know what I mean), and the kids were able to handle them and pick them up at will.

The pig was my personal favorite.

Whew!  There was certainly a lot of pinning going on for His Majesty’s barnyard bash.  Take a look at some of the ideas that inspired this Pinsanity:

The Invitations, decorations and Table-scape were (p)inspired by:

Shin Dig Diva (pin and pin)

Hostess Blog (pin)

The Celebration Shoppe (pin)

Live Smile Celebrate (pin)

Sara’s Party Perfect (pin)

The photo collage (p)inspiration was from Persnickety Prints

The Cake/cupcake (p)inspiration was from Disney Family Fun

The farm animal lollipops were (p)inspired by this pin and this pin and also this pin

The Pom Pom Poppers were (p)inspired by Fish Out of Water (pin) and Come Together Kids (pin)

Pig Pong was (p)inspired by Pen n’ Paper Flowers

Covered Marshmallow “Moo Pops” were (p)inspired by Catch My Party

The Farm Play Sensory Scavenger Hunt was (p)inspired by Counting Coconuts

The fabric birthday banner was (p)inspired by many of the blogs that helped me choose the decoration and tablescape, , but the tutorial that helped me lay out my plans is from Martin Family Living (pin)

And the Petting Zoo was hosted by Kiddie Kritterz out of Pilot Mountain, NC.  They are the nicest folks we’ve met in a long time, they arrived on time, cleaned up EVERYTHING, and were a joy to work with.  I highly recommend you give them a call if you’re looking for a mobile petting zoo or pony rides.

I’d also highly recommend you have awesome friends attending who will help you move the party along and keep track of all of the kids in various stages of activity throughout the event.  My friends are so amazing. If we happen to have the same friends, you know how lucky you are.

And that’s the story on how a whole lot of pins became one super fun 2nd birthday party!

What are some of the fun party themes you’ve been pinning?

Nov21

More Clean Fun! Homemade Bathtub Paint

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So, remember last week, when my group of science club kids and I exploded Ivory soap, all in the interest of understanding Charles’ Law?  Well, when our little science experiment cooled down, it left me with this:

A big pile of powdery soap flakes.  So what did I do?

I followed the example set by Housing a Forest, the same blog that gave me the idea to do the ivory soap experiment, and we made bathtub paint!  I figured His Majesty was the perfect age to enjoy painting himself, the bathtub, and anything else that happened to get in his way, with slippery, foamy homemade bathtub paint.

Making it was simple. Of course, if you haven’t already, you have to stick an ordinary bar of Ivory soap (it has to be Ivory) in the microwave for about 2 minutes.

It will grow to about 5x it’s original size, and will gunk up your microwave, but it’s just soap, so no worries, wipe it up and move on. Then, set the soap cloud out to cool.  Mine sat out for about 30 hours, simply because that’s when I got around to making it, and it still worked out fine.

As far as what you’ll need to make the paint, you probably already have everything handy in your kitchen and pantry.

All you need (beside your cooled, exploded Ivory soap flakes) is a blender, food coloring, and some boiling water (which I prepared in that teapot, to make it easier to pour into the blender). Simple enough, right?

Since making the paint isn’t an exact science, I just grabbed a few handfuls of flakes at a time, filling the blender about half way.  Then, I slowly added water (if you add it too fast, you’ll get foamy soap bubbles, which is definitely not paint), and pulsed the blender.  The source blog advised that you blend your mixture to the consistency of yogurt, which took me about 10 seconds to achieve.  She also put hers into icing bags, so that her kids could “pipe” the paint, but His Majesty is more into squishing paint and using a brush, and I had the perfect little empty containers lying around to use for this activity…

Yogurt cups!!  We save them because they are good for lots of things:  Christopher loves to build towers for His Majesty with them, and His Majesty loves to stack them and knock them down, plus we use them to “water paint” on the cement, and I use them when I paint with acrylics. Save your yogurt cups, they really come in handy.

Anyway, fill up your cups with your soap-water mixture that is at the consistency of yogurt.

Then, add your food coloring, and mix your paint.

See how pretty the colors are?  His Majesty’s favorite is “Boo”.

Then, take them to the bathtub and have a go with your fantastic homemade bathtub paint.

My husband likes to be in charge of bath time, and he said that His Majesty was a little tentative about having the paint ON him (I guess my husband figured it WAS soap, so why not wash him up with it), but that he enjoyed smearing it around and “painting” the walls with it.  When the water turned colors, and my husband rinsed it down the drain, His Majesty started chirping “Paint!  Paint!” wanting to have some more paint.  Lucky him, we have plenty left over to use tomorrow.  We used the shower head to rinse the “paint” off of the walls of the tub surround, and it came off without a problem.  I’m thinking that if it’s warm enough in the coming days, I might take him outsideand let him paint the patio.  Cleaning it up shouldn’t require more than the hose.  My kind of clean up.

Two thumbs up for homemade bathtub paint.  Inexpensive, easy to make, and easy to clean up.  But don’t take my word for it, try it yourself! And then come back and let me know how your kids (and you!) liked it.

Nov2

Ribbons of Wonder

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After the success of the PomPom Project, I wanted to see what other “Busy Box” type projects I could make that would entertain His Majesty.  This one looked simple enough to replicate (here’s the origination of the pin: lots of great ideas here if you’re interested) , but I didn’t have very many fabric scraps to make it, so I figured I’d just wait until I did.  But then I saw a big jar of cut ribbon on sale at Hobby Lobby for $4.79 ($2.87 with my 40% off weekly email coupon).  I figured that the ribbon would serve just as easily as cut strips of fabric, and I tossed it in my cart. I also purchased a happy face button to use in crafting this masterpiece, which rang up for a whopping $0.67.  For this craft I also needed an empty container (I used a baby wipes container, but you could use an oatmeal container, a tupperware container, a sour cream container, whatever, go wild), a glue gun, and some scissors, none of which I had to purchase, making my total out of pocket cost for this project $3.54 before tax.  Definitely a cheap date.

Don't forget your scissors when you assemble your supplies, or you'll have to get up from sewing and go grab them, like I did.

Start by grabbing your fabric strips or ribbon, and sewing them together end to end, in a chain.  (The source blog actually tied her fabric scraps together which is certainly an option, but I need the sewing practice, and His Majesty would likely be able to easily destroy a knotted chain.)  I started sewing the ribbon together with horizontal seams.

But then, I started thinking that with His Majesty being so rough on his toys, I might do better if I sewed the rest of the ribbon together with longer, vertical seams.

Since the vertical seams could cover a larger area at each junction, I thought it might be less likely to rip under a certain someone’s abusive play tactics.  Plus, longer seams = more sewing practice, which again, I need.  Basically, you just need to connect your fabric or ribbon somehow.  Knot it, sew it by hand, machine sew it, whatever.  Creator’s choice!

Keep joining your ribbon/fabric together until your chain is as long as you want it to be or, as was my case, until your materials run out (my chain is made of 15 one-yard pieces of ribbon).  Here’s what it looked like when I was done:

As I was finishing up my chain o’ribbon, it struck me that a long chain of anything could potentially pose a strangulation hazard for anyone, but specifically for small children and pets, so I wouldn’t want to let His Majesty or any other little one get wrapped up (pun intended) in this toy without an adult right there with them. Pretty much anything and everything can kill you, so be careful out there.

After you complete your chain, use your hot glue gun to affix your chain to something that will anchor it in the wipes container.  I used the big happy face, but you could use a large button, or a big knot of fabric or pretty much anything that won’t fit through the opening in your container.

Then, you stuff your chain o’ fun into your container.  His Majesty patiently sat by awaiting the unveiling of this craft.

Leave a little bit of fabric/ribbon out so that your little one will be intrigued, and will hopefully elect to play with it, thus abandoning any thoughts of riding the cat, in favor of your new creation.

Oh, is that just my kid?  Oops…

So, how did this go over with His Majesty, you ask?

He liked it.  He repeated “Pull, Pull, Pull” as he grabbed at the ribbon, and he delivered a few cute toothy grins during his play, as seen above.  Mad cuteness.  But, as with most activities he takes on, he lost interest pretty quickly. He didn’t get to the end of the chain before he moved on to his favorite activity in the world: Basketball.  He’s obsessed.  From the second we go get him from his crib that’s what he’s chanting: “Bak-a-ba. Bak-a-ba. Bak-a-ba”.  So, the ribbon pull activity was fun for a minutes here and there, in between his day long game of Bak-a-ba.  Leaving behind this.

Not nearly as bad as on days when we get out the little people blocks and road… shudder…

For the amount of time it took to make this (about 30 minutes) and the cost (less than $4), this provided 5 minute blocks of entertainment about 5 times.  So, even though this activity didn’t result in the silent bliss that comes along with pulling every single baby wipe out of a container, it still provided almost a 100% return on my investment in the first day.  Not bad.  Plus, he never wrapped himself up in the chain, so I’m glad I didn’t get worked up worrying about him strangling himself, although it’s still wise to hang out in the same vicinity as your kids if you give them this toy.  Of course, if your little one is as “spirited” as mine is, you don’t let them out of your sight anyway, lest you want to follow a trail of destruction all the way to the wine rack.  And it would certainly be feasible to stick a ribbon chain in a smaller container (like a sour cream container) if you wanted to tote it around in a Busy Bag.  Brief and easy to clean up activities seem to be ideal for that purpose.

Have you come across any easy, inexpensive kid-tastic activities lately? Pinned anything good?

Oct21

Jello Play Dough

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Oooh, do I have a recommendation for a fun activity for you and your kids today!  You may even have everything you need to make it in your kitchen already!

Jello Play Dough sounded like great way to kill some time inside, which is exactly what we needed on a rainy day earlier this week.  Both of my boys, eleven year old Christopher, and His Majesty, in all of his 19 month old glory, enjoyed playing with it, and it worked out great for me for two reasons: It made the soundtrack of my morning absolutely lovely to hear the two of them playing together, AND it gave me time to get some of my kitchen stuff done, while I simultaneously admired their jello play dough masterpieces.  It also scored bonus points because it was made with commonly stocked ingredients, and I didn’t have to make a special trip to the store.  I didn’t have any wax paper, but whatever, other than that, I had everything I needed, and I easily made it work.  It’ s pretty great to think that if we end up getting stuck inside unexpectedly due to weather or whatever might come up in our day to day chaos, I’ll have a quick activity option to whip up with hardly any advanced planning.

I wake up earlier than my boys even on our down days, mainly so that I can enjoy a shower and nice cup of tea (AND a Diet Pepsi) before anyone is awake and asking me for (or, in the case of His Majesty, demanding) anything.  It also gave me time to take a look at the original source, and figure out my plan of attack.  And speaking of the original source, what an amazing sight!  There are a dozen different play dough recipes, all a click away. I can’t wait to give some of the other recipes on there a try.

Ok, I digress.  Where were we? Oh, yeah, so, as I boiled my water for my tea and cracked my Diet Pepsi, I assembled my ingredients.

Gelatin (I had strawberry), cream of tartar, canola oil, white flour, salt, and water; Also, wax paper, to sit your dough on while it cools enough to handle it. 

Then I tossed them into a big ol’ bowl, mixing the dry ingredients before I added the oil and water.

Mix to an even consistency.

And you’ll end up with something that looks like this:

Nice and smooth

Then pour the mixture into a sauce pan and heat on low, stirring constantly.  The original source mentions that this will burn easily, so be sure not to turn the heat up too high, and remember to keep stirring it..

Just keep stirring, stirring, stirring…

Eventually, after about 5 minutes, the mixture will start to clump into a big old blob.  That’s when you know you’re on the right track.  When it is all clumpy, and there is no more liquid, you’re done.

Then, I ran into a bit of a snag, but no worries, I improvised, and all was well.  The first snag was that I got a phone call.  Kids sleeping + ringing phone = move quickly.  Turns out, it was one of my BFFs, and given that no one was awake, the opportunity for an uninterrupted conversation could not be passed up.  The second snag, which happened simultaneously with the first, was the realization that I did not in fact have wax paper, but rather, parchment paper. Oh well, I figured a stainless steel bowl and a fridge would do just as well to cool it down, and maybe even in time to finish it before the kids woke up.   It looked like this when I put it into the fridge:

Clumped together, no liquid, but still rather sticky. And hot. So let it cool before you touch it.

Well, the conversation lasted a while and when I pulled out the dough, it was nice and cool. In a further alignment of the stars, His Majesty was still asleep and Christopher was peacefully eating his breakfast and examining his daily lessons, without so much as a loud and intentional sigh.  So, I added some flour to the dough, and started to knead it as the directions entail.

I had to add a good amount of flour to keep it from being gummy. I just kept adding a little at a time until I got it to the right consistency; I’d estimate I added about a 1/2 cup.

About 10 minutes later, after slowly adding about 1/2 cup of flour a little at a time so as not to ruin the consistency, it was no longer sticky, was easy to handle, and had the perfect amount of play dough squish to it.  I couldn’t wait to let the boys play with it.

After breakfast, with the morning dishes looming in the sink, I figured it was the perfect time to let them have at it while I cleaned up.  It was an instant hit.

The dough didn’t stain our hands or the placemat, and while I wouldn’t intentionally get it on my clothing, it was very easy to clean up. The cost for all of the ingredients is be minimal, and making the dough took less than a half hour, not including the cooling time.

The original source says that it will keep for a few days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. I put mine in a ziplock bag, and then put the bag inside of a tupperware, before popping it in the fridge, and it is still usable 2 days later, although I did go ahead and add a little more flour to make it less gummy.

All in all, the Jello Play Dough was a huge hit.  And it tided His Majesty over until it was time to play with his favorite toy of recent days.

Empty yogurt cups.  Do you have a toddler?  Start saving your yogurt cups.  You can thank me later.

So there you have it.  A quick, cheap, and easy way to entertain your kids, all with easily obtainable ingredients that you may already have in your kitchen.

Happy Pinning!