'Cooking' in the great outdoors....

It's true, we do spend a lot of time outside, especially when the weather's very nice. Much of that time is spent with the hose on. As a result, we've come up with quite a few favorite outdoor activities, some requiring prep, some not.

Tonight after dinner, I took the 3 littles out to play, fresh-cut donut peach slices  and freshly made whipped cream in hand as dessert (um, no. I did not want the 13 month old spreading whipped cream all over the house. So outside, it is!). Young Yeller and my husband were at softball practice, so it was just the four of us. I grabbed my big soup pot (used to cook dinner's potatoes, so already technically 'dirty'), two ladles, a whisk and some random plastic cups and bowls. We turned the hose on, and 'the restaurant' was born. All three of them were thrilled to be making me soup-together, playing peacefully- and had great fun serving it up and bringing it to me. The Meatloaf (4y/o) laughed uproariously when I found new and ever-more complicated ways to hide the fact that I was dumping the 'soup' and not actually eating it, so I could ask her for more. All told, this water-cooking activity kept them happily entertained, improving their motor skills (hello! pouring, filling, emptying, carrying; all great toddler skills), for a good 45 minutes.

I was thinking it might be fun to get a set of pots and pans at a garage sale or thrift store to keep outside for this sort of activity permanently. 

Photographic Essays for Big Kids

There has been something funny showing up on our camera. Photos I don't remember taking, weird ones, of people's faces up close and random toys. It became clear- Young Yeller is enjoying using our camera to document the world as she sees it. And why not? Actually, she's not half bad. So, I've decided to cave and get her a camera, probably for Christmas. I like film, myself, but I'm definitely going to digital here- much less wasted film and easier to trash the bad pictures.

So for those of you interested in perhaps letting your bigger kid document the world around them (and avoiding a Barbie photo shoot), I have a few ideas:

- Give a specific assignment. 'Take pictures during our nature walk'; 'take a photo of each family member doing something they love'; 'Photograph each of the pets'. Official Vacation Photographer has a nice ring to it!

- Give your child 'the talk'. I've instructed YY that she is not allowed to snap photos of anyone naked, without their permission (especially if they're screaming at you in toddler-ese), etc. For some families, the 'naked' rule might be a bit much. I admit, after that story earlier in the year about that family who had photos of their kids out of the tub and Walmart turned them into CPS, I'm a lot more cautious about this. All the more reason to go digital- you can have a gander at the photos before they go off to the fotomat. The guidelines might be different for each family, but I advise you to think about it, and make it clear to your child, BEFORE you are looking at pictures of yourself shaving your legs.

-If you have a creative child on your hands: one who likes to build things, take things apart, etc., have them take pictures of their messes, er, creations.

 

Post-photo Activities:
 
-Make a scrapbook. For those of you with developing writers, having them write captions would be fun and good practice. They could write it (using the ideas above) about their family, the household pets, or the flora and fauna in your neighborhood.

-They could also use any random photos to build a story. Get one of those dollar photo albums from Dollar Tree or the dollar section at Target, and have them write a 'book' about a fantastical land of Lego skyscrapers. They can then use their own photos as illustrations for the book.

I know my Young Yeller is going to be thrilled with me giving her assigned excuses to use the camera. What a great way to round out the summer!

Happy snapping!

...and one for the big folks...

On the same dark and not-so stormy night as I made the below activities for the 'littles', I made this game for Young Yeller, age 7. It is not my original work, but I have to take a moment and say that these games (see source below) do require a bit of prep. I'm lucky in that I have an all-in-one printer with a flat bed for copying stuff; otherwise I'd be sunk. I'm just not that organized.

Math Facts Ladybugs (math facts/fact families)

This is a great game that YY absolutely loves. With her new math program at school, they spent very little time on fact families. As a former 2nd grade teacher, I must admit to being just the tiniest bit horrified that my soon-to-be 2nd grader is not totally proficient at math facts OR fact families. So it's been a real priority this summer, but one I'm pretty committed to doing in a fun way whenever possible. 

The gist of the game is that the child picks a ladybug (I laminated them for future use with her 3 little sisters). I pre-programmed the ladybugs with assorted numbers of spots to represent fact families ( 2,4,6 for example). If you don't remember, fact families are three related numbers for which two addition and two subtraction problems can be made. On the half-sheet, the child writes the facts that go with that ladybug's spots. (Using the above example, that would be 2+4=6/4+2=6/6-2=4/6-4=2). For some kids having trouble memorizing math facts, this more associative way of learning them can be really helpful. For YY, she enjoyed doing the activity, and then coloring her ladybug to look like the ones I had made. 

So, learning how to do fact families, check. She's got a really good grasp on it now. Still working on the math facts. (And yes, I noticed in the picture that the ladybug and worksheet do not match. I just pulled them out of their bag randomly.)

Um, no. I did not create this activity. I got it from a book that I dearly love. In fact, it is a series of books published by Scholastic, of which I have quite a few. They are called 'Shoebox Learning Centers', and are intended for Grades K-2, although I have had no problem adjusting many of them for my preschooler. You can find this particular book (the 'Addition and Subtraction' version) here .

Catching Up...

My intention was to post at least one activity each day. I've run into an illness or two, a 4th birthday, and other life obstacles. So today, I catch up.

Color Matching/Coloring Activity (ages 2-4)

This one, I made for Chunko Munko. I keep them (I made three of them at once) in ziploc bags with the appropriate markers.  CM just turned two and is getting pretty good with naming colors, but still needs to work on visual matching, and of course, coloring. This activity takes care of both. I'm big into recycling materials, so nothing fancy here: the pages were torn from a dollar store newsprint-type drawing pad. The purpose is for her to choose the correct color to match the shape, and then color it. I also labeled each triangle with the appropriate color word...environmental print and all that.

Letter Matching (kids learning letters)

This one I made using a pad of Sesame Street stickers I got from either the Target dollar section, or Dollar Tree (usually I'm great at remember these things, but eh). Luckily, there were two of each sheet of stickers, so one I used for the matching mat, and one I used to laminate, cut up, and thus make the pieces for the activity.

To make the pieces any kind of durable, it's essential to laminate them. But if you were using this as a one-time activity (hard to believe unless your child already knows their letters) or were only using it for one child, you could just have them put the stickers directly on top of the mat. Both the mat and the pieces are laminated.

A quick word on storage....

I store all of these types of activities in ziploc bags. I use the ones with the little zipper thing on the top, as they seem to be easier for little kids to manage. I file them by topic or theme if applicable. I usually label the fronts with some sort of label, attached and sealed with packing tape. 

 

....and next topic, an activity for the 'big kid'....

Meatloaf and tomatoes

Everyone around here likes to garden. Strike that. I and the kids like to garden. While we don't have a huge yard- pool takes up a pretty good portion of the backyard- we have enough to grow LOTS of flowers and some produce, too. There is a whole year's worth of gardening tasks to do around here. But right now, I want to address tomatoes. Those tomatoes are worth much more than one day's worth of activities.

We grow tomatoes every year, many varieties, somewhere between 3 and 10 plants. The absolute best for eating right off the vine, as kids love to do, is the Sungold 100, a small yellow-orangey cherry tomato. They are really sweet and don't take too long to grow. While it's too late to start your tomatoes for this year, put it on the calendar (NOW) for next year....after danger of frost, when it's fairly warm during the day AND at night, preferably. For us (northern CA) , we usually plant in late April. Tomatoes love rich soil and warmth all day and all night, so April is sometimes a bit early even for us...if you get an unexpected frost or cold snap, you can always cover them. Use a sheet or something else permeable.

Tomato related activities:

-This year, we spray painted our tomato cages wacky colors. Fire engine red, robin's egg blue, sort of an electric limey green. Beautiful complementary color combination; the kids loved watching me do the spray painting and helping to choose colors. You can buy them painted, but why? You can create something uniquely your own. And spray paint comes in such an array of wonderful colors now.

-Watering and harvest are a daily affair around here. The Meatloaf has adopted the tomatoes this year and has really taken charge.

-If we really got crazy, we could get into canning tomatoes. But frankly, 5 or more plants is just barely enough for the kids to eat of the vine and use for some cooking. We'd have to have 30+ to have enough to make canning worth it. But I'm putting it out there as an option...

The Meatloaf says that eating a tomato right off the vine is 'like a delicious donut'. I agree.

Mailroom!

While YY was away for what was supposed to be four days, visiting her grandparents (she came home a bit early...well, three days early, to be exact), I made this for the littles. All are in love with this activity, and it's open ended enough that Miss Big Seven Year Old can enjoy it, too....although it only takes her about 20 seconds.

Materials Needed:
-Bins for sorting mail (I bought these in the dollar section at Target awhile back)
-envelopes for 'mail' (I used a combo of junk mail envelopes and new)
-colored paper for cutting out shapes

I chose to do the basics: circles, squares, triangles. Cut a bunch out, in different colors and different sizes. Instead of gluing, I packing-taped them to the envelopes, so I wouldn't have to wait for them to dry and so there wouldn't be any loose ends for Curly Lurly or Munko to pick off. I also taped a shape to the front of each of the bins. And, time to sort some mail!!! What is it about mail? Kids LOVE it.

Obviously, this is an activity best suited to the 3 y/o; she's practicing identifying, matching, sorting shapes and all that. But the 2 y/o CM enjoys just sorting randomly, and I think with a bit of help, she'll be able to start sorting them correctly. The baby enjoys putting in, taking out- classic 1 y/o style.

Some other ideas:
-I think I might make another one of these for YY, but use math facts, which she needs to practice, still. Answers on the bins, problems on the mail. She figures out the answers and puts them in the correct bin.
-You could let you kids go crazy with stickers, etc. to decorate the mail, er, put 'stamps' on it.

-You could also let your kids 'postmark' the mail as they sort it with a stamp pad and some stamps. I guess it depends on how long and for how many kids you want to use this activity.

A new 'toy', or fun slave labor?

Today's impromptu 'activity' turns out to be a big help to me. A few days ago, I bought the best new toy ever. It's a vacuum. Well, it's a glorified dustbuster on a stick, really. Our vacuum hasn't been working so great lately, but we're reticent to spend a bunch of money on a new one because we have pretty much all hardwood floors and (the bigger reason) my kids are all freaked out by the noise of the vacuum and hide like a bunch of frightened mice in the back of the house whenever we use it. So, we never use it...opting instead for sweeping, the dustbuster, etc.

So, this new one, the Dirt Devil Versa, less than $20, how could I go wrong? It is corded, which was important to me, as my husband often leaves the dustbuster off the cradle all night, and then it's dead in the morning when I need to use it (although I do seriously appreciate the cleaning help, don't get me wrong). It has on-board crevice tools, you can detach the bottom part to use it like a regular dustbuster, and really it's so lightweight and small, the KIDS USE IT WITH EASE. They are a bunch of vacuuming fools, racing to get the Versa whenever we have a spill, such as an entire bottle of glitter. Ahem. It's not very noisy, either.

I checked this baby out online to see what the reviews were, because I was a bit skeptical. I've found what they said to be true: great for quick cleanups, but you would definitely not want to use this as your only vacuum if you had carpet- it's not heavy duty enough.
BTW, Dirt Devil, not paying me for this endorsement. But they should.