Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

Best Kids Activities of 2013 – Driveway Games

By

A couple of days ago, I published the 10 most popular posts of 2013.

Today, I’m going to join in with some of the very best kids bloggers from all over the world and share some of my favorites.

It was hard to choose. Believe me when I say, I really love all the posts I shared in 2013.

But, one thing jumped out at me, the three driveways games I shared.

They get your kids moving and learning. But the best part is that they require no special supplies.

All you need is some sidewalk chalk and your driveway (or sidewalk). Easy to set up and fun to play!

This is just the type of activity I plan to show you more of in the coming year.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

Sight Word Islands is a fun game that I used to review my daughter’s sight words. You can use it to review sight words, color words, or even the alphabet.

I used our Driveway ABC Game to help my youngest daughter learn her letters. This one is a bit like a giant board game… on the driveway.

I also shared an old favorite of ours, Shape Hopscotch. This is just like the traditional game of hopscotch, except it uses shapes instead of numbers.

Top 10 Posts of 2013

By

I always enjoy looking over my posts for the year to find out what was most popular.

Sometimes you surprise me by making something popular that I never expected.

I learn what I should do more of and what I should do less of. I start planning and plotting for the next year.

Believe me, we’re going to have a lot of fun in 2014.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

And now, without further ado, is our top 10 list counting down to the most popular post of the year. (Click on the orange titles to get to the post.)

10. Becoming Warhol – a kid’s art activity

9. Name Recognition Activities

8. Estimation Station for after school math fun

7. Color Mixing Lab – a little science and a little art all rolled into one

6. Printable Summer Bucket List

5. Greek Salad Bites – part of Around the World in 12 Dishes

4. Go Outside Cards – free printable outdoor activity cards

3. Princess Addition – a fun, hands-on way to practice math

2. 12 Candy-Free Valentines

1. 10 Science Experiments for Preschoolers 

Which one was your favorite?

10 Ways to Play This Weekend: Week 56

By

Christmas is sneaking up, are you ready?We’re going to spend the weekend baking cookies and watching a couple of Christmas movies. Should be fun!

If you’re looking for some good activities to do with your kids this weekend, I’ve made things easy for you.

Here are 10 ideas I found that sound like great fun!

How are you going to play this weekend?

Christmas Bells

By

After the Great Silver Bell Debacle of 2013, I decided to add in a bit a simplicity to our holiday crafting.

I still wanted to make bells, but this time no aluminum foil was allowed. (Read this post to find out why.)

Instead, I got out the paper and the paints and let my 4-year-old call the shots.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

I cut out a few bells shapes from white construction paper and Miss Preschool started painting.

Instead of painting designs, she opted for all one color. That’s because she had something else in mind to jazz them up.

We had painstakingly selected all of these beads to embellish our silver bells.

They were still calling our name.

We had to use them.

Miss Preschool got out the glue and started adding beads, each one hand selected for that particular bell.

She didn’t add too many. She likes to keep things simple.

When they were done, they were beautiful.

We punched holes in the top of each bell and tied them all together with yarn.

Miss Preschool hung them with pride on the tree. That picture at the top, she took that one herself. She wanted a few pictures of her bells.

Keep it simple. Yes, that’s what I needed to learn and I had to learn that lesson from a pile of foil bits.

Silver Bells ~ A Tale of Two Craft Fails

By

If you’ve ever had the assumption that all of our craft projects come out perfectly, let me be the first to correct you. They don’t.

Case in point, our attempt at silver bells.

After deciding to make crafts based on some of our favorite Christmas carols, I thought of the song Silver Bells.

Silver Bells should be easy, right? Ha!

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

It all started innocently enough.

We had our homemade Mod Podge and the obligatory supply photo.

The girls were itching to get started.

Little did we know there was a culprit in that pile. It was innocently lying there, unwilling to let us know that our brilliant silver bell project was not the least bit brilliant.

Nonetheless, we dug in.

But what was the mystery item in our midst… what was that one thing that was going to make our project go from brilliant to dud.

Why, it was the very thing that was going to make our silver bells silver: the aluminum foil.

Don’t be fooled by that innocent pile above. Those bits of foil are cantankerous. They’ll slip and they’ll slide. No amount of glue will hold them together.

Wrap your leftover food in it certainly, but don’t ever EVER try to glue it to cardboard.

We wrestled with the foil awhile and got glue all over our fingers.

We finally managed to get something that looked like a silver bell. We set them on our makeshift drying rack.

Take note of that drying rack, one upside down egg carton which is quite possibly the only part of the project that worked well. We walked away in the hopes that maybe this could work after all.

We were wrong.

As I sat and plucked foil bits off of soggy cardboard, I came up with a better idea… or so I thought.

I ripped our drying rack to pieces. It looks like bells, I thought.

I called the girls over. We strung jingle bells inside and started the silver process all over again.

We used plain white glue this time, globs of it. We tried wrapping the foil around the edges. Still, those foil bits slipped and slid and ended up everywhere but our bells.

My brain was working overtime. How could I get this stuff to stick. Hot glue? No, my cord’s not long enough. Super glue? It would probably stick. But, I’ve glued my fingers together too many time so I wasn’t about to give it to a 4-year-old. There’s got to be something, right?

That’s when I heard, “Mommy, this still isn’t working. Why don’t you finish it yourself.” from my 6-year-old.

Yes, it was time to finish it myself… finish it right into the trash can.

Moral of the story: It happens to all of us, even your favorite craft bloggers. So stop telling yourself you’re just not that crafty. Stop letting Pinterest make you feel bad. We all have projects that end up in the trash. Just have fun. Just do the projects that interest you and don’t worry about how they end up. That’s not the point. The point is just to have fun with your kids.

Now it’s your turn to share. What is your funniest craft fail?