Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

All About Monkeys: A Learning Basket

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Recently my girls decided they wanted to learn everything they could about monkeys. And not just monkeys, all primates.

We went to the library and checked out books about monkeys, chimpanzees, and gorillas. We got both fiction and nonfiction.

Then we settled in for a day all about monkeys.

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I filled a basket with all the supplies we would need for our projects and wrote down all the projects we were going to try.

We started by reading. We read as many books as we could handle, then we moved on to our projects. (See Amazon carousel below for book recommendations.)

Next, we made little books to remember what we learned.

We drew pictures of what monkeys ate, where they lived, and even traced our hands since monkeys have similar hands to ours.

The booklets were simple. I cut pieces of brown construction paper in half, and then folded each of those halves in half. I sandwiched two together and then stapled them along the folds.

We also did a fun hand print craft that I found on Red Ted Art. They turned out so cute!

Next we made monkey masks. I was inspired by this paper plate craft on Learn Create Love. Here’s what we did.

Supplies Needed:

Paper plate
Brown paint
Brown construction paper
Glue
Scissors
Large craft stick

We painted our paper plate brown.

While they were drying, we cut our mouth and ears out of brown construction paper.

We traced a sour cream lid for the mouth circle and the lid to one of my spice bottles for the ears.

After the paint was dry, I helped the girls by cutting out the eye holes.

The girls glued their mouth and ears onto their paper plates and used a black marker to add the details.

They also glued a craft stick onto the bottom of their masks so that they could hold it up to their face. Then it was time to run around and act like monkeys – OohOohAahAah!

10 Ways to Play This Weekend: Week 40

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  1. Make rainbow bubble snakes with Housing a Forest
  2. Play sight word twister with A Mom With a Lesson Plan
  3. Make tin can stilts with Playful Learning
  4. Have a sensory tea party with Growing a Jeweled Rose
  5. Paint on foil with Picklebums
  6. Explore static electricity by creating a gravity-defying snake with Kids Activities Blog
  7. Make Mother’s Day portraits with Boy Mama Teacher Mama
  8. Make homemade plaster puzzles with Teach Beside Me
  9. Build a bug house with Growing Green Fingered Kids
  10. Make turtle herb planters and plant a few herbs with Reading Confetti
How are you going to play this weekend? We’re going to have a birthday party!

 

Playful Ways to Learn Shapes

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Shapes are fun to learn and there are a multitude of hands-on ways to learn them.

Here are some of the playful ways we’ve learned about shapes.

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.

Go outside and play shape hospscotch

Play hide & seek with circles while going on this fun circle hunt

Shapes are all around us. See how many you can find with this outdoor shape hunt

Have fun sewing while you sew up these simple sewing circles

Get crafty and make these fun square monsters

Go on a square hunt and find out how many squares are around your house

Get out the sidewalk chalk and make a driveway shape maze

Paint Square Cat!

Go on a shape hunt and round up all the shapes you can find in your house

Create beautiful watercolor resist circles

Make pretty shape collages

Have fun with giant circles on your driveway

What are some other fun ways to learn about shapes?

Tie-Dye Suns

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Spring was a very, VERY, long time in coming to Minnesota this year.

It was cold and snowy all through April and winter said a final good-bye by dumping over a foot of snow on us in early May. Yuck.

So in order to celebrate the arrival of warm and sunny weather, we made these fun tie-dye suns.

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.

Supplies Needed:

Coffee filters
Orange, yellow, & red washable markers
Spray bottle of water
Clear contact paper

For the first step, make fun swirly designs on your coffee filters with your markers. You’ll need about three coffee filters for each sun.

You don’t want to color in the entire coffee filter. Instead draw swirls, zigzags, or other fun designs.

Once you are pleased with your designs, spray your decorated coffee filters with water.

Get them completely wet, but don’t over-saturate them.

Now, watch your colors spread out . When we had wet our filters we were pleasantly surprised to see the tie-dye affect.

After your coffee filter have dried, fold two of them in half and then half again.

Keep folding until you have a pie-shaped wedge.

Unfold, then cut along your creases. You will have eight wedges per filter.

Make sure you keep one whole for the center of your sun.

Cut a piece of contact paper large enough for your suns.

Tape the contact paper to your table sticky side up and lay your coffee filter and wedges down to form a sun and its rays.

Seal your sun with another piece of contact paper cut to the same size. Cut around your sun, but make sure you leave a sealed edge.

Now you have a beautiful sun to say hello to spring!

P.S. Please ignore the dirty windows. The girls have been drawing with window markers almost every day lately!

Ways to Play This Summer ~ A Summer Bucket List

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Printable Summer Bucket List Ideas 1

It’s summer bucket list planning season again!

Last year, I gave you 200 ideas to help you write your own summer bucket list. This year, I’m doing something a little different.

In the spirit of my 10 Ways to Play This Weekend posts, I’ve made you a printable “Ways to Play This Summer.” Download and print it, so you’re never out of summer bucket list ideas.

The ideas are easy to do. You won’t need to go online and look up instructions. Most can even be done spur of the moment.

Use it as inspiration for writing your own summer bucket list, or better yet, use it as your summer bucket list.

There are only 15 ways to play, so it shouldn’t be too overwhelming.

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.

Printable Summer Bucket List Ideas2

Ways to Play This Summer

1. Make homemade popsicles and eat them outside

2. Go to the farmer’s market and find something new to eat

3. Gather your friends and put on a play based on your favorite story

4. Tour all the parks in your hometown

5. Invite the neighborhood kids over & have a backyard dance party

6. Catch fireflies

7. Turn over a rock and look for bugs

8. Plant a seed & watch it grow

9. Buy a new board game & learn how to play it

10. Get a library card & read as many books as you can

11. Play in the sprinkler

12. Make a backyard obstacle course

13. Create your own family newspaper

14. Go stargazing

15. Go on a picnic

Do you make a summer bucket list? If not you should definitely make one this year. They’re lots of fun! If this one isn’t your style, hop on over to No Time for Flash Cards for a fun summer reading bucket list.

Click here to download your Ways to Play This Summer