Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

Art Lessons: Watercolor Resist Hand Prints

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For our first afterschooling art lesson, I wanted to do a project that we could use to decorate the walls of our new art/craft room.

I first saw the idea of doing watercolor resist hand prints on Fairy Dust Teaching and had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to make these ourselves.

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We started with a couple of sheets of watercolor paper. The type of paper really does make a difference when using watercolors. If you don’t have watercolor paper, use the thickest paper you have.

Our first step was to trace our hand prints. The girls decided where they wanted their hand prints and how many they wanted on their paper. I helped them out by tracing their hands with a black oil pastel.

Once we had our hand prints traced, the girls got to work with our watercolors.

We made our own watercolors using this recipe from Happy Hooligans. They work so much better than the watercolors you can find in the school supply section of your store!

When we were done we had some wonderful artwork to hand on our wall. I can’t wait to fill the wall up with more art!

100 Ideas for Your Fall Bucket List

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Do you make a fall bucket list? We did last year and it was a lot of fun.

Before making ours, I gathered together a massive list of 100 fun fall ideas.

I hope you find some fun fall activities!

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Go on a hike

Bake an apple pie (Simple Bites)

Volunteer together as a family (The Good Long Road)

Bake apple and cheddar quick bread (Everybody Likes Sandwiches)

Make popcorn trees (Happy Hooligans)

Make old-fashioned corn cob dolls (The Magic Onions)

Make mini haunted houses (Kids Activities Blog)

Play flag football

Make your own Halloween costume (Inner Child Fun)

Make apple oatmeal whole wheat muffins (Train Up a Child)

Make some big leaf prints (Meaningful Mama)

Make a Thanksgiving leaf garland (The Artful Parent)

Go to your local high school football game

Make fall leaf crowns (Chasing Fireflies)

Explore a pumpkin (Creative Connections for Kids)

Make coffee filter fall leaves (Play Dr. Mom)

Make pumpkin spice pancakes (Annie’s Eats)

Play with autumnal play dough (The Imagination Tree)

Do some autumn leaf threading (Picklebums)

Laminate leaves and make magnets (Filth Wizardry)

Go on a fall camping trip (Go Explore Nature)

Make leaf people finger puppets (Make and Takes)

Make bird feeders

Go to a pumpkin patch

Make leaf confetti (Grow Creative)

Make applesauce

Bake a pumpkin pie (Very Best Baking)

Make land art with fall leaves (Red Ted Art)

Look for signs of fall (JDaniel4’s Mom)

Make a thankful tree

Go on a fall nature walk (My Merry Messy Life)

Make candy corn sugar cookies (Kathie Cooks)

Make fall nature suncatchers (The Artful Parent)

Make paper bag pumpkins (Mess for Less)

Make hand print turkeys

Play in pumpkin guts (Childhood Beckons)

Visit a corn maze

Put googly eyes on a pumpkin (Play Dr. Mom)

Make button and ribbon pumpkins (Toddler Approved)

Go indoor apple picking (Inner Child Fun)

Make drip-art pumpkins (The Imagination Tree)

Make paper plate turkeys (I {Heart} Crafty Things)

Visit an apple orchard

Make a “ghostly” pizza (My Recipes)

Make owl masks

Make candy apples (Martha Stewart)

Make pine cone bats (Almost Unschoolers)

Play with a fall sensory bucket (A Mom With a Lesson Plan)

Make autumn leaf place mats (Rhythm of the Home)

Play pumpkin bowling (Jeanetics)

Have a family movie night

Make Halloween yarn pumpkins (NurtureStore)

Make pumpkin bread (Martha Stewart)

Play in the leaves (Mama Smiles)

Make Thanksgiving Story Bracelets (Little Wonders’ Days)

Make acorn jewelry (5 Orange Potatoes)

Drink apple cider

Make a fall hand print wreath (Mess for Less)

Do apple stamping

Harvest and dry herbs (Kitchen Counter Chronicles)

Carve a pumpkin

Go on a leaf hunt (Teach Preschool)

Paint a pumpkin

Roast pumpkin seeds

Do some chuckin’ pumpkin painting (Childhood Beckons)

Paint with acorns (NurtureStore)

Do leaf rubbings

Do science with leaves (Learn Play Imagine)

Make caramel apple cheesecake cookies (Confessions of a Cookbook Queen)

Make googly-eye spider masks

Go star gazing

Make acorn nature collages (No Time for Flash Cards)

Create an autumn nature table (The Golden Gleam)

Make leaf print cookies (The Artful Parent)

Go on a backyard scavenger hunt

Make acorn cap candles (Paint Cut Paste)

Preserve autumn leaves with beeswax (Crafting a Green World)

Have fun in a fall-leaf maze (Happy Hooligans)

Make a magazine collage tree (Crafts by Amanda)

Eat apple nachos (Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures)

Decorate your windows for fall (Growing a Jeweled Rose)

Go on a thankfulness walk (Go Explore Nature)

Make your own fall leaf connect-the-dots (My Kids Make)

Have a Halloween party

Play with cinnamon pumpkin spice play dough (Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas)

Play fall “I Spy” (Spell Outloud)

Start a nature notebook (KC Edventures)

Make autumn mobiles (Red Ted Art)

Make Painted Leaves (Small for Big)

Make a nature shadow box (Teach Preschool)

Make a paint stick scarecrow (Crafts by Amanda)

Go on a playground scavenger hunt (KC Edventures)

Make fall leaf lanterns (Imagine Childhood)

Go on a lantern walk (The Golden Gleam)

Make a paper bag football (No Time for Flash Cards)

Make a list of what you are thankful for

Make some bubbling brew (Se7en)

Make pumpkin mummies (Hands On: As We Grow)

Send Halloween Cards

Make a pine cone weather station (Science Sparks)

I hope this list gives you some ideas for your own fall bucket list. What would you include?

Around the World in 12 Dishes: French Polynesia

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We’ve been whisking around the world via our taste buds and this month we landed in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia is a group of islands located west of Australia. One of the most well-known islands in French Polynesia is Tahiti, which is where we decided to land.

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.

Because of it’s tropical island location, Tahitians eat a lot of fish and fruit. We decided to focus on fruit while learning about Tahiti.

We searched our local grocery stores and found a selection of fruit for our tropical fruit tasting. We had banana, mango, pineapple, papaya, and coconut.

Some of the fruits were very familiar to my girls and there were others we had never tried before.

After talking a bit about the island of Tahiti, we grabbed our forks and dug in.

Lizzie’s favorites were mango and coconut, while AJ preferred pineapple and bananas.

I loved the papaya!

Yum, yum good!

It was fun to imagine being able to dig in to this fabulous fruit on a daily basis.

In addition to eating our tropical fruits, we also learned about Tahitian dance and music. YouTube was a big help.

We listened to some Tahitian drummers and then watched several examples of Tahitian dance. And when we were finished watched, the girls put on their grass skirts and danced the afternoon away!

10 Ways to Play This Weekend: Week 8

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Kid’s Co-op: Sensory Fun

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It’s Friday and that means it’s Kid’s Co-op time. Link up your favorite kid-related posts and then check out all the fun that has been linked up from other bloggers.

There were so many fun ideas shared last week from crafts to fun lunch ideas. This week I’d like to share a few fun ideas for sensory play.

The Good Long Road made lavender play dough. I’m sure it smelled wonderful!
Creative Kidlets 101 played in a fabulous rolled-oats sensory bin. Looks like fun!

Now it’s time for you to share all the fun you’ve been having! Please join up and share your favorite post. (And, we’d love you forever if you’d link back to us!) Your link will show up on all of the hosts’ blogs. It’s time to link up, visit some new blogs, and have a lot of fun!