Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

Weekends: Exercise Outdoors

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Spring came early this year, so I decided it was the perfect time to bring my exercise outdoors.

Heck, maybe that will even motivate me to exercise!

I don’t know about you, but it’s always a much more pleasant experience to bring my work out outdoors.

An article by Fitness Magazine states that “being outdoors, among nature, will boost your mood and your mental well-being.”

And, why not? A nice breeze, sunlight, and the soothing sounds of nature always boosts my mood. But, not only does being outside improve your mood, it can provide an additional health benefit by helping your body produce more vitamin D.

According to Medical News Today, vitamin D is an immune system regulator, may help keep the brain working well in later life, may be linked to maintaining healthy weight, and may lower the risk of developing cancer. They also list several other benefits.

So, get outside! Not only is is fun, but it’s good for you too.

So what kind of exercise can you do outside?

Well, just about anything. I personally enjoy a nice walk, but others enjoy running, yoga, cycling, swimming, or hiking.

Step off that treadmill and go outside instead. You won’t regret it!

What’s your favorite way to exercise outside?

10 Ways to Explore Dramatic Play

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Dramatic play (or pretend play) provides many benefits to your child.

According to an article on Scholastic Parents, The Importance of Pretend Play, pretend play helps with cognitive development in such areas as social and emotional skills, language skills, and thinking skills.

And, in additional to all the wonderful benefits, dramatic play is something most kids enjoy!

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Here are ten ways to explore dramatic play:

1. Act out a book. Pick a familiar story and have kids act it out. My girls love to act out the Three Little Pigs. Ready, Set, Read provides a basket full of props to help act out classic fairy tales. She includes several examples of baskets she’s created.

2. Provide a fun pretend play set-up. I set up a snack bar for my girls to play with. We also set up a jewelry store. The possibilities for this sort of play are endless. Think about your child’s current interests. Do they love to help you in the kitchen? Then, set up a pretend-play kitchen area. Do they love to play doctor? Then, set up a hospital or a vet clinic. De Tout et de Rien has many good ideas for this. Check out their paper blood transfusion set-up. (Just a note, De Tout et de Rien is written in French, but please do not let that deter you. She has installed a translator for your benefit!)

3. Make puppets. Puppets are both fun to make and fun to play with. The Nature of Grace shows you how to make easy wooden spoon family puppets and even provides ideas for how to use them.

4. Play dress-up. It’s easy to lose yourself in dramatic play when you’re dressed for the part. You can find inexpensive items for dress-up at a thrift store or even go through your closet. There may be clothes hanging in there that you no longer wear, but would be perfect for dress-up play. Childhood Beckons wrote a wonderful post with plenty of ideas for dress-up items.

5. Combine sensory play and pretend play. It will make the pretend play seem just a bit more realistic! Use dirt and construction toys to bring a construction site to life. We brought in snow, made a few ice blocks and created an Antarctica scene.

6. Have fun with small world play. Help you kids set up a scene for small toys or dolls to play in. They can experience and learn with dramatic play on a small scale. Creative With Kids set up a pretend party scene for their monkeys in a barrel. At Home with Ali made a fun miniature campsite.

7. Use music. There are many songs that are perfect for acting out. Use a song with actions or one that tells a story. She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain is a favorite at our house. (Here’s a great video that shows the combination of singing plus actions for a fun dramatic play experience.) Encourage you’re children to sing, dance and do actions. Make sure you join in and have fun!

8. Make and use masks. It’s easy to pretend you’re someone or something else when you put on a mask. We love to make masks and and transformed ourselves into both tigers and panda bears. It’s always a fun way to spend a day.

9. Use blocks and loose parts to set the scene. Will your children build roads or a castle? Either way they’re setting up a scene that will provide hours of pretend play. Brick by Brick has many good examples of this. Here they made a zoo. And here they added tools to the block area to create a construction site experience.

10. Above all else, make it accessible and easy for your kids to enjoy dramatic play. Put the dress up clothes where your kids can get to them whenever it strikes their fancy. Have a box of loose parts always available so they can create and pretend. Childhood Beckons has a wonderful example of a dress-up corner that’s easy to put together and doesn’t take up much room.

*Bonus Activity: Go outside! My girls have so much fun with dramatic play outdoors. It’s so easy to grab a stick and turn it into a magic wand. They’ve traveled to the moon, through a forest, and even to a magical fairy-tale kingdom without even leaving our backyard.

What is your kid’s favorite form of dramatic play?

Will It Float? Making Boats

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Yesterday, Lizzie looked up at me and said, “Mom, I want to make a speed boat. One with a window on the front.”

Well, okay… let’s get started!

Keep in mind that unlike most of my other projects, this time I had no plan whatsoever going into this. We were winging it, but we were up to the challenge.We dug through our recycled parts and came up with an empty toilet paper tube. Was it lightweight? Check. Will it float? I hope so.

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.

The next challenge was waterproofing.Certainly we could just try to float the cardboard, but it was thin cardboard and would get soggy quick.

Also, we were making a speedboat, so shiny and flashy seemed perfect. So we got out the aluminum foil and covered the tube. We had already cut the tube so that it would open up and lay flat(ish). It still had a bit of a curve to it, which worked in our favor.

After it was covered, we taped down the loose ends. Then we started bending.

We started with a sharp crease in the middle for a small “v” to imitate the bottom of a speed boat.

We bent the cardboard more to make a flat bottom and curved sides.

Now it was time for the window. Lizzie wouldn’t let me forget the window.

We cut a thin strip off another tube, flattened it a bit and covered it in plastic wrap. We then taped it to the front of our boat.

It was time to test out our boat! Did we do it?

Lizzie filled the sink with water and carefully put her boat in.

Guess what? We did it! It floated! Success!

A few final thoughts:

In hindsight, we should have bent up the front and back of the boat to keep water from seeping into the boat.

Also, despite out best efforts, the cardboard did end up getting soggy (after a lot of play).

But, all in all, I would consider this experiment a success. We started with nothing and with a bit of problem solving, we ended up with a speed boat. Isn’t that what learning is all about?

Have you ever just run with a wild idea your kid had? I’d love to hear about it!

Egg Carton Rainbows

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Instead of recycling the egg carton we just emptied, we decided it would be much more fun to craft with it.

With all the spring-like weather we’ve been having and the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day holiday, rainbows have been on our mind.

We decided to transform our egg cartons into pretty rainbow mobiles.

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 the egg carton up into individual pieces and gave each girl seven pieces, one for each color of the rainbow.

Lizzie, who considers herself an expert on rainbow colors, wanted to make sure she did hers correctly using red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

AJ just wanted different colors and since her favorite color is yellow, she wanted a couple of extra yellow pieces!

We painted the outside of each piece and then let them dry.

After they were dry, I grabbed some thick thread, a large needle, and some tape. Lizzie helped me thread pieces on the string.

I used the tape inside the egg carton piece to hold down the thread so I could space the pieces out.

Due to her expert status, Lizzie was able to help me get the pieces on in the correct order.

Then, we hung them up in the window. And, they were very pretty there.

But, they only stayed there long enough for me to get some pictures, then down they came. Apparently, they were much more fun as a toy!

We love rainbows and will probably do more rainbow crafts this spring. What is your favorite rainbow craft?

Weekends: Being Original

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Do you ever feel uninspired? Boring? Or just feel like you have absolutely nothing to offer?

You’re not alone.  I think we’ve all felt this way at one point or the other.

The more you feel this way, the less creative you feel. But, how do you stop these thoughts?

Take some time for self-reflection.

Are you feeling stressed or too busy? Or have you gotten bogged down in mundane day-to-day happenings?

Both scenarios can leave you feeling uninspired

Maybe you just need to get through a busy time in your life and that’s okay. But, if you’re ready to kick-start your creativity, I’ve got a few suggestions.

1. Make a list. Make a list of the projects you want to try, recipes you want to cook, photographs you want to take or places you want to travel. Get the ideas flowing. Then keep that list and whenever you’re feeling uninspired, pull it out, do something on the list, or keep adding to it.

2. Read a book. Fiction, biography, self-help… it really doesn’t matter. Get lost in someone else’s thoughts. Clear you mind and just enjoy yourself for awhile.

3. Daydream. Run a bubble bath or lie on the couch. Shut your eyes and focus on a project you want to do or a place you want to travel to. The skies the limit! I sometimes come up with the best ideas while daydreaming.

4. Talk to a friend. Do you have a trusted friend you can vent to? Do it! Bounce ideas off of her. Complain if you need to. Try letting go of anything that’s been bothering you.

5. Start a journal. It can be a pretty blank book or a virtual spot on the internet. Just start writing and soon the ideas will come to you.

But wait a minute! I’ve got the ideas, but I still don’t feel original! I’m sure someone else has already done that. Surely I’m not the first person to come up with that brilliant idea. 

And you know what… you probably aren’t the first person. And that’s the idea you have to let go of. Does it really matter if someone else has done it? You can’t let that idea hold you back.

“Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes.” 
– Thomas W. Higginson
“Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, 
but in saying exactly what you think yourself.” 
– James Stephens

You are what make you original. Your ideas, talents, feelings, memories, thoughts, and fears all combine together to make you a unique person.

So go ahead, let go of the fear of being unoriginal, and just be yourself. Grab that list of projects and start creating. Don’t worry that everyone else is doing it. Do it for yourself…

… and that will make it original!