Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

10 Ways to Have Fun With Dr. Seuss

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Since Dr. Seuss’s birthday is tomorrow (March, 2nd), I couldn’t think of any better topic for my “10 Ways” series this week. But, unfortunately, we haven’t done any Dr. Seuss activities. So, I asked some of my favorite blogger if they wanted to share. And, wow, do I ever have some good stuff to show you!

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.

1. Celebrate movement with The Foot Book! Join Reading Confetti as they cut out footprints and jumped, ran, and had loads of fun.

2. Read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish with Toddler Approved. Then have fun graphing goldfish, balancing fish on a dish, and even playing Ring the Gack!

3. Create with The Shape of Me and Other Stuff. Kitchen Counter Chronicles made beautiful shadow puppets to go along with the book.

(via Kitchen Counter Chronicles)

4. Celebrate one of the characters in The Cat In the Hat by making fish in a fish bowl along with Mama Mia’s Heart2Heart.

5. Join Putti Prapancha and have some messy fun by making some Oobleck from Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

6. Have a Lorax sandwich while reading the book, The Lorax, with JDaniel4’s Mom.

(via JDaniel4’s Mom)

7. Get artistic with Green Eggs and Ham. Classified: Mom shows you how to make Sam I Am with hand and foot prints!

8. Get a little silly with The Cat In the Hat while making Thing 1 and Thing 2 craft stick puppets like ours here.

9. Make some pretty socks for Fox in Socks! Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas shows you how.

(via Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas)

10. Play a game with Dr. Seuss’s ABC book. Kitchen Counter Chronicles played a fun ABC scavenger hunt based on the book.

What is your favorite Dr. Seuss book?

The Snowy Day Book and Craft

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We love to do crafts based on books.

One of our recent picks was The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

If you and your kids haven’t read this book yet, go find a copy. They will love hearing all about Peter and the things he did on that snowy day.

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.

We decided to make our own snowy day scenes with Peter.

I provided blue construction paper for the background and large orange and green rectangles to use for the city buildings.

I also traced the picture of Peter on the book cover and cut him out of red construction paper.

The girls used their glue sticks and set up their city scene.

When it was time to add the snow, I gave the girls white paint and cotton swabs.

They could dab the paint to look like snow falling or easily smear it. AJ did a lot of dabbing!

At 2 1/2, she absolutely loves to paint like this. A lot of times she will choose a cotton swab over a paint brush!

Lizzie did a little bit more smearing and added snow to the tops of all the buildings and lots of snow falling from the sky.

You can see her finished picture in the top photo. AJ’s picture is below. Her snowy scene turned into a blizzard by the time she was done!

Have you read The Snowy Day? Are there any more snow books that you and your kids love?

Changes

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I was busy yesterday! I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want my blog to look and operate.
Yesterday, I took the plunge and started redesigning. I hope the new design will make my blog easier for you to navigate and find what you are looking for.

Another BIG change I’m sure you noticed was the name.

I’ll be transitioning from the name My Creative Family to Creative Family Fun.

Why? This is actually something I’ve thought about since my blog was a few months old. I love the name My Creative Family, but it didn’t quite fit with what I wanted my blog to ultimately be.

When I decided to buy my own domain, the decision to change the name became much clearer. My Creative Family wasn’t available!

So, I purchased creativefamilyfun.net with the knowledge that I would be changing the name in the future.

So, now is the time! What does that mean for you? If you’re following me through subscription, Twitter, or Pinterest, nothing will change. The only thing that will change is my Facebook page. Unfortunately, Facebook will not let me change the name, so I’ll have to make a new Facebook page (scary!).

I would really appreciate it if you would click though and “like” my new page: Creative Family Fun on Facebook. I will be operating both Facebook pages until people have had the opportunity to transition to the new one. I hope you’ll join me there!

Thanks for coming along on this fun and exciting journey with me!

In Like a Lion

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This cute lion was not the end result I had pictured when we started this craft.

In fact, my original plan was to make suns by finger painting paper plates.

Instead, they turned into lions.

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 gave the girls paper plates and put a glob of yellow and orange paint on each.

I told them to smear it around with their fingers.

They balked at that suggestion

“Too messy,” said AJ. Really?! They love to be messy, but apparently not today.

“I want a paint brush,” said Lizzie. Well, alright, paint brushes it is.

Now that they were happily equipped with paint brushes, they got to work.

They smeared and painted and made pretty orange and yellow paper plates.

I still assumed we were making suns.

After they dried, we got out the scissors and started cutting.

We cut lines around the edge starting at the outer edge up to the flat part of the plate. We cut them about one inch apart all the way around. Then we bent up every other strip.

“I need a black marker,” said Lizzie.

“What for?” I asked.

“It needs a face.”

“Oh, you’re going to give your sun a face. That’s cool”

“No Momma, it’s not a sun. We’re making lions.”

So, we drew the faces and hung our really cool lions up in the window.

Moral of the story: Sometimes your kids have better ideas than you do.

Weekends: The Handwritten Note

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This weekend, it’s time to slow down a bit and re-discover a lost art, the handwritten note.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m horrible at writing notes. I’d love to be better at it, so I thought I’d help myself along.

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For inspiration, I found the book The Art of the Handwritten Note: A Guide to Reclaiming Civilized Communication by Margaret Shepherd. The book talks about the many reasons why it’s important to write a note and talks about the different types of notes you may find yourself writing. It touches on the thank you note, condolence note, congratulations note, the love note, and many others.

To help get inspired to write, I made some pretty note cards.

I don’t have step-by-step photos to show you the process, but it was very easy. I trimmed the front edge with my fancy-edged scissors, then cut some thin grosgrain ribbon to run across the bottom. I applied it with regular white glue. So easy and so cute!

I feel a little bit more equipped to write a handwritten note now. But, I wanted to make this as easy on myself as possible.

After I saw this post on The Sleepy Time Gal, I knew I needed a writing basket. I filled it with various note cards. I have thank you cards, blank cards, and even small pieces of card stock just in case the mood strikes to be artistic. I found a small notebook and turned it into an address book, so I wouldn’t have the excuse of not having an address. I also keep pens and pretty stamps in here, so I’m all ready to go.

The writing basket sits on my bedside table as reminder to sit down and write a note. It’s a nice reminder and something I hope I make more of an effort to do.

I’ll leave you with a quote I found in the book:

“Behold me going to write you as handsome a letter as I can. Wish me luck.”
Jane Austen to Francis Austen 1813

What are you doing this weekend?