Terri Thompson

Water Play Ideas for Toddlers

April 18, 2018 By Terri Thompson

When the weather is warm, there isn’t anything more fun than water.

Kids can splash, swim, and have loads of fun while they’re playing. You can keep it simple with a small bin of water (or even the bathtub). Or, you can have fun with one of these water play ideas for toddlers.

Splash and have fun with one of these water play ideas for toddlers. You can play indoors and outdoors with these fun sensory play ideas.

I selected these activities for toddlers because they were fun, simple, and appropriate for your 2 and 3 year olds. But, it’s very important to supervise your child carefully while playing with water. In addition, some of these activities use small items. You know your child best, so only choose an activity that is appropriate for them.

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What is water play?

What exactly is water play? Basically, it’s a fun and open-ended sensory activity that uses water.

You can incorporate all sorts of learning activity into water play such as fine motor, scooping and pouring, color mixing, counting, etc.

It’s fun, sometimes messy, and can be done inside and out!

Are you ready to have some fun?

Water Sensory Bins for Toddlers

Get out the rubber duckies for this fun Pond Sensory Bin from In Our Pond.

Add lemons to the water for a fun Lemon Sensory Bin from Fantastic Fun and Learning.

Play with letters in water with this fun Alphabet Sensory Bin from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds. These awesome letters and numbers from Little Tikes are perfect for using with water!

Combine flower petals with water for this Flower Petal Sensory Play idea from Fantastic Fun and Learning.

Add some sharks to water for this fun Shark Sensory Bin from Mommy’s Bundle.

Have fun scooping with this fun and simple Scooping Blocks Sensory Bin from My Bored Toddler.

Play with sand and water with this fun Ocean Sensory Bin from Fun Learning for Kids.

Practice sorting colors with this fun Color Sorting Water Bin from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds.

Large plastic bins are perfect to use for indoor water play. Try a plastic underbed storage bin. It’s shallow, for easy access and has a lid so an adult can move it with minimal mess. Put a large beach towel underneath to soak up any spills.

Outdoor Water Fun for Toddlers

Have fun painting with water with this low-mess and super-fun outdoor activity from Mama Smiles.

Get out the hose and spray at targets with this fun idea from Busy Toddler.

Water the alphabet flowers with this fun driveway activity from Fun Learning for Kids.

Get out the water sprinklers and have some fun using these tips from Rhythms of Play.

Throw some fun Sponge Water Bombs with this fun idea from Messy Little Monster.

Paint your driveway with water with this fun idea from Hands On As We Grow.

An outdoor water table is a great investment for water play. You can choose a simple water table or a fun, themed water table like this pirate ship.

More Water Play Ideas for Toddlers

Keep it simple with some pouring and scooping with our water play for toddlers idea.

Exercise your fine motor skills with this fun Pom Pom Squeeze Water Play idea from Fantastic Fun and Learning.

Add some ice to water for this fun scooping and transferring activity from Busy Toddler.

Try some simple science when you see what will sink and what will float with this fun idea from Rainy Day Mum.

Practice pouring with this fun Pouring Station idea from Busy Toddler.

Go Fishing for Numbers in the water table with this idea from Buggy and Buddy.

This toy washing station from Busy Toddler is always a popular and fun idea!

Experiment with a simple Water Wall with this fun idea from There’s Just One Mommy.

Scoop and pour these fun edible water beads from The Art Kit.

Save your bottle caps for this fun Bottle Cap Soup idea from School Time Snippets.

Float some Sponge Sailboats in water with this fun idea from Easy Peasy and Fun.

Grab some squirt bottle so you can Squirt the Numbers with this fun idea from Days with Grey.

Which of these water play ideas for toddlers do you want to try with your kids?

Do more activities with your kids!

Join our fun Facebook community, Creative Family Fun for Busy Families, for daily activities that are great for kids and families. We’ll chat, share, and have fun. It’s a safe and private place to share ideas for family and kids activities.

I’d love for you to join me! Just click the link below, request to join, and answer the questions (they’re easy, I promise). Come join the fun! Join the Creative Family Fun for Busy Families community here.

Fun Ways to Help Your Local Animal Shelter

April 10, 2018 By Terri Thompson

We’re a family of animal lovers. We have two pets of our own (a dog and a cat) and are always looking for ways to help other animals.

One of the best ways is through our local animal shelter. Supporting your animal shelter (or Humane Society) is a great way to make a difference in your own community.

Whether you volunteer to walk dogs, pet cats, or make monetary donations, every little bit helps. Here are some fun ways your family can do together to help your local animal shelter.

It’s so valuable to spend time together as a family doing service projects. Are you ready to help some animals? We are!

Fun Ways to Help Your Local Animal Shelter

Make a Birthday Donation

My kids’ wish lists are getting shorter and shorter over the years because they have so many things. So, if you’re anything like us, use your next birthday to help raise money for your local animal shelter.

Instead of gifts, ask your friends to bring a small donation or, if you don’t want to ask for money, ask them to bring dog toys, cat litter, cat toys, food, scratching posts, rawhides, or collars.

Check with your local shelter for specifics. Most have wish lists available online or will provide you one if you call.

Volunteer Together

Animal shelters can always use volunteers. You can walk dogs, pet cats, help clean, or even stuff envelopes. There are plenty of jobs for volunteers.

But, it’s likely that your local animal shelter has an age limit for volunteering so check first. If you child is old enough, go visit the animals together. This is a great way to spend family time with a tween or teen!

If your kids are still too young, there are plenty of other ideas in this post that they can do!

Collect old blankets or towels

Start a small donation drive to collect blankets and towels. Shelters can use these in so many ways.

Go through your home and see what you can donate. Involve your kids and let them call grandma or grandpa to see if they have any old blankets or towels to donate. You can also ask other family members, neighbors or friends.

Finally bring the kids along when you drop your donations off so that they can see this service project from start to finish.

Start a small fundraising campaign

Brainstorm some ideas for ways you can raise money for your local animal shelter.

Have a bake sale, a garage sale, collect change, have a lemonade stand, or whatever your creative minds can come up with.

Involve the family from start to finish as you plan, implement, and have fun with a small fundraising campaign.

Go shopping!

Grab your local shelter’s wish list, set a budget, and go out shopping. Let your kids pick out items to donate while staying within the budget. Before you go home, stop off at the shelter to donate all your purchases.

Get crafting

Do you like to craft together with your kids? Why not make a few things with your kids to donate to your local animal shelter. Here are a few great options:

Simple No-Sew Fleece Blankets from Mama Smiles

T-Shirt Braided Dog Toy at Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Catnip Filled Junk Food Cat Toys at A Beautiful Mess

Felted Wool Balls at Happiness is Homemade

Dog Wreath Pull Toy at Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Foster an animal

If you’ve got the time and the space, your family can serve as a foster home for animals. Sometimes shelters don’t have enough space for all the animals that need help and could use your help.

This is a much bigger commitment than the other ways to help your local animal shelter, but it’s an incredibly valuable experience. If you are interested, contact your local shelter or rescue organization and they will help you determine if your family is a good fit for fostering and will often provide training.

What are some ways your family likes to help your local animal shelter?

Butterfly Symmetry Art with Warm and Cool Colors

April 2, 2018 By Terri Thompson

There are so many examples of symmetry in nature, from the perfectly matched halves of a leaf down to the tiny perfectly symmetrical snowflake.

One example that I find most beautiful is the butterfly. It was the perfect subject to use in this simple art project.

Not only did we explore symmetry, but we also explored the concept of warm and cool colors.

Keep reading to find out how we made our Butterfly Symmetry Art with Warm and Cool Colors.

Explore the concepts of symmetry and warm and cool colors with this simple and fun Butterfly Symmetry Art project for kids.

Supplies Needed:

White paper
Black paint
Paintbrush (a wide paint brush works best for this project)
Oil pastels

To prep this project, all you need to do is fold your white piece of paper in half.

Make your symmetry butterfly art

The first part of this project is all about symmetry.

Using only one half of your paper, paint half of a butterfly.

Do it quickly and don’t get too fancy. You don’t want your paint to start drying.

A simple way to start is to paint a thick black line next to your folded crease. Add one antennae coming from the top and then your wings. You don’t need to add too much detail at this point. You just want a simple butterfly shape.

Keep your paint thick – thicker than you normally would paint.

As soon as your butterfly half is done, refold your paper. Press the two sides together for at least a minute.

Unfold your paper and you’ll have a full butterfly!

My girls used the black paint to trace over some of their lines. They wanted thick black lines on each side.

You can do as they did or leave one side lighter than the other.

The next part of this butterfly symmetry art is all about warm and cool colors.

Have your kids learned the concept of warm and cool colors yet? Basically, you split your color wheel in half. The hemisphere with orange, yellow, and red are your warm colors and the hemisphere with purple, blue, and green are your cool colors.

For this project, we’re going to color half of our butterfly symmetry art with warm colors and the other half with cool colors.

There’s no right or wrong way to do this part of the project. You can get detailed like my oldest daughter who included snowflakes in the background of the cool half and suns in the background of the warm half.

Or, you can do like my youngest daughter who took a handful of each grouping of colors and combined all the colors together.

Add details to the butterfly wings. Use solid colors, stripes, or checks. Don’t forget, you can always color the back ground!

This butterfly symmetry art is a fun and easy art project to do at home to reinforce a couple of different concepts: symmetry and warm/cool colors.

My must-have kids art supplies

It’s easy to do fun art projects with you kids if you keep some simple art supplies on hand. Here are some that I recommend (and all you need for this simple butterfly painting):

Do you want to do more activities with your kids?

The Cutest Caterpillar Crafts for Kids

March 29, 2018 By Terri Thompson

Caterpillars are so cute, don’t you think?

I think they’re adorable in nature, but I also think they make some really cute crafts.

Here are the cutest caterpillar crafts for kids that I could find. Come check them out!

You can choose a paper craft or one made from recycled materials.

Grab the yarn or a supply of pom poms.

You can even try growing a caterpillar!

Whichever you choose, your kids are going to have so much fun with these crafts!

Cute Caterpillar Crafts

Get out your supply of pom poms to make our classic Pom Pom Caterpillar craft.

Use simple supplies to make this fun Caterpillar to Butterfly Craft from Mama Smiles. It’s so much fun to watch your caterpillar change into a butterfly!

Combine gardening with crafting to make a cute Cress Caterpillar like this from Rainy Day Mum.

Turn an egg carton into a super-cute caterpillar like this craft from Crafty Morning.

Make your school supplies a little bit more fun by making this simple Caterpillar Pencil Topper from Crystal & Co.

Use your hand prints to make a happy caterpillar with this fun idea from Fun Hand Print Art.

You can turn a paint stir stick into a cute caterpillar with this idea from No Time for Flashcards.

Get out the paint to make these adorable Cork-Printed Caterpillars from Sight and Sound Reading.

Make a colorful Caterpillar Suncatcher like this from Fireflies and Mud Pies.

Make a caterpillar out of paper chains like this fun idea from Where Imagination Grows.

Use paper circles to make this fun caterpillar from Easy Peasy and Fun.

Create a yarn-wrapped caterpillar with this fine motor craft from Kids Craft Room.

Make a cool 3-D caterpillar using this template from Easy Peasy and Fun.

Use buttons to make a very cute caterpillar like this from Books and Giggles.

Recycle a gift wrap tube into a cute caterpillar like this one from Toddler Approved. (There’s also a fun tutorial for a painted rock caterpillar.)

Which of these caterpillar crafts do you want to try with your kids?

If you enjoyed these Caterpillar Crafts for Kids, the above photo is perfect for sharing on Facebook or you can save the photo below on Pinterest.

Picnic Blanket Collage Kids Craft

March 28, 2018 By Terri Thompson

Now that the weather is at that perfect stage of not-too-hot and not-too-cold, picnics have been on the brain.

Don’t you just love picnic?

We recently celebrated our love of picnics with this picnic blanket collage which combined paper weaving and collage making.

Supplies Needed:

A variety of colors of construction paper

Scissors

Glue

Markers or crayons (optional)

Use paper weaving along with cutting and pasting to make this fun and simple Picnic Blanket Collage Kids Craft. It's an easy to make fun picnic-themed process art activity for kids.

How to make your Picnic Blanket Collage

I prepped the project by cutting the strips of white paper and the red paper.

First, I folded the red paper in half (and tried to avoid creasing it) and cut strips. I started at the fold and cut in, stopping an inch shy of the outer edge. You need to keep this sheet of paper whole.

The white strips need to be approximately the same width as the red strips.

We began this project by making our blanket.

The girls have never done paper weaving before, so I kept it simple with wide strips. (Note to self: Do more paper weaving. It’s fun!)

In and out, in and out and soon we had a couple of pretty blankets. To secure the white strips, we added a bit of glue to the ends and adhered them to the red paper.

We cut out some simple food shapes from colored construction paper.

We had yellow bananas, little blue circles for blueberries, orange circles for oranges, purple grapes, milk cartons, sandwiches from brown paper, and a couple of cute ants.

Keep it simple and keep it fun! If you don’t want to cut your own food shapes, you can also use magazine cut-outs, like this similar project from Reading Confetti.

We glued and glued until we had the perfect picnic, even with the ants!

We discovered that we love to bring fruit on picnics and also decided that we need to go on even more picnics!

Do you like to go on picnics? What is your favorite picnic food?

To adapt this for older kids: Have your older kids do all the cutting for the paper weaving part. Use thinner strips of paper for a more complicated, but still fun, paper weaving project.

If you enjoyed this Picnic Blanket Collage, the above photo is perfect for sharing on Facebook or you can save the photo below on Pinterest.