Creative Family Fun

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Learning Activities for Kids

LEGO Washing

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Sometimes all it takes is something simple. I need to remind myself of this often especially when my mind is full of activities and projects I want to plan for the girls.

The other night I needed something for the girls to do while I was cooking. They have a tendency to get directly underfoot while I’m prepping dinner, so on nights when having their help would less than helpful, I need something to keep them occupied.

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This is how LEGO washing was created. I set up a tray with a dish towel and gave each girl a washcloth and small bowl of water. They got right to work and loved every second of it. They washed up all the LEGOs they had in front of them and went back for more.

See how proud she looks! Needless to say, the mission was accomplished. I was able to cook in peace, the girls had fun and now all our LEGOs are squeaky clean. Sometimes simple really is better.

Space Basket

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After we retired our Hawaii basket, we replaced it with all sorts of fun things about space.The space basket was quite popular with the girls, so I kept it around longer than I planned.

I also discovered a very helpful side benefit to these theme baskets. It’s very easy to just grab it and go when I needed entertainment for the girls while we were waiting around for things like oil changes. We had a very pleasant waiting room time thanks to the space basket!

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I scoured some of my favorite blogs for fun stuff to put in the basket.Here’s what I came up with: space flashcards from the Target dollar aisle held together with a binder ring, planet/not planet sorting game from the Solar System preschool pack at 1+1+1=1, and rocket size sorting from the Astronaut preschool pack at 1+1+1=1.

I also made some simple counting cards. I wrote the numbers 1-10 on index cards and paired them with a pile of stars. The girls would take a card and count out the correct number of stars.

As always, I included a file folder with several space-themed coloring pages (not pictured).

And finally, for fun, we added our 4th of July headbands after determining that they looked like alien headbands.

I found so many great space books at our library, but finally narrowed it down to these five:

Floating Home by David Getz

The Planets by Gail Gibbons

The Magic School Bus Lost In The Solar System by Joanna Cole

If I Were an Alien by Vivan French(this was a favorite)

Shooting Stars by Franklyn M. Branley (which unfortunately appears to be out of print)

When it’s time to pack away the contents of our theme baskets, we usually have a day devoted to it’s contents. This time, we decided to celebrate with Galaxy play dough! Now we’re working on putting together a butterfly basket – should be fun!

I Love Dirt: Zoom In and Get Up Close

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After hearing so many good things about I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature by Jennifer Ward, I knew I had to track down a copy.The book promises 52 activities to help you and your kids discover the wonders of nature.

The activities are divided by season and are simple and effective. I found several ideas for the girls and I to do and was very interested in the winter section since that’s the time of year I avoid being outside as much as possible. I need all the help I can get when it comes to outdoor play in wintertime!

We took a cue from chapter 29, Zoom In, and took our magnifying glass outside. We headed to our sunflowers to take a look around.

I encouraged Lizzie to look all around to see if she discovered anything. I had also given her a small notebook and crayons so she could draw some of the different things she found.

She had a lot of fun looking at everything up close and was quite excited when she discovered a group of tiny ants crawling up the stalk.It was wonderful to see her excitement since she’s always been terrified of insects!

Whenever she found something that really interested her, she sat down and tried her hand at drawing it. She was quite the little explorer and moved on to other areas of our yard once she was finished with the sunflowers.

If you need a push outside or just some new ideas for studying nature, pick up a copy of I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature. It’s a wonderful book of ideas.

Story Stones

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Inspiration struck the other day and I decided to add some story stones to our sunflower playhouse. I’ve seen examples of these all over the Internet and figured I could make my own.

I took my Sharpie outside one day and pilfered some rocks from the rock border around our playhouse.

While the girls were playing, I started drawing. I decided on a fairy tale theme since both girls love fairy tales. In case you can’t figure out what I drew, here’s the breakdown: fairy tale cottage, wolf, dragon, horse, princess, castle, forest, tower, rose, ogre (giant, or any other scary creature), boat, cave, beanstalk. I also added a Lizzie stone and an AJ stone after they were requested.

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I’m hoping these will serve as story-telling prompts or just ideas to set the girls off to a different world with pretend play. They can set the scene like the one above where Lizzie leaves her cottage and rides her horse through the forest where she encounters a dragon.

Or, there’s always this story: AJ climbs a beanstalk and encounters a scary giant. I can’t wait to see what stories the girls come up with

On the Farm

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We’re having a bit of a low-key week this week.Last week completely got away from us and was much busier than I anticipated. We also did very little preschool-type activities and Lizzie let me know, in no uncertain terms, that she missed it.

So, this week, it’s all about the farm. Luckily, there are tons of already prepared materials out in blogland!

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Both girls love to play with these baby/parent farm animal cards I found at Counting Coconuts.The girls love looking at the pictures and matching them up. Their favorite way to play with them, though, is using them as a memory game. If you want your own set, you can find them here.

I didn’t need to do much, if anything, in setting up pretend play opportunities. Our barn, which is FULL of farm animals, has been getting a lot of mileage. It seems our house gets taken over regularly by “Super Cow,” a cow with a very loud moo who likes to terrorize the other farm animals!

I found these great images in the Farm Unit from Lawteedah. We’re using them with our felt board for storytelling, making pictures and just playing.We’re focusing on the animals on a farm and learning all sorts of little facts about them with just a little bit of letter writing practice thrown in as well.

I think this low-key week will be just what we need!