Creative Family Fun

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Outdoor Play

Nature Scavenger Hunt, sort of

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We were feeling a bit cooped up one day last week. The girls were driving each other (and me) crazy and honestly, we were all bored.The evening promised to be more of the same since my hubby had an after-work work activity to go to. This just wouldn’t do!

I had our summer bucket list on my mind and nature scavenger hunts were particularly appealing. The only problem, time. We needed out of the house and fast! I most certainly didn’t want to take the time to prep a scavenger hunt.So, we did the next best thing. After packing up a quick picnic dinner, we piled in the car to one of our local parks and declared ourselves treasure hunters. We were going to go hunting for nature treasures.

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All the gold and diamonds in the world could not compare with all the cool sticks we found. We don’t have any mature trees in our yard, so we’re not playing with sticks on a daily basis. But, the park we chose was full of fun sticks. We found long ones, short ones, thick ones, crooked ones and skinny ones. We even made a small collection to take back home. You’ve got to have sticks to play with, right?

I even tried my best to get the girls to pose in front of this stone chimney, but apparently they weren’t quite into the idea of posing… there were treasures to find!

Shape Hopscotch

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I refilled our “Go Outside” cards this week, since they were such a hit (actually, I have to confess to remaking the whole thing since the first set mysteriously got torn in half!)One of the new cards was “Play Shape Hopscotch.” I had been trying to think of ways to help AJ learn her shapes when the idea for shape hopscotch popped in my head. Why not replace the traditional hopscotch board with a series of shapes?

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I drew basic shapes in a line, the girls found their hopscotch rocks and started playing.

They threw their rock, announced the shape it landed in, near, or first bounced in (whichever was applicable) and started jumping. The rules were loose and they had a blast.

I should have brought a book outside with me because they most certainly did not need my participation with this game… at least, they did not need my participation after I drew the board.

It was free. It was easy. It was fun. Aren’t those the best activities?

Go Outside

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This week, I decided to kick-start our creativity a bit when it comes to outside play.This is nothing mind-blowing, but it did add an element of surprise and fun to our day.

I grabbed an envelope, five index cards and our big box of crayons (only because I love drawing with crayons)! I added an outdoor activity to each index card.

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I added: blow bubbles, make mud pies, play hopscotch, go for a walk, and play in the sprinklers.They are all simple, but fun activities for us to do outside.

I put them all in the envelope until it was time to choose. I turned all the cards upside down and had Lizzie choose one for the day.

Today’s activity was “go for a walk.” She loved the surprise and looked forward to it all morning!

Our “Go Outside” cards definitely did the trick in getting us outside and playing.The possibilities are endless and I’m sure I’ll try this again if I feel we need a push to do something a little different.

Here are some other fun card ideas:

Go to the park
Have outdoor story time
Draw with sidewalk chalk
Have a water balloon fight
Go on a picnic
Go rock collecting
Throw Frisbees
Go for a bike ride
Jump rope
Play tag

Go outside and have fun!

Our Sunflower Playhouse

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One of our ongoing projects this summer has been a sunflower playhouse.

We dug up one corner of our fenced-in backyard and planted both sunflower and bean plants. We then defined the area with a border of river rocks. The end goal is to have a fun and natural outdoor playhouse for the girls.

It’s not much to look at… yet. But, the sunflowers are getting bigger and bigger and now we’re starting to see flower buds.

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Most of the flowers are AJ’s height. But, at least one is almost Lizzie’s height!

If the sunflowers are exciting enough yet, we always have rocks to play with!

The walls of our playhouse are getting taller and taller everyday. I think I’m about as eager as the girls are to see the sunflowers start blooming. But, until then, we have plenty to play with and explore in that corner of our yard.