Nature

We try to take walks about 3 times a week with the girls. Its burns some calories for Mama after dinner, and it gets that last bit of energy out so they crash at bedtime.

Well our walk time has turned into Riley's collection time of rocks, leaves, sticks, acorns, flowers, you name it.

I was getting tired of finding them all around the house and the washer from putting them in her pockets, hence " My Nature Collection"

She can dump everything in there. She tried to get me to keep it in her room. No way. It stays in the backyard.

I used a big giant empty can, but you could use a shoebox or a jar or something. Get some craft paper, write some words and easy peasy. All that nature stuff is out of your hair.

Q-Tip Painting

If you don't want to buy really nice paint brushes, then have your kids destroy them -
Try this:

Cut up your egg carton, get out your q-tips, and cotton balls

Decorate this cute (giant) can to put all you paints in, and put it somewhere high, so your kids can't get to it!

Tape a piece of paper to the table - if you have kids like mine, this is a must!

Let them go to town!

All About Hands

This takes about 5-10 minutes, and my kids loved it, I was surprised at how attentive they were.

I started by singing a little song we heard at the library:

I have ten little fingers and they all belong to me

I can make them do things, just you watch and see!

I can open them wide, I can shut them up tight

I can put them together, I can make them hide!

I can raise them up high, I can bring them down low

I can fold them together and place them just so. (in their lap)

(you could also do, where is thumbkin)

Then I had them count all their fingers.

Then I asked them questions about what kinds of things they do with their hands. It was really cute to hear their answers!

Next,get into your stash of colored construction paper (if you don't have any, go buy some, in BULK!)

Let them choose a color, trace their hands, then let them color them in.

Don"t forget to have them write their name at the top, or use this opportunity to teach them.

On another day do the same thing, but: All About Feet

I hung them up on the door out to our garage, and they loved putting their hands up on them and talking about who's hands were bigger or smaller.

Colored Bubbles

She did this in preschool. They mixed a little food coloring with bubbles, then let them blow them onto the paper! When they dried, it looked like this. I thought this was fun, because I always have bubbles and I always have food coloring! I thought it would be fun to make a few different colors and make a colorful Thanksgiving Turkey, or a green Christmas tree, or a colorful easter egg, or a...you get the point.

MInerva the Monster

We checked a listening story out at the library. The book was called "Minerva the Monster" It was a really cute book. In the book, Minerva made a monster face out of a paper plate, and went around scaring everyone. So, we decided to do it too. Poor little Chloe, cried and ran every time "Minerva the Monster"came near.

(Of course, I made her write her name on the back for practice)


Materials:

**If you wanted to, you could make it way cooler with glitter, pom-poms, and all sorts of more crafty stuff than I used

Paper Plate

Markers or crayons
Paper or cardboard for the ears

Ribbon to tie around childs head (elastic would be better, but I didn't have any)

...and off she goes a scarin'

Ice Sculptures

This is the second activity of our rainy day. I saw it on PBS kids. Here's how ya do it:

1. Find a bunch of different containers
2. Fill them with water
3. Freeze them overnight or longer
4. Lay a towel on the table, get some tools from the kitchen
(I used a fork, a wood skewer, a spoon , a paint brush, & some bowls with food coloring)
5. Pop the ice out and let them at it! We stacked them, pushed them around the table like a hockey puck, painted them, poked and prodded them, and towards the end Riley was sucking on the ice cubes.

At first, she wasn't super fond of this, she only spent about 15 minutes on it. We left to the store and I left it on the table, when we got back, she went and played with it for about 45 minutes, I'd say that's some good time for Mom!

ValentinePurse

I found this little activity in Family Fun Magazine, although theirs was a lot better. Today is a very rainy day,(as you can tell, she's still in her jammies) so we will do another activity later. Now Riley has a place to put the Valentines she got from friends and Grandparents, then later use the purse for dress up.

the materials are:

Felt ( I think it was 27 cents a square at Michaels)
Scissors

Whole punch

Ribbon or Yarn

Simply poke holes in both hearts in the same spots, then loop your ribbon through. Use the excess ribbon to make a handle for the purse and tie in a knot at the top.

( Great activity for developing their fine motor skills)

December Activities

My Mom gave me a cute choo choo train advent calender this year, where you open a box each day and there is an activity to do with your kids. So, this will take over for the month of December. Here are 2 of the activities we've done so far.

We made cards for all our Grandparents. I just got out some old die-cuts, we glued them on and she colored on them. Then we practiced writing her name inside...definitely a work in progress!

Today it said to make a star for the tree. Do you remember doing that tissue thing in school, where you wrapped a square of tissue around your pencil, dipped it in glue, and made a beautiful design on some construction paper? This was a 2 year old version, we just cut up some paper and she dipped it in glue and put it on the star. I also made sure to talk to her about what the star meant to Christmas.

Finger Paints

A little messy, but way fun for the little ones. Nothing interesting to add, its just a great activity for a rainy day. I did use this opportunity to teach her how to rinse the brush off, before using another color. This also went up on the door, so I could show her how proud I was of what she drew.

Leaf Activity

Fall has arrived finally in San Jose, so I thought we could do something with all the leaves outside. We got a bag, collected as many leaves as R liked.
When we first dumped them out, I had her sort them into piles of similar shape and color. Then I showed her how to do a leaf rubbing, (being 2 she had a hard time holding the crayon right, so I did hand over hand with it). She kept wanting to put the leaves on the paper, so I gave her some tape and then just had her tape the leaves on, she really liked this!