Tall Painting

Supplies Required:
Wooden blocks (2 or 3 square blocks stacked on top of each other, or tall wooden blocks if you can find them)
Acrylic paints
A big piece of paper or cut up paper bag or something else to set the blocks on top of to catch the paint

The idea for this art project came from anothr website, which for the life of me I can't remember the name of.  If I do, I will pass it along--it has lots of fun art project and other creative ideas.  I bought all of the supplies I  needed at Michael's. I am on their e-mail list, so I get coupons e-mailed to me every week.  They often have 30% and 40% off coupons.  I used one of those coupons to buy the wooden  blocks.  I found the perfect blocks for this project in the unfinished wood section of the store.  The tall blocks came in a package of three, and they were for whittling.  They were pretty pricey (I think it may have been $7.00 or $8.00) but with a good coupon, it wasn't a bad deal at all.  I managed to find acrylic paints that were on clearance (they had a bunch of different colors on clearance when I was there) so I got the paints for $0.29 and $0.49 a piece.  All in all, the project ended up being just under $5.00.

This is a fun (but very messy) project that I think would appeal to kids of varying ages.  I easily could have done this project with E when she was 2, or maybe even 18 months (if I thought I could have kept the mess at least somewhat under control).  Basically,  you set the block (or blocks, if you have smaller blocks stacked on top of each other) on a large piece of paper or something else that will catch paint spills.  Then, let your child pick a paint color and squeeze paint over the top of the block so that it runs down the sides.  Keep doing this with different colors until the block is covered.  It creates a neat effect (although ours didn't turn out quite as well as the one I saw on the website I got the idea from), and it was fun for E to be able to squeeze out paint.  Of course, that's also one of the downsides of the project, that it does use up quite a bit of paint!  After E was finished "painting" the block, we took smaller pieces of paper and made prints out of the paint that had dripped onto the big piece of paper.  We basically just set the paper face down in the paint, and then picked it up and set it somewhere to dry.  (If you skip the print-making, this project is not QUITE as messy.) 

I should give one warning about this project:  Do not attempt it on 5 hours of sleep, as I did.  Paint somehow ended up on the carpet (probably because I idiotically had E do the project on her little white table that is in our living room rather than having her do it in the kitchen) and cleaning paint off the carpet is an especially frustrating task when you are exhausted!  Of course, the carpet in our living room is already a huge disaster, so it was really not a big deal.  (Stay tuned for the "painting carpet" project we will no doubt engage in some day right before we get new carpet or new laminate flooring.)
This project would be a great activity to do in the driveway on a nice day.  (We did this project in the evening after I got off work, making doing it outside an impossibility.  See the gorgeous green backdrop out the window, one of the reasons I fell in love with our house?  That also means lots of mosquitos on summer evenings!)

Bean Box

Advanced Preparation Required:  Yes
Supplies Required:
Dry beans
Scoops or other containers
Box (cardboard or plastic)
Bowl (optional)

There is a kids' play place nearby that we take E and W to.  The play place has a table that is filled with dry rice and toys.  E has literally spent 45 minutes at a time playing with the rice table.  So a few months before her brother W was born, E's grandmother and I made her a bean box.  We bought a plastic box from Target (I tried to look for something that was deep enough, but not too big so we wouldn't need to buy tons and tons of beans for it) and then bought several bags of dry beans.  Here is a picture of the box to get an idea of the depth of it:

We filled the box halfway full of beans, and then put measuring cups inside that I had purchased from the dollar store.  We picked out a variety of different beans, which made it more colorful.  E loved the bean box from the first time she played with it.  She loved scooping the beans with the cups, transferring them from the box to a bowl, and later, she started burying things (such as Little People) in the beans and then digging them out.  Sometimes she would bury things in the beans and have me find them, or vice versa.  I like the bean box much better than if we had done a rice box.  Rice is cheaper, but it is MUCH harder to clean up because the pieces are so little.  Although this project is on the pricier size (due to having to buy several bags of beans), the cost can be reduced by using a cardboard box instead of buying one.  E has gotten hours and hours of fun out of her bean box.  When we are in the car, E sometimes pretends to call Grandma or Grandpa (I play Grandma or Grandpa).  Almost every time, when I ask her what she did that day, she says "I played with my bean box."  (Even though she hasn't.)  So even when it's not being used, it's being talked about.

 

A Kid-Sized Waterfall

Just a few miles down the highway from us is a national recreation area where we like to hike.  Last summer my husband and I took E there with the intent of letting her play in the river that runs beside part of the trail.  However, it had recently rained and the river was too cloudy to let E play in.  So instead, we found a little creek with a small waterfall and let her play in that instead.  E has always loved playing in running water, and the creek's waterfall was the perfect size for her.  She loved finding leaves and sending them down the waterfall, and she also loved throwing rocks in the little pool at the base of the waterfall.  She had so much fun that we took her back one weekend in September when her grandmother came to visit.  This time we brought a bucket with us and some bathtub toys.

Today we went back to the same creek to let E and W play.  They loved sitting on top of the waterfall.  W spent most of his time splashing, and E filled up the bucket we brought.  We also sent some toy boats down the waterfall.  I love doing this activity with the kids because they have such a great time, and it's completely free (other than the $20 yearly parking pass for the national recreation area, which I am happy to pay).





E's Restaurant

Requires advanced preparation:  Yes

Supplies required:
Play food
Camera
Paper

Additional optional supplies:
Play plates/silverware/cups (or you could use real items)
Calculator or play cash register
Fake credit card
Something to put the "bill" in, such as an old checkbook holder
Tray
Contact paper to laminate the menu (or you can go to a copy store such as Kinko's and get it laminated)

About a month ago, I asked E if she wanted to play restaurant.  I described to her what it involved, and she seemed excited about the idea.  First, we gathered all of her play food and some of her play plates.  We then put meals together and arranged them on the plates.  I took pictures of each meal.  I then downloaded the pictures onto our computer and made a menu using Microsoft Word.  I kept it simple, with a basic decription of the meal, a price, and a small picture.  I went through each meal and asked E what the price should be.  As you'll be able to see from the picture, eating at E's Restaurant can be fairly cheap or super-expensive, depending on what you order!  Her ravioli must come with a gold sauce.  I printed out the menu, which was 2 pages.  I printed it out double-sided so it was only one piece of paper.  I then took it to Kinko's to laminate it.  (They have a self-help lamination machine there; I believe the cost per page is $1.95 or something like that; I made two copies of the menu.  It actually didn't end up costing me anything because the Kinko's guy didn't charge me for it.  And no, I wasn't wearing anything tight or low-cut, so I have no idea why he was so nice.  Perhaps it was just laziness on his part.)  Here is the back page of the menu:

After the menus were finished, I showed E how to play.  I was the hostess/server/chef first.  I showed her to a table (which happens to be the only table at the restaurant--it's a little while table she has).  I gave her a menu and asked her what she wanted.  I wrote down her order on a paper tablet.  I then went and got the food and put it on plates.  Our real estate agent gave us a serving tray as a present when we moved into this house, so I put the food on the serving tray and brought it to E.  I think this is one of her favorite things about playing restaurant--carrying things on the tray.  I got her more food (she was apparently very hungry), and then totaled up her order on a calculator and told her how much she owed.

When it was time for E to be the hostess/server/chef, the restaurant was a lot less formal (as to be expected with a 3-year-old!)  She showed me to a table (it was cute listening to her tell me that there was a lovely table by the window, something I had said) and took my order.  She brought me some of the things I asked for, and didn't bring me other things I asked for.  She informed me that she was out of burritos.  Then, awhile later, she brought me a burrito and told me that it had been hiding.  E then just had a great time bringing me a bunch of food on the tray, and the menu part of the restaurant was forgotten. 

We have played restaurant a few times since, and I think it's a great role-playing activity.  It could easily be played with more kids, so there would be more customers, servers, chefs, etc.  It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, depending on the children's ages and/or interest level.  If you already have play food and a camera, then this activity is very cheap.  If you don't have play food, you could use real food.  If you don't have a camera and/or computer and/or printer or don't want to hassle with it, you could just draw/write a menu on a piece of paper. 

Some additional things you could do with the activity that I did not do with E:

• Have the child dress up as a chef, either with a chef's dress-up outfit (Melissa and Doug make one that's cute: http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Chef-Role-Costume/dp/B002F9NH68/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311616486&sr=8-1) or just use an apron or other things you might have around the house
• After the customer is finished with the food, wash the dishes (either in the real kitchen sink or give the child a bucket or big bowl of water to do it in); E's grandmother got her a washing dishes sink for her birthday that we could use for this purpose:  http://www.amazon.com/iPlay-Doin-Dishes-Kitchen-Sink/dp/B001R94LWQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1311616529&sr=1-1

Introduction

I am the mother of two children, E (3 years old) and W (9 months old).  I work full-time, and my husband stays at home with our children.  I decided to start this blog in order to write about the activities that I do with E and W.  I plan to use it as a resource when W gets older, so I can remember some of the things E particularly enjoyed doing at various ages.  Hopefully, it will also give my readers some ideas for things they can do with their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, students, etc. (assuming someone else besides my husband and mother read this...okay, perhaps my husband reading it is a stretch).

When I was a child, I didn't have a DVD player in the car.  My family didn't get a computer until I was in 5th grade, and we didn't have the Internet (AOL dial-up) until my senior year in high school.  Although E and W won't be able to believe it when I tell them (just like I didn't believe that my dad trekked through 6-foot high piles of snow for 10 miles to get to school), I somehow managed to survive.  Kids spend a lot more time in front of screens now, and the toys are more high-tech--it seems like they all make noise, move, light up, or all of the above.  I am definitely not against technology.  E and W definitely have toys that make noise, move, and light up.  E has lately started watching an episode of Curious George in the afternoons, and she has some Berenstain Bear DVDs.  She also plays some games on her grandmother's I-pad.  However, I vowed to myself even before E and W were born that I would encourage them to use their imaginations.  To create, pretend, explore.  To get messy, even if that sometimes means ruining an outfit. 

As part of a single-income family, it is important for me to find activities for E and W that won't be too expensive.  Although I can't promise that all of the activities I will write about on this blog are low- or no-cost (sometimes the expense is worth it), hopefully most of them will be.

If anyone tries out any of these activities (or variations of these activities), I'd love to hear about your experience...feel free to leave comments!  Thanks for reading.