Summer Bucket List: Challenge

I recently joined a summer bucket list challenge which means I needed to make a bucket list! My plan is to write a list and then create new blog posts to go with them when I finish one and then link it up to the list. So here goes.

1. Library Summer Reading Programs
2. Star gazing
3. Camping (even if it is in the back yard)
4. Daily journal for the 5 year old, picture for the two year old
5. Eat a Rainbow Challenge
6. Summer scavenger hunt
7. Run in the sprinkler
8. Plant child friendly garden
9. Dinosaur eggs
10. Mountain dew glow bottle
11. Forts!
12. Pick Strawberries
13. Pick Raspberries, marionberries, blueberries, peaches
14. Watch fireworks
15. Catch bugs and talk about parts of an insect, draw pictures of them
16. Popsicle stick puzzles
17. Have a tea party, invite kids friends
18. Go to the fish hatchery
19. Make Moon Sand
20. Make playdoh
21. Photo shoot of the kids with funny props
22. cloud watching/naming-talk about weather cycle
23. Make a volcano
24. Go visit Mt. St. Helens (active volcano)
25. Balloon tennis
26. diversity with eggs
27. moon cycles with oreos (this will be a major treat for my kids!)
28. Make dry erase letter tracers/word tracers
29. Pick an animal day
30. Play hotel
31. Use vinegar to blow up balloons
32. Make animals out of hand and foot prints
33. Picnic
34. Kayaking
35. World learning day
36. Yoga 2 times a week
37. Fly our kite
38. Bubble snakes
39. Make humming bird feeder
40. Sandpaper art grocery bags
41. Water fight!
42. Family contribution chart (chore chart by another name)
43. Eye spy bottle
44. Go swimming
45. Load and Tote (see http://creativewithkids.com/toddlerhood-the-load-and-tote-phase/)
46. Build with blocks/knock them down
47. Go to the farmers market
48. Fill the sensory table with something new at least every other week if not more
49. Homemade shrinky dinks (http://creativewithkids.com/recycled-plastic-shrinky-dinks/)
50. Yarn obstacle course in the hall
51. Bubble painting
52. Do at least 10 science projects (ideas: http://blogs.babble.com/the-new-home-ec/2012/06/04/25-at-home-science-experiments/)
53. Giant ice cube dig
54. Fairies in a jar
55. make ice cream
56. water balloon target practice
57. sidewalk chalk
58. baseball game
59. glow bubbles
60. beach
61. Make pie
62. Go to a concert in the park
63. Hula hoop
64. Learn to ride bike without training wheels (5 year old)
65. Go to OMSI
66. Go to a theme park
67. See a waterfall
68.  Make rocket packs
69. Watch a meteor shower
70. Make gak

I reserve the right to add to this list as I see fit ;)


Thanks to Cuegly for many of these ideas. Pintrest is awesome too! Keep in mind that this list will get filled in with links/pictures as I go (and maybe more ideas).

Getting Outside, Good For Everyone

One of my person favorite things to do during the spring with my kids is to get outside and go on a walk. Using the sunny days to renew my energy and fill me with warmth as well as getting my kids some much needed time to burn off steam after strings of rainy days.

There are many benefits to getting outside other than just a chance to see the beauty of the day and get my kids tucker out. A few benefits may include getting vitamin D needed for keeping us healthy and happy, it helps with absorption of calcium, keeps our brain working, helps keep our mood up, may help prevent cancer, and more. Although you can get Vitamin D from food sources why not get it from outside where it naturally and directly comes into our bodies? Also recent research has shown that getting out in nature for 20 minutes may help decrease attention and behavior problems as much as medical treatments. (Do not take my word for this. Please research it on your own if you are suffering from any problems that require medications.)

There are also numerous learning opportunities for little curious minds when you are outside. You can stop and listen for changing sounds, look for movement caused by animals or wind, talk about the ecosystem and how each part works with every other part. Talk about similarities between the things you see and differences as well. How are plants and animals the same, what is different about the insect you just saw and the worm?

One place I have really enjoyed taking the kids (so you can go if you live near by) is a national wildlife refuge called Steigerwald Lake. This is a great easy walk with lots to see and provides a very different ecological system from the forest lake near where we live.

I highly recommend checking it out they have made if very kid friendly with little statues around the walk for added interest. Or if you do not live near by try to find a Wildlife Refuge near you.

You can sort of see Mt. Hood in the distance there.

Don't forget snack time.

Looking and the salamander statue

You may not get very far during your walk, but that is not really the point right? In a previous post I talked about doing a scavenger hunt and that is a great activity to take on a walk like this. Have fun, sunny days are coming more and more as summer draws near (yeah).

There are a few more photographs from this day at my photography blog, http://emiliabrasierphotography.wordpress.com/tag/steigerwald-lake/

What is your favorite walk around your area?

Scavenger Hunt

With Earth day coming up I starting thinking about what would be a good way to explore the outside and learn a little bit about the Earth. A while back my kids and I went on a scavenger hunt while on a walk at our local lake. We did this as a way to get outside and explore. I created a little book with each page containing a number (starting at one on page one) and something to search for.

Found a pine cone!

When the kids found one of these things we put a sticker on that page so that we could remember what we had found. We did not fill the entire book because we got distracted by the joy of throwing rocks into the lake but we got a good chunk of the way done and enjoyed finding the different things along our walk.

Another pine cone

Something hard

Another something hard

This is a great activity to help with identifying different aspects of our surroundings. You can use things that you are working on with your kid like colors, weight, texture, length, the possibilities are endless. This is a great aide for learning about almost anything. I made up a little scavenger hunt that would work for just about any day but has a couple of things that lend to making a good list for Earth Day like finding litter (why not take a bag to pick some up along the way, and talk about why it is important not to litter) and finding things that need water (such an important limited resource that ALL living things need to survive and one thing that makes Earth so special).

Here is an example of a scavenger hunt list. You can print this out (I hope) and use small stickers to mark off when you find one of the things on the list.

 Most of all have fun getting outside and exploring :)

Cherry Blossoms Craft

Before I get into the craft part of this post I just wanted to show you the hair cut that my son decided to give my daughter. The day before I had finally gotten all of her hair up into pigtails which made this event very sad for me :( However, it will grow back and it looks okay now (I just really liked the pig tails).

 So we went to get her the first real hair cut she has ever had that morning. I told my husband (and several friends), I think it is payback for when I gave a friend a hair cut when I was about the same age as my son is now. You can see what it ended up looking like in the next set of photos. 

On to the craft. 

This is a really easy craft that is perfect for spring. We ended up doing this on spring equinox instead of what I had been planning because it was snowing that day (that was unexpected). 

Supplies you need:

Background paper (like white or light blue construction paper but you can use what you like)
Paper bag or brown construction paper
Pink tissue paper (or whatever colors you like)
Glue
Scissors

• Cut a strip of paper from the paper bag that will be the trunk of the tree so it should be about 1/3 the height of the background paper and about an inch wide. 
• Cut out branches from the paper, they need to fit on the paper coming off the trunk, ours were anywhere from 2-5 inches long and about 1/4-1/2 inch wide. 
• Crinkle the branches and trunk to give the texture like bark. 
• Glue them onto the background paper

• Crinkle up small bits of tissue paper and glue them onto the branches. 

Some things to talk about while you are doing this craft. 

• Discuss how spring is when the trees start to get flowers and leaves again. 
• Talk about the part of the tree: the roots, trunk, branches, flower, leaves. 
• Talk about other plants that are growing during spring like tulips, daffodils, grass (are you having to mow the lawn again yet?)
• Talk about how animals start to get more active at this time of year. Bees come out and start gathering the nectar from flowers pollinating them, birds start making nests and laying eggs, geese travel north again, bears come out of hibernation, etc. 

All that talking makes this simple craft a vocabulary builder and an opportunity to learn about science too! This craft also is great for fine motor skills.  

Most of all have fun! 

Subscribe or follow by e-mail now so you don't miss out on more fun crafts and much more from Blogging with Children.

Have fun!
 

 

Pattern Practice with Fruit

Okay who does not love fruit kabobs? I mean really what is not to love, fresh, healthy, pretty, tasty, I could go on and on. Recently we took the chance to make some fruit kabobs out of very simple ingredients and found that this is a wonderful way to work on patterns. 

Recognizing patterns and creating them is a very important skill to learn and it is something that preschools will usually be teaching children. You can make patterns just about anywhere with anything and it can provide a good source of entertainment too. What better way to work on pattern learning than using fruit (a healthy snack) and making a kabob. Not only will kids find this a fun and yummy activity but it will also help develop fine motor control and provide an educational experience. 

For these kabobs you could use any fruits that you have available and be as creative as you would like. We used grapes, apples cut into small chunks, and a pepino which has white and purple skin. We used popsicle sticks instead of skewers and they worked out just fine.  

Some ideas for this activity:

~ make a few skewers with some missing pieces of fruit and then have your child add the missing pieces in the correct order

~ allow the child to make their own pattern (that is what mine did)

~tell the child part of a pattern and have them create the rest on the popsicle stick

~draw out some pattern cards with colors of the fruit and have the children draw a card and create that card. 


What kind of pattern activities do you do with kids? 

Itching for Spring-UPDATE

About a week ago I wrote about my kids doing an indoor planting project to help spring come a little faster at our house. You can read the whole thing here. Well I just wanted to pass on a little update on how those little seeds are coming along.


I have to say that I still get so much joy and excitement from seeing seeds/bulbs starting to sprout! Oh the little joys in life right? They are getting taller now and we are going to need to thin them out (as you can tell there are a lot of them, that is what happens when little hands are allowed to plant seeds).

 I have also noticed that many trees around here are starting to get little flower buds, my lilac is starting to get leaves at an amazingly fast pace, and Territorial Seed Company says it is almost time to plant peas! Now I really need to get on deer proofing my raised beds stat! 

I was also given an amazon gift card last year and was supposed to get this little green house thing: 
                                            


Has any one used this? If I end up getting it I will let you know how it is. I think this would make starting plants inside much more feasible.


What are you doing to prepare for spring?