No Summer Brain Drain Ideas

Ahh, summer, relaxing, long days filled with nothing but what you want to do, swimming, playing, baseball, reading, and fun games.  No summer brain drain here.  There are so many activities to do with the kids that are fun, stimulating, and prevent them losing what they worked so hard to learn all school year.  I do some of our NSBDs during our quiet time and some during other parts of our days.  Some NSBD ideas include:
Rush Hour game by Think Fun--we have several Think Fun games and I highly recommend them
Deck of Cards (variety of games can be played and made up)--math facts
Tangrams--we have tangram manipulatives as well as some on our computer and iPad.  Here, here, and here are for the computer. The tangrams are fun to create pictures with and then trace around and color the picture in, create patterns, and grab a handful or two and create a bar graph with them.
Marbles--good for physics, counting, patterning, problem solving, graphing
Writing Codes--use shapes, numbers, mixed up letters, create a code and write secret messages

I recently found this mystery word idea and can't wait to use some Scrabble game pieces to set it up for the kids.

Source

Nature Walks--my goal is to do this at least weekly.  This fun nature scavenger hunt idea is flying around the web and I think we will have to use it as well as make up our own.

Creative Art--I've had fun giving the kids a variety of items and letting them create and play.  Last week the items found on our nature walk were used to create.  I, of course, had my idea of what they should make, but they each made their own creations, none of which were what I had in mind.  I've also given them some straws that I cut up in to various lengths and some pipe cleaners (not cut) and let them play.  The idea is not original to me, but I can't find where I got the idea :(

Have a great week and never stop learning...my Gen Psych class starts today!

Toddler Spring Bouquet

Spring has sprung!  I don't know why I never thought about this phrase more until this spring.  We've had warmer than normal weather occur here in Kansas.  Suddenly all the trees had blooms that in a week's worth of time had leaves explode out!  Now instead of sticks for trees we have fluffy green trees everywhere.  It's so rejuvenating and beautiful!  To have some fun with the season and some craft supplies we have on hand, Penelope and I made some flowers.

First, we gathered our supplies.  You'll need an empty egg carton, scissors, and pipe cleaners.

Cut each egg section apart and poke a small hole in the bottom of each section.

Next, thread a pipe cleaner through the hole.  This can get fancy by twirling the inner end of the pipe cleaner or by twisting two or more colored pipe cleaners together and then threading them through the hole.

Finally, the carton flowers can be decorated with markers, stickers, pom-poms, glitter, etc.

Welcome spring!

linked up at Momnivore's Dilemma

How Pinteresting!

Today I had Alexander home from school. He was slightly sick...okay, he probably could have and should have gone to school, but every now and then a sick day is okay.  He sure was helpful while we ran errands.  It was great having an extra set of hands to help :)  I thought I'd get in some fun learning for him so I turned to Pinterest for some ideas.  I've been collecting various Preschool activity ideas to do with Penelope, so I thought I'd look for some specific things for Alexander.  I've realized that if you are looking for something, pretty much anything, it'll be on Pinterest.  It's like Google with pictures and comments that you can sort and save!  I'm a Pinaholic, I admit it :)  So anyway, along with looking for things for Alexander I also thought I'd look up busy bags since a friend had inquired about them on Facebook.  I've made a few for Penelope and thought I'd do a specific search on Pinterest for the busy bags.  Oh my, there are some FANTASTIC ideas out there.
Take this one for example:

Toddler Busy Bags

This mom set up an exchange of busy bags with other people.  What a cool idea and way to get a variety of bags for little ones.
Here's another one that so simple, yet so much can be done with it.

Clothes Line Busy Bag

With the clothes line bag, patterning and sorting could be done, fine and gross motor skills are practiced, place the tops and bottoms on a piece of paper and then draw heads, arms, legs and shoes.  So much fun in one bag!
And here's another one that has many fun ideas, but that are all in the same theme with more focus on learning. (This blog has so many things that I like, I've been getting her emails for quite a while now.)

Themed Busy Bags

So many fun ideas out there!  I love these busy bags because I already have so many of the items around the house.  Now I need to come up with some that would work for the boys!

Fantastic Kid Craft Site

How many TP roles do you and your family go through?  Do you throw them away or recycle them?  Last week John Paul's theme at preschool was Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  We've recycled here at home for several years, so it's really nothing new for us...or so I thought.  John Paul must have really tuned in to Ms Jan when she talked about the Reuse part.  He won't let me put anything in the recycle bin because he thinks it's all getting thrown away.  I had to explain that no, it was all being taken to be recycled, made in to new things.  He insisted that we could reuse everything.  So, after making a few music boxes out of tissue and cereal boxes I knew I needed to turn to the creative people on the net.  Via another favorite blog I found this gem of a site, TPcraft.  I love that many of her TP roll crafts not only have complete how-tos, they also have a children's book associated with it.

Check out some of the fun:

Spring flowers

Seed starter planters

Log Cabin

The Log Cabin one could easily be changed in to a store, garage, house, etc and could be played with many other toys.
I have to remind myself that so many kids crafts are more about the process and the learning that takes place while creating and they're not about the end product.  They'll all be recycled in a week or two, right?  ;)

Chef JP Goes to School

John Paul is so excited!  Tomorrow he goes back to school. Alexander has been back to school now for almost a month.  The preschool open house was almost 2 weeks ago.  John Paul is so excited that tomorrow morning he finally gets to go back to school with Miss Jan and all his friends, and the kitchen.  Back in the spring, he wanted to have Miss Jan over for a play date...or in his exact words, "Mom, when can I have some alone time with Miss Jan?"  My response, "Umm, buddy, what would you and Miss Jan do if you could have a play date with her?"  John Paul, "Mo-oom, we'd play kitchen!"  Fast forward to tonight and our conversation.  I asked him what he would do when he got to school in the morning and he replied, "Play with the kitchen stuff."  And here I was thinking he'd say something about Legos.  Jaime and I wonder if the boy will end up being a chef or just a foodie like us.  Miss Jan, ready or not, he's all yours for 7.5 hours a week, there's plenty for the chef to learn!  :)