Archive for July 2011
If you combine water balloons with art you’ll get this super fun summer activity! Right after my son turned 4 all of a sudden his finger took the shape of a gun, his pretend play switched from firefighters to police, bad guys and super heroes and my sanity got a little more fragile. I am a born pacifist so it’s taken me some time to acclimatize to bombs, blasters and such. One way that we have addressed it in our house is you guessed it, art and play. A project like this that channels the aggression and need for destruction was the answer for us. It was also fun!
- Gather your materials. You will need some water balloons, a container, a canvas, water color crayons ( or washable markers), and a kid ready to blast a few things.
- Start by coloring the canvas with water color crayons – washable markers will work too, just use darker more vibrant colors.
- Fill up some balloons.
- Go outside.
- Throw!
My son was adamant that he could throw it at it and had fun even though none of the first round of balloons hit it, although some were really close. - Dropping them worked way better!
- Check out how the canvas has changed!
- A few days later we tried adding washable marker.
- Blasted it with water “shooters”- liquid syringes since we were all out of water balloons, after I told him we could go blast some, luckily this was available and just as “cool”.
- Worked great.
- Let dry – pull out again and again, I think we are going to do this many more times for the rest of the summer. The layers of color will be so cool.
* As with every craft please make sure you only do crafts that you and your child can do safely. Broken balloons can be very dangerous for kids who are still putting things in their mouths. Please ensure all pieces are picked up and disposed of so we can all keep playing and creating. *
Teaching children about charity is in my opinion one big must do for parents. It’s invaluable for children to learn how to give , serve and contribute to their community in positive ways. I think of it similarly to introducing new foods, lead by example , be creative and don’t expect the lesson to stick right away.
Every year our neighborhood has a large community garage sale and this year we set up a small bake sale to go along with it. When I asked my son who we should give the earnings to he suggested “The Poor.” We talked about what being poor meant and decided our local food bank was a great place to donate our earnings to.
Together we went to the food bank to check it out. My son got to see people going in for groceries, volunteers stocking shelves and we talked to one of the managers to see if there were any special requirements we needed to meet in order to hold a bake sale. This step was so important for a 4 year old, it took an abstract concept of giving money to “The Poor” to giving to a real concrete place and people.
Then we got to work . We went to the store got a poster paper and decided on the wording.
I did the writing. He decorated it.
Got some cookies – no we didn’t bake them ourselves. I worry about allergies, especially since we were selling them to strangers. Since it was store bought I had the ingredients label in my pocket if anyone had a question. We bake periodically for friends and church for other kid friendly service projects.
Set up, in the garage because of rain, but it didn’t seem to matter.
We had 30 cookies to sell and they all sold out in about 2 very rainy hours. He was a great salesman , greeting customers, being polite when people said they were not interested and handling the money as well.Our total came to just over $32 !
Then this morning we wrote a note to the food bank . I tried to be as hands off as I could so I wrote but he dictated it. Then we dropped it off, I had him walk it up to the counter and explain what it was. He was so proud to hand the money to them. In the way out he saw some ladies walking in and asked me if he helped them. I think the lesson is sinking in.
Whether you give the money to charity or choose to use a sale like this to teach about earning and saving it’s a great way to spend time working together .
Our set up was very basic but check out these lemonade stands and bake sale set ups from around the web!
Love this computer desk turned into a lemonade stand at Just Sew Sassy
If this smile from Frugal Family Fun Blog doesn’t make you want lemonade I don’t know what will!
How have you tried to teach your children about giving to charity?
This week I dove into Pinterest full on. I love the ideas that are out there and for creative bloggers it’s this fine balance between getting inspired and feeling like everyone else has all the best ideas. After brushing myself off, telling myself not to act like my children I dove back in and fell in love. All of this is to explain that I got this idea from a pin – after seeing these great labyrinths from bloesem kids I thought how can I make it so it encourages writing but is low on the frustration meter. This is what we did.
- Gather your materials. You will need a CD case, some plain paper, markers, scissors and dry erase markers.
- Start by taking the liner out of the cd case and tracing it to make your own liners – we made 4 by folding and layering the paper before cutting.
- Next make the mazes. Ok so you could totally print some off the internet too and I encourage you to do this because man making mazes isn’t super easy, but maybe I am just maze challenged.
- Pop them all in a stack and into your case facing the back . Now your child can do a few at a time or all in one sitting.
- Add your kid and dry erase – mistakes are no biggie and look , writing practice!
If you make a mistake , just wipe and try again! 
You really should check out bloesem kids they have some magnificent ideas.
-
13442 that is the tally of how many books we have read so far . Amazing!
If you haven’t joined our Summer Reading Challenge yet you are not too late. All the details are here but the gist of it is that you read with your kids, tally up how many books you have read, submit a tally sheet once per submission period ( see below) and then you are automatically entered to win a $50 Amazon.com gift card at the end of the summer. Pretty cool!
Submission Periods :
June 3-9th , 10th -16th , 17th- 23rd , 24th-30th
July 1st-7th , 8th-14th, 15th- 21st , 22nd-28th
July 29th – August 4th
August 5th-11th , 12th-18th , 19th -25th.
The winner will be drawn on the 26th of August.
Submit Your Tally Here
