Groundhog's Day

This week, we learned all about Punxatawney Phil, and his special day, Groundhog's Day. Annabelle learned through gross motor games, work sheets, and projects. It was a very successful week. Here are the activities we did.

Wake Up Groundhog Game

What you need:

• Large Blanket
• Light Switch

How To Play:

Wrap child up in a blanket, and instruct her to hibernate. "Good night, groundhog Annabelle. Enjoy your hibernation!"

• Leave the light on, or turn it off.
• Shout: "Wake up, wake up groundhog [insert child's name]. Today's your special day!"
• Child pops up from blanket, and looks for her shadow.
• If the light is on, she sees her shadow, and hides away for six more weeks.
• If the light is off, she does not see her shadow, and she jumps up, proclaiming that Spring is here.

This game can be adapted for a group of preschoolers, by allowing all the children to hide under their blankets, and choosing one groundhog. The other children wait to hear the groundhog's proclamation. Children can take turns being the groundhog, or even the Mayor who wakes the groundhog from her sleep.

Lego Shadows

What you will need:

• Legos
• Flashlight
• Large paper
• Pencil
• Markers or crayons
• Grey or black paint

Hazel enjoyed playing with Annabelle's tower

What do to:

• Instruct child to by build a tower with her Legos
• Turn the lights out and demonstrate how you can move the flashlight around the tower to change the size of the shadow.
• Allow child to do the same, and choose where she wants the shadow to lay on the paper.
• While the child holds the flashlight in place, trace the shadow on paper.
• Then, lay the tower down and trace.
• Allow child to color in the tower, and paint the shadow.

Silhouettes

What you need:

• Large paper and easel
• Adjustable light source
• Pencil, crayons

What to do:

• Instruct child to sit still by the easel and trace her shadow silhouette
• Allow her to color it in

Groundhog tunnels

What you need:

• Tunnels, boxes, blankets, or whatever you come up with to create your tunnel

What to do:

• Play! 

The girls had so much fun chasing each other through the tunnels, playing peek-a-boo, and just being silly. Hazel even discovered that she can sit up in the tunnel.

For Annabelle's worksheets, I found these templates, and printed out about a dozen of them. I'm sure I will be making more copies, and using them as her handwriting improves, and she begins to tell more stories. For this activity, she practiced writing the letters "W" and "S", as well as writing the words "Winter" and "Spring". After practicing handwriting, she drew what she likes to do in the Winter, and what she likes to do in the Spring. She drew a picture of herself making snow angels and grass angels. She also drew herself having a picnic and eating an apple in the Spring. And yes, she did use a yellow marker for the snow.

Messy Monday: Pumpkin Playdoh

Autumn has arrived. And I couldn't be happier.
Last Tuesday was the first full day of my favorite season. The air was perfectly crisp, as I dressed the girls in long sleeves, and put a hat on Hazel to venture out for our daily walk around the neighborhood. They looked precious, all bundled up and warm. Trees were beginning to become dotted with bursts of yellow and orange.
But one of the best parts of Autumn is pumpkin spice everything.
So when I found this recipe for pumpkin spice playdough, I just had to share my love with Annabelle.
After our walk, Hazel was ready for a nap. Perfect time for some Mommy and Annabelle bonding and learning.
While this recipe was simple, it still took a great deal of parental supervision and assistance, as you need to use a stove.

I measured out the ingredients, and placed them in individual containers, so she could enjoy dumping each item into the pot before mixing it together. (I added a little vanilla extract to the water, to give it a little yummier smell.)
I was surprised that she mixed it for as long as she did before needing my help.

I'll admit, by the time the mixture came together, my arm was feeling a little sore.
Start to finish, I'd say it took about 10 or 15 minutes.

We waited a few more minutes before the dough was cool enough to touch, and I added a few drops of orange food coloring, and kneaded it to distribute the color.
I love that the cinnamon and nutmeg left flecks of brown in the dough to give it a more natural look to it.
Annabelle liked that the dough was still warm when I gave it to her. She had a great time making a family of little pumpkins.

It was so perfectly soft, and so much nicer than store-bought play-doh, It even cleaned up more easily.
When we were done playing (about an hour later), I placed the ball into a Ziploc bag, squeezed all the air out, and zipped it shut. We pulled it out again a few days later, and it was still very soft and pliable.

This recipe is a great base recipe, and I plan on making peppermint playdoh in December with red dye.
Try different scents and colors.
You can also add glitter for an extra shimmer.

Messy Monday: Slime With A Twist

Having a child with eczema makes sensory play a bit of a challenge. But when that child loves sensory play, you make it happen.
Having made slime (corn starch and water) a few times already, I wanted to give it a little twist this time. After a quick search for "eczema friendly sensory play", I found Interaction Imagination. Her method used lotion and corn starch, but suggested trying coconut oil.
Coconut oil? We love coconut oil!
Here is what you will need:

I melted small Dixie cups of coconut oil, and added a few drops of green food coloring. I wish I had thought ahead, and had Annabelle help with this step. Being water-based, the food coloring did not mix with the oil. Instead, it bubbled, as it sank to the bottom of the cup. A quick stir with a chopstick broke up the bubbles into several tiny specks of green, floating in the oil. What fun that would have been with multiple colors in a clear cup and a flashlight.

I then placed the cups in the refrigerator to quickly solidify the oil. I was hoping this would enhance the sensory experience. While we waited, an impromptu game of balloon baseball with a hair brush broke out in the living room.

Annabelle especially loved trying to catch the balloon, while I kept whacking it with the hairbrush, out of her reach. She did correct me at one point, however. Apparently, you are only supposed to hit the balloon with the bristles.

Hazel enjoyed the show, too. She got excited whenever the balloon floated close to her.

Before long, the coconut oil was solidified, and ready.

Just like the baking soda experiment, I started by giving Annabelle one component of the activity at a time. She played with the corn starch like it was snow, scooping, scraping, and sculpting to the best of her ability.

After about 10 minutes, I added the oil. If I were to do this activity again, I would have left the oil at room temperature, so that it would be a solid state, but not so hard. She struggled to get the oil out of the cup and melt it with her hands. This caused her to lose some interest in the block of oil, until I helped her by squeezing it between my fingers.

Once that was done, though, her mess was under way. The highlight of the activity, was when she discovered she could make farting noises by squeezing the mixture between her palms. She giggled as the goop oozed between her fingers, and the fart noises abounded.

She played for about an hour, covering her arms and face in corn starch and coconut oil. Clean-up took about 10 minutes (not including getting herself cleaned up, which wound up being a quick bath).

Let's Get Messy!

This morning, the weather was indecisive. One second, the clouds began to form an ominous cover over the sun; and the next second, the sun prevailed, and brightened up the whole sky. I decided not to risk it, and skip the pool today. I have been watching a friend's kid this week, so it's been 3 against 1 since Monday (with a sleepover last night). Getting all three girls fed, pottied (or diapered), sunscreened, and suited up for swimming takes nearly 30 minutes from start to finish. I was not about to risk a full-out melt-down from Annabelle over not being able to go swimming because the weather decided to rear its ugly head, and rain on our parade at the last minute.
Instead of swimming, we spent time in the air conditioning, making a huge mess of the dining room. And it was FUN! I recently bought a huge bag of baking soda for $3 at BJ's, so I knew that I had plenty of that on hand. I searched for activities to do with baking soda, and found some very fun ideas. Armed with my supplies, I got to work setting up for Annabelle and her friend, Bella. Set-up was a breeze, and I was ready for them within five minutes.

For each kid you will need:
Jelly roll pan for your work area
Desired amount of baking soda (if I had to guess, I'd say I used about 1/2 cup for each girl)
Plastic utensils
Vinegar
Food coloring (optional, but extra fun)
Dixie cups for each color desired
Pipette, straw, or eye dropper
An art smock (I used my old t-shirts)


I started off by letting the girls explore with the baking soda in the pan. They used a fork to draw patterns and designs, and tried to ball the fine powder up like snow balls. When they started showing signs of losing interest, I introduced the next part of the activity.

 



I gave them each three Dixie cups with a few drops of food coloring, and filled half-way with vinegar. In hindsight, I used way too much food coloring. Annabelle is currently sporting bright purple hands. Oops! Next, I demonstrated how to use a straw to drip the vinegar over the baking soda.



Then Annabelle got creative. Instead of dripping the vinegar onto the baking soda, she took a fistful of baking soda, and dumped it into a cup of vinegar. She was thrilled with her discovery.

 

The next hour was spent stirring, pouring, and smearing the mixtures. While the jelly roll pans contained most of the mess, I still had my work cut out for me.

But it was worth it.



I loved allowing Annabelle to be a little scientist, and make her own discoveries and observations. When we do activities like this, I give her ideas and suggestions, but allow her to control the situation. What if I had stopped her from dumping the fistful of baking soda into the vinegar because that's just not what we're doing right now? What if I had decided that food coloring was too messy? What if I had decided the whole activity was too messy? She would have missed out on so much fun and discovery.



Don't be afraid to get messy. Kids are washable. Clothes are replaceable. You only get one chance at today, so make memories of fun and exploration.

Oh, and it never rained.







Summer

After the brutally cold Winter we endured, I refuse to allow myself to be a couch potato this Summer. It has been way too cold, for way too long, to waste time watching PBS Kids all day.
So I made a list for my oldest. With the help of some suggestions from friends, I came up with a long list of fun activities to do before Summer is over. Having a preschooler can be a challenge, but the busier she is, the less trouble she gets into. Annabelle is excited to check off each task on our list: from learning to swim, to writing to missionaries, we will never be bored.
After making my list, I wrote down the things we can do inside (build a book fort, bake a treat and deliver it to a friend) on index cards, and put them into a bucket. I then wrote the words "It's raining, it's pouring, but today won't be boring". This is our Rainy Day Bucket. We can use the ideas when the weather is too rainy or just plain miserable to go outside.
My list also includes activities that can be accomplished in an afternoon: "make lunch for a friend", and "make homemade ice cream", as well as activities that will take much of the Summer to accomplish: "learn to pedal a bike", and "count to 30".
Some of the activities involve meeting with friends: "try a dish from another country", and "play date at Jumpin' Jacks", while others allow for one-on-one time between us: "build a book fort", and "learn to write my name".
Some of our activities are educational, and others are just plain fun.
No matter what activity we choose to check off the list in a given day, I'm sure this Summer will be one to remember.
Added bonus: most of the activities are free, or almost free.
What are some of your favorite things to do in the Summer? What do you hope to accomplish this Summer?
I encourage you all to make Summer Fun Lists (even if you don't have kids). Feel free to share them below.
As always, thanks for reading and sharing.