Mailman or women :)

My daughter loves to play post office. I gave her 5-10 peices of junk mail because who doesn't get lots of that almost everyday of the week. We started out by just being silly and yelling out things like mail call mail call I have mail for Miss Mara and she would come running for it and get all excited. I decided today though that we are going to make a mail box out of a shoe box tomorrow and I'm going to let her decorate it anyway she wants then we will have a mail box for our game.

So save your junk mail and make good use of all that paper they waste sending it to people like me who don't even read it. I normally just rip it up and throw it in the recycling pile. 

Halloween

I really need to sit down and do these with my boys and take some pictures :) I am sure it would help the whole two readers we have! HA HA!


Spider Webs
Cut several pieces of yarn in various lengths. Use white glue (like Elmer's Glue) and make a spider web pattern on a piece of construction paper. Let child glue yarn onto the paper to form a spider web.
Thumprint Spiders
In one corner of a plain sheet of construction paper, draw a spider web with a marker. Use a black washable stamp pad or black paint and have your child put a thumbprint on the paper. Draw on the legs(8), eyes, etc. and connect the spider to the rest of the web.

Styrofoam Ball Spiders
Paint a styrofoam ball (any size you want) black. Let dry. Use black pipe cleaners to make the legs by poking them about half an inch into the ball. There should be 8 legs. Use wiggle eyes to give your spider a little character. Attach a string to the top of your spider (so that you can hang it) by opening a paper clip up to form a "U", tying a string to a paperclip and then pushing it into the top of your spider as far as the paper clip will go. (Younger children shouldn't do the paper clip part on their own.)

Pasta Skeleton - This is a very simple to do craft, even for the youngest kids. All you have to do is glue different shapes of pasta (wagon wheels, elbow, tubes, spirals, etc.) to a black piece of paper. To make it easier for younger children, use a piece of chalk to draw a rough outline of a skeleton on the paper first. Then the kids can glue their pasta pieces on top of the chalk outline.

Jack-o-Lantern Mask - Draw the eyes, nose, and mouth of your jack-o-lantern on the back side of a paper plate. Cut them out (make sure the eye holes are big enough for the child to see out of). Paint your mask orange and let dry. Cut a stem out of green construction paper and glue to the top. Staple two strings to the sides of the mask so that the child can wear it. Tie knots in both strings so that they won't pull out of the staple.

Glittery Spider Web - On black construction paper, draw a spider web outline with elmer's glue. Sprinkle with glitter and let dry

The Boredom box

Because I need to SLOW DOWN and enjoy my children and because my boys are constantly following me around the house complaining that they are SO bored… I came up with the “Summer Boredom Box”

I just used an old box I had around the house and found some scrapbook paper. Cut it to size and mod podged the paper on and there you go! Honestly, it doesn't matter what the outside look like, it's more about what's inside. You could use a glass jar, a big mug or whatever your creative minds come up with.
Now here comes the fun part, coming up with activities to do. I searched the internet, pulled all the activities I could find for the kids to do and put them in a word document. I erased the ones that didn’t work for us and added a few of my own, printed it out and cut it up into small pieces...and then stuck them in the box.



I made big deal of it and told the boys that anytime they were bored they could ask for the boredom box and pick an activity. I love it because it’s exciting for them, it’s something new which we all know is a good thing and it forces me to sit down and spend some quality time with them. There are a few activities that they have picked that have had to be put on the fridge and done later (like trip to a free museum in town), but in those instances they still get to pick another. The rules are that we have to do what we pick, no putting it back and picking until we get the best one, so it’s an adventure every time.

Here’s a list of a few of our activities:
Go for a bike ride
Make homemade ice cream or visit an ice cream parlor
Bake a double batch of cookies and deliver one to another family
Have a picnic
Hike or climb trees
Make popcorn or maybe even caramel corn
Blow bubbles
Go swimming
Plan a scavenger hunt for outside. Or plan one for in the house using every letter of the alphabet.
Draw a map of your block or of your town, or trace a map of your country and fill in the states or cities or other feature
Make playdoh
Read a good book aloud
Look through photo albums or view family movies, or videos
Make a collage from magazine words and pictures
Draw pictures with chalk on the sidewalk
Go fishing
Plan a family game night
Work on a jigsaw puzzle
Go roller skating
Paint a picture
Have a candy treasure hunt
Make a paper airplane and fly it
Make an obstacle course in your back yard
Visit a tourist spot near your home
Make a bird feeder
Walk around your block and pick up all the litter you can find.
Go to the zoo
Go bowling
Make your own homemade pizza
Listen to your favorite music and dance around
Go without TV for a day
Make a collage using seeds, rice, cereal, old buttons and sewing scraps
Run around the house outside 3 times
Go camping–or stay home and camp out in your own dining room.
Build with LEGOS
Make puppets out of lunch bags, old socks, felt, wooden clothespins. Put on a puppet show
Have a bonfire outdoors or in your fireplace and roast hot dogs and marshmallows
Write a letter to your grandma or grandpa
Pick wild flowers and press some of them to save
Make dinner for your family
Sketch a picture of your house from the outside
Play educational computer games
Make a piece of art out of objects you have around the house
Color a picture or write a letter to send to grandparents
Make a list together of all the things in your house that use electricity. You might do this when you lose power sometime.
Plant something
Enjoy a shopping trip for something little, but fun---a jar of bubbles, stickers, paper dolls, a matchbox car
Play store, library or school
Play hide-and-seek (inside or outside)
Help wash the car
Draw a family tree on paper and complete it as a family. Add old photographs if available
Go jogging or take a walk together
Give each person a large piece of paper and take turns tracing the outlines of their bodies on it. Color in the outlines to look like you or use sidewalk chalk
Go to the library
Gather a variety of leaves
Fly a kite
Make a summer snack
If it's warm outside, turn on the water sprinkler and run through it
Water the yard, houseplants or flowers
Play with sand toys and trucks in a sandbox
Play a card game
Go to a ball game or play one---football, kickball, softball, baseball, basketball, soccer
Finger paint with chocolate pudding
Make a milkshake or a smoothie
Take a trip to an amusement park, a museum or a planetarium
Clean out your closet.
Make a yummy salad and eat it
Build a fort
String beads to make a necklace
Write and illustrate a short story
Play with water guns