Sidewalk Chalk Recipe

By: Beth Engelman of Mommy on a Shoestring

Thanks Beth for this great idea! If you want to hear more of Beth’s great ideas you can listen to the replay of our recent radio show.

Ingredients

• Small Paper Cups
• 2 Tbs Powdered Tempura Paint - any color (available at most craft stores)
• 3 Tbs Plaster of Paris (available at most craft stores)
• ½ Cup Water

Directions

In a paper cup, mix powdered paint and water.

Stir in Plaster of Paris until the mixture is as thick as cream.

Allow the mixture to harden-approximately 2 hours.

Peel off the paper cup and take out the chalk.

Repeat for additional chalk pieces.

Mud Pies for Butterflies

By: Beth Engelman of Mommy on a Shoestring

Thanks Beth for this great idea! If you want to hear more of Beth’s great ideas you can listen to the replay of our recent radio show.

Mud Pies for Butterflies Recipe

• Combine soil, sand, and a pinch of salt.
• Add a flat rock in the middle for the landing pad for butterflies.
• Add a few drops of maple syrup to rock.
• Stand back and watch for butterflies

10 Summertime Boredom Busters

Parents envision children being full of energy and ideas, happily entertained by nature, bicycles and friends. Sometimes this happens and other times parents will hear the dreaded words, “I’M BORED! There’s nothing to do.”

As adults, it is not our responsibility to pave the road for our children. It is, however, a good idea to provide a decent road map, and by decent road map I mean provide supervision when needed.

Here are ten ideas that will make summer less “boring.”

Make your own CRAZY PUTTY. Mix equal parts white glue and liquid starch. Knead to desired consistency. The substance will stretch, snap and bounce!

Name that SMELL. Gather items that have identifiable odors. Blindfold the guesser (s). Ask them to name that smell. If they can’t remember the exact name, let them describe some other revealing details such as the color of the bottle, or what meal the spice is used for, etc.

MOW a MAZE.  With a push lawn mower, mow a maze or a crazy path when the grass is fairly long. You could also use the path to play Mother May I? or Red Light Green Light.

Go fly a KITE. Better yet, make your own kite to fly.

Sort BUTTONS. Let children sort buttons into different groups. Use a muffin pan to contain the buttons. Sort by color, or size, or number of holes. Then make a craft using buttons.

Give children a tape recorder. They can record themselves telling or reading a story. You can type the words to their original stories on the computer. Print the words with space at the top of each page so the children can illustrate their ideas.

Find a scenic spot outside, set up an easel and paint the scenery.

Play dress up. Gather old clothes and add to the collection by buying weird and unusual outfits and accessories from thrift stores and garage sales. Store the clothes and props in a trunk. Props can include such things as briefcases, pocketbooks, jewelry, shoes, books, canes, etc. Encourage the children to be creative and act out plays they create. Or, children can emulate a character from a well-known story and have people guess who they are. NOTE: Giving hints may be necessary and will only add to the fun.

Have children hold a full glass of water in a plastic tumbler while they jump rope. Make it a contest to see who can spill the least. Give out prizes.

Ask children to design a product or service and then create a commercial to sell it on television. Go all the way and video the end result and post it on YouTube.

And for timeless summertime entertainment, find a place where you can build a bonfire, roast a ton of marshmallows, look for meteors and lightening bugs, and tell stories around the campfire. Your children will thank you…someday.

About the Author: Jodie Randisi is a certified Family Manager tm coach and the author of 201 Things to Do When Children Say I’M BORED. For more information about Family Manager coaching or to get a copy of her book, go to www.201thingstodo.com.

Build a Fort

Welcome to Week 6 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster Series. 

This week’s boredom buster idea is a great way to get your kids using their imaginations and learning to work in teams. 

Dig through your basement or garage and even possibly visit your local appliance store for old cardboard boxes.  Give them to the kids along with some old blankets, markers, and paint and let them build and decorate a fort.  If you have enough boxes and enough kids, let the kids split into teams and have a contest to see who can build the biggest and best fort.  After their fort is built they can use it to play in or hold secret club meetings.  This oldie but goody boredom buster idea will keep them busy for hours. 

Star Gazing

Welcome to Week 5 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster Series. 

Take some time during the cool summer nights to star gaze with your kids.  It is a great way to wind down your day and you can keep the kids busy during the day researching and getting ready for the star gazing event.

How to Get Started

Check your family calendar or planner for a date that works best for everyone.  To make the most of your star gazing event, you will need to wait until after the sun sets and the sky is very dark, so be sure to pick a night when the kids and you don’t have to get up early the next day. 

Get your kids started on researching the constellations in the sky.  You can do this in a variety of ways and here are some ideas and resources to help get them started.

Create an Interactive Sky Chart - This online sky chart will show you where the stars and planets are in relation to your horizons and zenith.  It is a free application, but does require a parent registration.

Make a Star Finder - Kids can download this neat star finder project to help learn about the constellations.

Constellation Crosswords - Use these constellation word searches and crossword puzzles to help reinforce what your kids have learned.

Book It - Visit your local library to find some books on star gazing and constellations

Astronomy 101 - Use this online guide to help orient you and more easily find the stars and constellations.

Things You Will Need

Here is a quick list of things you will need to make the most of your star gazing adventure.

The star chart or finder

A big blanket or reclining lawn chairs

A red flashlight or a regular flashlight with red cellophane over the lens.  A red flashlight makes for easier night vision.

Snacks

Bug Spray

A dark location free of artificial light

Optional: Binoculars

Good Luck!

Kids Off The Couch

Welcome to Week 4 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster Series. 

Keep kids from getting bored this summer with Kids Off the Couch.  A perfect blend of culture, family time, and film, Kids Off the Couch is a great way to help kids make connections, explore their local community, and learn through film.  Each week, the smart people at Kids Off the Couch, put together a Popcorn Adventure that includes a film and a related family activity designed to get kids and parents off the couch and exploring and enjoying their local communities.  Nestled in between the film and family activity are thoughtful conversation starters for each film to stimulate conversation and get kids and parents talking.  Families can choose to subscribe to this free service either via the Kids Off the Couch weekly newsletter or visit the multitude of Popcorn Adventures in the site’s archives. 

Some Things to Think About

Unless you have the movie in your DVD collection you will have to do some pre-work in terms of finding the movie either from places like your local library, your local DVD rental store, online swapping websites like SwapaDVD, or purchasing it directly from the Kids Off the Couch shop. 

Because the Popcorn Adventures get families off the couch and into their communities, you will need to make time on your family calendar or planner for the adventure.

Currently Kids Off the Couch offers detailed information and tips for adventures in New York, Houston, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, and Washington D.C., so if you don’t live in or near one of these cities you will have to do your own research to find the family activities nearby.  Kids Off the Couch will help you do this by showing you how to Google similar activities in your local town.  If you live in a small town or rural area, be prepared to travel a bit to find some of the activities in a nearby community.

Before you try your first adventure, be sure to read through the Kids Off the Couch tips to make the first adventure go smoothly.

Good Luck!

Owl Pellets

Welcome to Week 3 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster Series. 

This week’s summer boredom buster is dissecting owl pellets.  Owl pellets are the regurgitated indigestible parts of an owl’s prey.  Owls like many birds swallow much of their small prey whole leaving behind in their digestive systems the indigestible parts like the bones, fur, and teeth of their prey.  The owl’s two part digestive system breaks down the soft parts of the owl’s prey, but is unable to process and break down the larger harder pieces such as the prey’s bones.  The softer pieces are digested and passed through the owl’s system while the larger indigestible pieces are formed into a pellet and regurgitated through the owl’s beak.   When pulled apart, the remnants of the owl’s prey can often be found in the pellet making it a fun science activity for kids.  Kids can dissect the owl pellet and compare the remnants they find in the pellet to a bone chart.  Combined with interesting owl books from your library or owl puzzles and activities, this is a great educational and fun activity that will keep kids busy and learning during the long summer days.

Good luck!

Make Your Own Household Cleaners

Welcome to week 2 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster series.  You can find week 1 here.

This week’s summer boredom buster idea is making homemade household cleaners with your kids.  A little like cooking, kids and parents can have a lot of fun mixing ingredients together and seeing what new colors, consistencies, and textures the mixed ingredients turn into. 

In addition to fun, making your own household cleaners is also a great way to sneak in some summer learning.  Use the opportunity to talk about the environment and how cleaning molecules breakdown dirt.  And once your cleaners are made, you can use them as well as any commercially made cleaners you may have to do some effectiveness tests or to see which ones can break down Jell-O.  Parents can also sneak in some math by working with the kids to compare costs and time of their homemade cleaners to the ones purchased in the store.

Start by taking on only one cleaner at first to save a little money on supplies and to ease initial confusion.  You can make more than one batch of the same cleaner (for example one for the bathroom and one for the kitchen) so that all of the kids have a chance to mix.  If you and your kids enjoyed it, you can always do more later. 

To find recipes, you can use online homemade house cleaner recipes or borrow the book, Clean House Clean Planet by Karen Logan from your local library.  This book is filled with a lot of great information on how to make many different types of cleaners, where to buy the supplies, and how cleaners work.  Another great option is to make your own laundry detergent.  Trent over at SimpleDollar.com has done a lot of research on how to make your own laundry detergent and can walk you through the entire process. 

Once you decide which cleaner to make,  work a time into your family calendar or mom planner to buy the supplies and sit down together to mix your cleaners.  Once your household cleaner is made, work with the kids to design a creative label for your bottle.  Be sure to come up with a jazzy name for your cleaner and include the recipe on the label so that you can easily re-make the cleaner in the future.  If you have a child who enjoys computers this may be a good opportunity for them to get creative and use their computer skills.

And last but not least, once your cleaners are made put them to the test by letting the kids use them to clean stains, fingerprints, or even better the bathroom!

Good luck!

 

Letterboxing

Keeping kids from getting bored during the summer months is no small task, so to help we have kicked off an 8 week Summer Boredom Buster series.  Over the next 8 weeks we will post a new summer boredom buster idea each week.  This is Week One and our first summer boredom buster idea is letterboxing.

Keep kids active and busy this summer with a letterboxing (also called questing in some parts of the United States) adventure. 

Letterboxing is a treasure hunt hike that families take in search of hidden letterboxes.  Hidden letterboxes contain a log book, pens, an ink stamp, and sometimes an inkpad.  Using clues found on the internet (most letterboxes are hidden in a park or central community location), families set out on a hiking adventure in search of the hidden letterbox.  .  Once the letterbox has been found, families then use the pen to leave a message in the logbook along with an image from their personal stamp.  Families then use the stamp found inside the letterbox to record their adventure in their own personal journal.  Once families have left their mark so to speak and recorded the letterbox’s image in their journal, they must re-hide the letterbox for the next letterboxing family.   Be sure to be discreet and hide the letterbox well.

To get started on your letterboxing adventure you will need these things:

• A Rubber Stamp - Families need to choose a rubber stamp that symbolizes their family. This is the stamp that you will mark in the letterbox logbook. Simply head to your local craft store, and choose one from the many different styles. Rather than just one stamp for your family, families can also choose individual stamps for each family member or if they are really enthusiastic about letterboxing try making their own stamp.
• An Ink Pad - Not all letterboxes have ink pads in them, so be sure to buy one of your own and bring it along in your hiking backpack.
• A Personal Journal - To record your adventures and the images of the stamps found in the letterboxes, families will need some type of journal. A family journal is a great option for this or a nature notebook is another choice.
• A Backpack - Bring along a backpack with water, snacks, band aids, camera, sunscreen, and anything else you think you may need along your hike.
• Compass - A good compass is optional and most likely dependent on the degree of difficulty of the clues.

Finding Clues and Other Resources

There are many letterboxing resources online to help you get started.  You can find clues to local hidden letterboxes as well as additional information at www.letterboxing.org and www.atlasquest.com .  To talk with other people new to letterboxing as well as veteran letterboxers you can join the Newboxers chat group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newboxers. 

Good luck!

New Products - Travel Games, Children’s Journals, Dinner Games, Oh My!

We have added another boat load of new products to our online store.  From the latest version of our popular dinner games to beautifully designed and inspiring children’s journals, we have lot’s of cool new things.  Just in time for spring and the summer blues. 

Keep kids busy and unplugged from the car DVD player with this fun convenient sized travel bingo game.  The perfect travel game for long car rides.

We couldn’t resist adding this beautiful travel notebook and stationery set to our kids travel journal collection.  The incredible graphics were too hard to pass by.

Reading is definitely cool with this perfect sized reading journal.  A great way to keep kids reading and writing over the summer.

Families and kids can capture and remember all of their summer memories with this beautiful summer journal.

Celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd with this cool nature notebook and insect learning wheel.  Both are perfect ways to get kids and families interested in nature and their environment.

 For families who have outgrown their traditional dinner games or families looking for a little faster play, we have added the Gather Round Dinner Games.  All new games and same great fun!

 

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