sunflowers

This week at  "stay camp" was all about sunflowers and it was so much fun!!!  Somehow (unintentionally) I managed to incorporate many different areas of a school curriculum into our week.
PE/Critical thinking and following directions: We started our week with a visit to a local sunflower maze.  The kids loved running down the path looking for each marker while answering questions and clues to find out which direction we were supposed to take next. 
Science: We took a sunflower apart and investigated all of its different parts.  The kids were so funny using the magnifying glasses and I was impressed with the words they used to describe the flower. 
Language Arts/Art History: We read the book "In the Garden with Van Gogh".  We talked about Van Gogh and I showed them pictures of his famous paintings.
Art: I wanted the kids to feel like "real" artists so I gave each of them an easel and a canvas and let them paint sunflowers.  I loved seeing how different a three and five year old interpret sunflowers.  I think I will hang them in our playroom.
Math: We used our math skills to measure the ingredients needed to make cupcakes.  Then I let the kids decorate them to look like sunflowers.  I think I had the most fun trying to make the petals, although my son really enjoyed licking the frosting off of his fingers, the knife, the spoon, the bowl.....
We only have a few weeks left of summer so hopefully we will get to do at least one more theme before school starts again.

halloween play date continued....

Yesterday was our Halloween play date. After our mummy munchies the kids watched "The Great Pumpkin" which gave me time to set up our activity- decorating haunted candy houses. A few days before the play date I assembled the houses using chocolate graham crackers and orange colored royal icing. I put out candy out and let the kids decorate to their hearts content. The kids loved it! Even my two year old was able to make one. At the end of the play date I sent everyone home with some Charlie Brown hot cocoa and Halloween marshmallows. "The Great Pumpkin" is on television tonight so I hope they enjoy their cocoa while watching it. It was a fun afternoon and my daughter told me "it was the best play date ever!" That made all the time and effort worth it. If you don't have time to do a whole Halloween party consider doing it on a much smaller scale with a play date instead.

rain, rain go away

When I was a little girl I always loved going to my friend Carrie's house. We had such fun playing with all of her toys and she even had a swing in her bedroom! One stormy day while I was there her mom pulled out a "rainy day box" filled with all sorts of fun activities. I still remember how excited I was that day and always knew that someday I wanted to make one for my own kids. I took a plain white box and glued on some paper umbrellas and pretty ribbon. I am going to let my kids decorate the umbrellas when I present it to them soon. Inside I put some hello kitty shrinky dinks, some bendable wax building sticks and some melty beads among other things. Some other great things to put in your box would be some beads, clay, finger puppets, or temporary animal hand tattoos. This kind of a kit would also be great for sick or snow days in the winter. You can fill it with anything and your kids will always be excited to choose from one of the activities.

activities

Since my daughter turned three last year, I decided that instead of having one structured activity it would be more age appropriate to have stations set up in different rooms around the house. This helped the party flow and allowed the kids to choose activities that they were interested in.

The activities were:
1.)Sponge painting Easter Eggs: I put put paint, small sponges and hard boiled eggs out and let the kids decorate them.

2.) Egg hunt: I filled a water table with bags of Easter grass and hid small, glittery plastic eggs in the grass. I left out some tiny baskets for them to collect the eggs in.

3.) Cookie decorating: I made sugar cookies shaped like Easter baskets and let them use frosting and different Spring themed sprinkles to decorate them.

4.) Pretend play: I made a little bakery. I put out all of our pretend sweets, a cash register and a sign that said "baby cakes."

The kids were happy and stayed busy with the different activities. This allowed the parents to relax and enjoy themselves too. We also had an Easter Egg hunt that I will share in an upcoming post.