My older son is just getting to the age at which he's interested in a lot of really cool things and can focus on one thing for a while. I know a number of you have kids around that same age. Let's post some of the fun activity ideas to share:
1) Observation journal:
We have a corner of our house with a couple of tulips and other flowers that DS grew from bulbs, a house plant, and basil seeds. Each day DS is in charge of watering them, and he dictates to me the changes he observes. Sometimes he'll draw pictures of the plants too. It's been really fun, and he notices all sorts of details.
2) Cardboard construction:
DS is really into knights and pirates and stuff like that right now, so whenever we have cardboard boxes to recycle, he gets to color them, I'll cut shapes out of them for him, and he turns them into props. He's made a treasure chest, a helmet, a sword, a shield, etc. It's nice because it's first an art activity, and then a make-believe activity (the new prop adds extra excitement), until we decide to recycle them and start again.
3) Lunchbox notes:
I've started putting post-it notes on top of DS's lunchbox with words or phrases that he knows (they say things like, "I love you! Have a nice day.") for him to read when he eats his lunch at school. I mix the messages up a little, but I keep them fairly predictable as he's just beginning to read. When I first started doing this, I would read him the messages in the morning before he left for school. He LOVES it! I thought of it as a nice literacy exercise, but he just thinks of it as extra mama love.
What do you guys do?
1) raising caterpillars; we leave them on our kitchen table kind of in the same way many families have flowers as centerpieces. She's done a bit of an "observation journal" sort of activity with it, too, though I haven't done a great job of keeping track of all of the drawings
2) we have a nature table, and we've been doing egg art for spring. We blew some eggs that she painted, and we also started some wheatgrass seeds in eggshells that are now growing on our nature table.
3) playdough monsters: I give my daughter playdough, feathers, chenille sticks, googly eyes, and toothpicks to make playdough sculptures
4) We go on nature scavenger hunts, where we count how many birds nests we find, or how many squirrels, or whatever.
5) Mud Pies are huge over here. I salvaged some muffin tins, cookie cutters, etc... to devote to sand/mud play
6) My eldest has gotten old enough for beginner chapter books. She loved Pippi Longstocking, and we are making our way through the Magic Tree House Books.
7) BIRDS! We made a bird feeder that we watch (though we haven't had a lot of success attracting birds thus far). We also made a "nest helper" (basically an onion bag filled with odds and ends of yarn, fabric scraps, cotton, etc...). Many hardware stores have free make-it-take-its; we are going to be building a birdhouse at a Lowe's later this month! We've gone owling, too.
8) I ask her to tell me a story that we (most of the time I write it, but she's doing it with help more and more) write down and then she illustrates to make a book.
9) Right now, we are sprouting beans. We also have started pineapple tops in the past (it died! but we're hoping to try again), sweet potatoes, and avocadoes.
Anyone else have anything to add?
we take walks on the canal trail that goes through our town. we don't record anything but Dev asks lots of questions so we talk about the birds and frogs and water and trees we see. seriously try to explain why frogs make the noise they make... not easy :-P
we do fingerpainting... it is cool to see the differences between the 3 yo's and the boyfriend's 1 yo's painting.
I love getting out stickers and letting Dev do whatever he wants with them on a page.
As a preschool teacher, I love to do projects where I make a big letter on construction paper and make something out of it. This week for "W" we are making watermelons. So use pink paper or let the kids color the "W" pink and u can glue on real seeds or hole punch black paper for seeds. :-) For "T" we made tigers which turned out really cute. Last year, we spelled out ocean making each letter into something from the ocean. It turned out really cute!
These are all good ideas! I am always looking for more fun things to do with E. Here is what he likes to do:
1. Reading! He is really advanced in reading and loves to read. If I let him he would stay up all night reading books. Bgw, we love magic treehouse too. He is reading his own but I still like to read him a story at night so I'm reading him another one. He also reads some comic books that SO gave him.
2. Right now we are making a time capsule! He has a big jar and has put a letter to the future, a few photos, drawings of us and what he thinks the future will look like inside. I like to come up with ideas for him to do that use his imagination because sometimes I think his school doesn't focus on that as much.
3.Now that it's getting nice out I try to take him on a walk or have him take out his scooter every day. We look for cool stuff in nature, which has been nice because we recently moved and now live right by a lake so there is a lot to see!
awesome ideas mamas!
My girl is very sassy and into accessorizing. About a year ago we starting making our own head bands. I usually go to the 99 cents store and buy a bunch of fake flowers. We buy packs of plain headbands there too and ribbon. You can wrap ribbon around the headband tightly to change the color or add fun patterns, and hot glue gun it as you wrap. Then we hot glue gun a flower on the top. They come out unique and funky and she’s complimented on them all the time.
We also have a friend the tree. A few years ago my girl and I went to a trail and picked out a tree that stood out to us. We named it “our friend the tree” and we visit it is often as we can. I take pictures of the tree with her so she can have a collection of herself growing and the tree changing. We spend time with it, talk to it, clean up around it, and make sure to give it lots of hugs. It’s really something special and it makes us feel so much more connected to the world of nature around us.
I know I used to LOVE painting rocks as a kid. I wanted to see where I can get a bunch of rocks from to put in our home garden, that way she can paint one whenever she feels like being creative, to add a special touch to our garden space.
I found some window markers at the store the other day. She LOVES to decorate our windows with them, and it’s cool cuz they wipe right off with a wet cloth.
Oh, and we love making up stories together. For example i'd say: "Long ago there was an elf fairy who lived on a flower. One morning he woke up to a dog staring straight at him!!" and she'd come up with the next part. and we'd go back and forth. It can be really fun and funny, and the best part is, it's free!! :)
I love that thing about the tree Sasha. What a cute idea! E has also made friends with some neighbor boys so that is great, where we lived before there was only one kid who lived around there some of the time. Also they're all a bit younger than him so he impresses them by having homework and being able to read and write lol.
Sasha, we love telling stories together, too.
Some other ideas:
It's been raining a lot. (April showers and what all.) Some fun rain activities have been digging in the mud, mud painting, and finding worms to examine under a magnifying glass.
We've been doing some sorting different kinds of beans mixed up together into a muffin tin.
When things dry up a bit more, we're planning on doing river skimming to check out the different kinds of bugs in the river next door.
Oh, I forgot: we have an "adventure bag" with a magnifying glas, a bug box, plastic bags, an old paint brush, water bottle, scavenger hunt cards, notebook, markers, and a pair of binoculars.
We also play a lot of board games and puzzles. It's not unusual for me to find these games and puzzles at the thrift store with all the pieces priced at less than a dollar. Some of my four year old's favorites are Balloon Lagoon, What's Gnu?, Set, Blokus, and Qwirkle.
I made this a sticky since the old one had broken links. Please add more fun things as you think of them.
Off topic, Danielle, I just realized that you changed your username! I had seen it and thought, "huh, that's funny, there's a new mod that I've never heard of." This makes so much more sense!
Good ones. I could certainly use some of these.... here are some more which I came across:
1) Taking a (large) picture, pasting it on cardboard, and creating a jigsaw puzzle out of it that one can later solve. This is one of my favorites for kids.
2) Some literature related activity, like finding a collection of good quotes on some topics, say even mom quotes or quotes on water conservation, etc.
3) Learning the art of making various types of paper planes. Believe me, there are dozens of designs out there, and some of them pretty innovative like one with rubber band launcher I saw that makes the paper plane go 50-100 meters away!
4) Collect a list of phrases, and ask them to find out the equivalent in some foreign language. Really knowledge increasing and fun also!
Thanks for this thread MamaCaboose. Now that mother's day is round the corner (or just over depending on where you are)... wishing all the moms and their kids a joy filled and enlightening mother's day!
I buy a box of Popsicle sticks from the craft store and me and jay have been building stick houses and painting them to hang outside.
I taught my teenage daughter how to sew. I got her a sewing machine like mine and we make dolls for her baby sister. It helps her develop a skill while being sweet with her sister. ( and her sister adores these dolls, she refuses to part with them) I know she's not young but still a good bonding experience :)
I also have share journals with my kids. One day I will have the notebook and I will write to them and then we trade. They get the notebook and it's their turn to write. Sometimes we draw Cute pictures with the writing. It's neat and it gets the conversation going ( and they feel more comfortable writing so they will open up more, which is always a plus :))
I also have started cake decorating. I use fondant so they love helping mold stuff. It's a really neat hobby and is super fun but can get expensive.