My daughter’s very old-school preschool has a Sparkle Fairy. She hides “gold” (spray-painted gold rocks) in the yard every few months. The kids find it and either re-hide it for their friends or put it in the big gold pot outside. It’s one of Sy’s fave activities. I am thinking of ripping that idea right off and hiding some gold of our very own in our backyard for Baby G to find on days when his sister has the nerve to go off to school without him.
What is your favorite part about your child’s school?
GHM loves Mahar Dry Goods, our favorite online outpost of vintage and artisan crafted curiosities for children. I love this downloadable gingerbread cottage. All you need is a printer, some card stock and three bucks and you are on your way to assembling one cute little village. Once you order, the PDF will arrive within 72 hours. I smell a weekend project with Sy.
If you see about 45 other things you want, you can order by the 21st and still have it there in time for Christmas morning.
Check out this groovy tube of five containers of eco modeling dough from Eco Kids - handmade in the USA with 100% plant-based coloring. This safe modeling dough contains no chemicals, no artificial dyes and no heavy metals. It is safe enough to eat but not tasty so kids won’t try again!
Each 4 oz container is made from 100% post consumer recycled plastic and the tube is made from 100% post consumer waste. This dough doesn’t dry out like many name brands. If left out overnight, just add a few drops of olive oil and it comes right back! Bonus: you can compost it when you are done! Comes in green, yellow, orange, pink, and blue. You can add a bamboo rolling pin for just four more bucks. Suggested age: 18 months+
I like that the sellers, peek a green, even give us a list of ingredients: flour, salt, cream of tartar, vitamen E oil, organic rosemary oil, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, citric acid and fruit, plant and vegetable extracts from beets, spinach, paprika, carrots, purple sweet potato, red cabbage, blueberries and tomatoes.
Happy Eco-Shopping!
Santa only brings one gift per kid in our house, and he’s giving Baby G (and by default, his big sister) a big ol’ cardboard house. Imagination Box Co. makes groovy box houses that your little critters can gleefully deface with markers, crayons, paint, glitter, you name it. It ships flat, comes with a set of water colors and is only $24.95. You can order an extra set of paints for two bucks! Shipping is between about $8.00 and $20.00, depending on how fast you need it. Christmas is fast approaching, but Hanukkah starts on Friday. Giddyup!
Need some pumpkin-carving inspiration? I know I do. Sy is begging me to do the Belle princess pumpkin for her. I know I will cave (and carve), but dang. Really? Where did my little girrrrrrly girl come from? I wear nothing but black and she wears nothing but purple lace!
Anyway, there are some fun (non-princess variety) downloadable templates over at Method. Thanks for the tip, Whitney!
Now that Fall is here, inclement weather is keeping us inside. While I love the rain and cozy days, my kids are climbing the walls already (and it’s not even November yet!). I’m trying to rotate toys more often and come up with engaging indoor activities. Roger made Sy this little homemade felt board the other day; she loves it!
He cut out scads of different shapes and seasonal items for her. We got the stiffer, background felt boards at Michael’s along with about 20 different soft felt sheets. Roger just cut out whatever he could think of and is embarking on the sea-life catalog next!
We had to cut the lock for our garage because we could not find the padlock key (it’s the little things, you know?). All I really wanted out of that garage was the Halloween box, and Husband brought the lock cutter home from work just in time for the weekend. So the girls and I have been all about Halloween decorating since: we have spider lights, cobwebs, and a pirate skeleton out front. Window marker spider webs decorate the front window; kindergartener daughter created “SpookScapes” on the French Doors to the side yard with bats I cut out of black construction paper and her own hand-drawn stars, ghosts, and pumpkin patches.
Somewhere amid the Halloween decorating and costume mind-changing, I remembered a faraway friend calling me last year to tell me that she and her daughters were assembling “Phantom Ghost” packages to deliver to neighbors, as they had been “nabbed” by the friendly spirit themselves. It was a fun neighborhood tradition that she thought we could start down here. A vague internet search quickly led me to what she described: The Phantom Ghost—here’s one version, and another. I amended the latter poem for our own use (allowing our “victims” more time), see after the jump…
Now that Baby G is a full-fledged walker (Watch out lamps!), he has his hands free for all the multi-tasking a newly minted ambulator can handle. His all-time favorite clutchables are his sister’s rain boots (nice little hooks to hold on to), but since jams all kinds of treasures inside, they are a bit heavy to carry around. I was about to recycle a liter-sized water bottle the other day and decided to channel my preschool days and made him a nice new shaker instead. I dried it out, threw some uncooked beans in, put the lid on, taped it over with some very strong, clear packing tape and that was that. Now he wobbles, shakes and rattles his way through the living room at an alarming speed. One year olds are awfully cute.
This fabulous idea just in from my good friend, Brandie, mother of three very busy kids. Thanks for the hot tip, B!
Do you shop at Costco? In between the gigantic packages of toilet paper and paper towels, they lay sheets of gigantic, thick paper. I’ve always thought it would be so fun to bring some home and color on them, and today I finally did it. The guy at the register said we could take as many as we want, any time. My youngest daughter, Jane, and I did just that. We also picked up some jumbo markers on the way to getting her older siblings from camp. We ended up bringing four of their friends home, too. I just walked in the door and threw the paper on the floor for Jane, but everyone immediately surrounded it, and they made a big picture that was sort of a deadly rain forest* (What can I say? Gruesome people tend to gravitate toward one another.).
Anyway, it occupied seven 7-to-12-year-olds for a solid hour. When the friends left, Jane turned the gigantic paper over and started a new picture all to herself.
Anyone else have any lazy afternoon ideas to share?
*Unfortunately, Santa’s reindeer getting zapped by lightning got cut out of the frame, but you can see the giant evil parrot with the saddle eating a tiny man, lots of scary bees and snakes and, according to one child, a man in a bear suit holding a baseball bat.
[Ed. Note: My friend Heidi is taking over the writing reins today. Heidi is a mom of two fabulous creatures, aged almost four and eight and a half. Thanks, Heidi! Welcome to the GHM gang.]
I don’t know about any of you, but I was so glad when my daughter, Camille, finally bid adieu to My Little Pony. All those little ponies (it seemed like we had 200) and the endless hours of Pony land that we had to enact drove me nuts. I couldn’t take one more minute of Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie or Minty, so it was with great joy when, at about age five, she said “Goodbye, Pinkie Pie” and “Hello, Fairies!” The fairy obsession, which for some reason seems kind of organic & wholesome is still going strong at eight and a half years old. I have to check myself here and realize that anything would seem more organic than a pastel green plastic pony. Anyway, there are many, many fantastic fairy toys out there, but these Fairy in a Box are one of the best.
Mickey’s daughter Kara positively loathes sand in her toes, especially if she has shoes on at the park. So this weekend, Mickey listened to a pal’s advice and packed a small bottle of baby powder. Hunh? All you have to do is slosh some baby powder on the sand-afflicted body part, rub with a towel and boom! All that sand just falls right off. Kara was thrilled as was the bottom of Mickey’s car.
Great to just keep a small bottle in your car door for trips to the park, beach or lake! Hooray for Spring!
It’s May Day. Growing up, that meant we spent April 30th weaving baskets out of construction paper so that we could leave baskets full of hand-picked-from-our-garden-flowers on our older neighbors’ doorsteps.
I think Sy and I will do it today, but make simple cones with a strip stapled on as a hanger. My sleep deprivation keeps me away from cutting that many strips of paper in straight lines these days.
Anyone else have a nice craft project lined up for the weekend?
Image via wonkette.
The other weekend day when my daughters and I had temporarily run out of things to do and places to go (and there were no naps to be had), I had a brilliant idea: a scavenger hunt. In the house. My little kindergartener loves projects, can read well enough to follow directions for simple objects and tasks, and has a little sister who will go fetch. It could be a race, with everyone a winner! Even I could earn a prize with some time to get something done!
I set about making a list of ten items to FIND and five things to DO (If your child is a non-reader, YOU keep the list, and they just come back to be read the next task as they complete each one). I gave my girls sacks in which to gather their goods, and they scurried off, accidentally practicing reading, counting, and identifying colors and shapes.
Here’s a simple example:
Need something to do with your munchkin today? How about starting some bean sprouts?
All you need is a Ziploc bag, tape, a sunny window, four bean seeds (lima bean or even a sunflower seed will work) and some damp cotton balls.
Have your kiddo get the cotton balls wet, put them in the bag, drop the seeds in and you’re done. I didn’t say it was a long project. Leave the bag open and tape it to a sunny window and discuss what you think is going to happen. Make sure the cotton balls stay damp throughout the process.
Sy’s classroom did this the other day and we already have little sproutlings. We’re going to transplant them this weekend. She finds it downright thrilling to come into the kitchen every morning and check the progress of her beans. I just hope we don’t kill them in the transplanting process…
Happy almost Spring!
I had never heard of Discovery Toys before I became an illustrious aunt. My mom got my niece a couple of surprisingly enjoyable toys from them, toys which have either been passed down to us or purchased again for us. I always looked in stores for them and never saw them. I asked my mom and she said that she bought them from a friend who is a rep, sort of like an Avon lady. (I looked it up and you can buy them online, too.)
Anyway, we have a handful of games from Discovery Toys and they all get equal play. Sy’s favorite is definitely the Busy Bugs Learning Center.
