Activity: Dance Party!

As the name of this post suggests, we had a dance party today! Mia's cousins, Brooklyn and Jenna, came for visit and asked me to put on some music. So then we all started dancing! It was a great way to get out some wiggles. Most of the kids tuckered out after about 10 minutes. Here's more of the details....

Items Needed:
Music (I vote for kids music, or whatever you feel is appropriate for their age)
Music Player (iPod/iPad, DVD player, CD player, Computer/tablet (for using Pandora), etc.
Your Voice (in case the power is out and you want to create music anyway)

Here's how it went:

I turned on the music and the girls just started dancing!

Results:

This activity was a lot of fun. And adults can do it too if they want. Mostly the girls just stomped their feet, twirled, and jumped with their arms in the air. 

The Thankful Tree!

Seeing as Thanksgiving is at the end of this week, I thought it would be fun to do an activity about being thankful. I got out my supplies and got to work. Here's how it all went down.

Items needed:

Constuction Paper (I chose fall colors because of the season)

A large paper bag (I grabbed one on my way out of the grocery store)

Scissors

Writing Utensels (crayons, pens, dark pencils, etc.)

Clear Tape (such as scotch tape, or masking tape would also work)

Large paper bag from the grocery store.

     I cut off the very bottom of the bag, and then along one of the side seams. Then I cut "branches". I don't think that there is a right or wrong way to cut the branches.

I taped the tree to the refridgerator.

  I cut out the leaves ahead of time so that I didn't have to deal with kids and scissors.

Here are Mia and her cousins. I'm getting the tape ready, and they are waiting to put more leaves on the tree.

We're just about done! I can't get them the tape fast enough....

     I think that this activity worked really well. Brooklyn (almost 5) was able to write some of her "thankful" words by herself, but the grownups had to help the littlest kids (2 and 20 months) . The only problem that I had was not being able to get little rolls of tape ready as quickly as the kids wanted. They were very good at waiting for their turns though.

Here is a list of some of the things we were thankful for:

Fishies (gold fish crackers)

House

Clos (This is how Brooklyn spelled Clothes)

Family

Mommies and Daddies

Bed

Love

Forgiveness

Church

Scriptures

Sun

Heat

Animals

Toys

etc.

Have you tried something similar? How did it go? What suggestions or ideas do you have?

Shaving Cream Art

I've been hearing from a lot of moms lately about "painting" without actually using any paint. It has been suggested that I use jello, pudding, water, soap, shaving cream, and other materials. In an effort to use what I already had at home, we opted this time to use shaving cream as our medium. Here's how it all went down:

Items needed:
Shaving cream (the cheap stuff would be great for this project)
Cookie sheets or 9x13 pans
Any small toys that you want to have the kids "search for"

Participants:
1 almost 5 year old (cousin)
1 just turned 2 year old (cousin)
1 20 month old (Mia)

Messiness/Clean-up?
Super easy to clean up. It can get a little messy though, so I would suggest having towels nearby and perhaps putting a plastic table cloth on the table.

I started by adding shaving cream and Cheerios for texture. You could of course add toys or something else to it.

I had to practically shove Mia's hands into the shaving cream. As you can tell by her face, she didn't like it.  Maybe it was because she had just woken up from a nap and was unusually grumpy.

This is Mia's 2 year old cousin Jenna. Apparently, Jenna didn't like this activity the first few times she did it either. But now she loves it!

In fact, she loves it so much that she gave her "baby" a bath in shaving cream.

This is Mia's almost 5 year old cousin, Brooklyn. Shaving Cream Art happens to be one of Brooklyn's favorite activities.

I definitely plan to try this activity again, but this time I will do it when Mia is in a better mood.

Have any of you ever tried an activity like this? Did you use Shaving Cream or something else? How did it go? What suggestions or tips do you have?