Activity: Up Down Up!

Let's face it. Kids young and old like Winnie the Pooh (myself included). Who can forget the cute "Little Black Rain Cloud" song, or better still Winnie the Pooh's "stoutness exercises"? If you are unfamiliar with these songs, take a look at these.

"I'm just a little black rain cloud"

"Stoutness Exercise (Up, Down, Up!)"

Now seeing as I am currently overweight, I figure that any way I can make exercise fun for me as well as my daughter is a good idea. So lately, Mia and I have been turning on "Toddler" radio stations using Pandora and then we begin dancing, twirling, jumping, skipping, running, kicking, and just about every other movement you can think of. It helps her to get out her wiggles before bedtime (always a good thing), gets her exercising, helps her learn to move her body and also work on her balance and coordination skills. Not to mention that it's more fun for me to exercise with her than attempt to run in 30 degree weather (I'm not a runner by any means, but I do walk in 5k's occasionally).

If only exercising was as perfectly easy for people as it is for Winnie the Pooh. But for now, I think that 20-30 minutes a day (sometimes we break it up in to 10-15 minute chunks) is a great start! Especially if you can't go outdoors because it's too cold or too hot.

What kinds of exercise activities to you do with your kids when stuck indoors? Do you have any outdoor activities that can easily be transferred inside?

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. 

Helping: Clean up, Clean up, Everybody, Everywhere!

I've noticed lately that Mia has been copying a lot of what she sees people doing. If you dance, she dances. If you read, she reads. If you clean, she cleans. So for Christmas, I thought she would enjoy a little play cleaning set (I found hers at ToysRUs). Here is what we did:

Items needed
If you don't have a toy cleaning set, get out some extra wash cloths, scrub brushes, or Clorox wipes (depending on the age of your kid).
Vinegar (or some other all natural cleaning products that is safe for kids)
Music (if you want)

 I had Mia help clean the side of the fridge, since that's where we do a lot of things with magnets.

Mia also helped clean off the chairs, since she had gotten finger prints all of them. Even after I stopped cleaning them, she kept going. It was very cute.

Results
For at least light cleaning, I think it works very well. Especially for all those little tiny cleaning projects that you've been meaning to do for months and months. Just remember to make it fun, and not worry so much about correcting their cleaning. They can learn to clean better as they get older.

Those poor pipe cleaners....

I got together with some other moms this past spring and one mom showed us how to play with pipe cleaners and a strainer (the kind you would use after cooking pasta).  At the time, I thought that it was a clever idea, but in all of our usual busyness, I quickly forgot about it. It wasn't until recently that I remembered as I was trying to figure out something for Mia to do while I was working on some household and bugdgetting things. I got out the pipe cleaners, strainer, and of course my camera, and sat down with her on the floor. I started poking the pipe cleaners through the holes at random, and watched a big smile spread across her face. She caught on quickly and has spent a lot of time working her way through the holes with no complaints.

It doesn't look like it in the picture, but Mia actually had nearly 20 pipecleaners out at one point. 

For those of you with toddlers or pre-schoolers, have you tried this? Did it work for you? Do you have any tips or hints to share?

Let's give a hand to the turkey!

With Thanksgiving coming up at the end of the month, my crafting thoughts turned toward my much younger school days. Many of you probably did a craft like this at some time in elementary school, or girl scouts, or something like that. I decided that I would give it a try with my 19 month old.

Items needed:

Fall colored construction paper
Scissors
Scotch tape (or masking tape would probably work)
Crayons, colored pencils, or markers (if you use white paper like I did)
1 paper bag (I used a small bag, but if you are doing this with multiple kids, then I would use a larger back for the turkey body)

I started by tracing her hands onto a piece of white paper. You could also use colored paper, I chose to let Mia color her own "feathers". Since she's so young, I also did the cutting. Older kids could probably do the cutting themselves, with supervision of course.

Once the hands or "feathers" were colored by both of us (we took turns), we took them all to the refrigerator. Where you decide to place the turkey is up to you (i.e. the wall, refrigerator, dish washer, etc).

I am adding scotch tape to the lesser colored sides of the hands.

And now it's pretty much like "pin the tale on the donkey", only without the blindfold. I handed the ready taped "feathers" to Mia, who then put them on the refrigerator.

I forgot to mention that I cut out the turkey "body" by just making a bowling ball shap on a paper bag that I grabbed on the way out of WINCO, along with my other groceries.

After the "feathers" were all up on the refridgerator, I arranged them around the turkey until it looked like this.

So there you go! How has it worked with your kids? Any tips, comments, or suggestions?

What do I do with my kid when it rains?

I am the mother of a toddler, and an aunt to 2 nieces that live really close by. I grew up in Northern California, but have also spent significant time living in Utah, and now live in the greater Seattle area of Washington state. Like many of you, I've lived somewhere that rains (or snows) a lot. As an adult, I can keep myself entertained just fine on days when going outside isn't really an option. But now I have a toddler, and I'm drawing a blank. Perhaps many of you are too. And if you are anything like me, you DON'T want to park your kids in front of the television or computer for 8 hours every day, just because it won't stop raining. So that brings me to the purpose of this blog.

WHAT DO I DO WITH MY KIDS WHEN IT RAINS?

I don't think that I know the answer to that question yet, but I'm hoping to find out. I hope that many of you will join me in this adventure, and together we can enjoy more quality time with our kids, especially when we are all feeling squirelly during a rain storm.