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Free Christmas Fun for the Kids

3 Dec

If you celebrate Christmas with Santa, there are some fun, free online activities you can do for your kids.

Portable North Pole: Here, you can create a personalized video for your child from Santa.  You can enter their name for him to say, and for my kids, when they heard Santa say their name, their eyes lit up!  You can also decide if they are on the nice or naughty list, put in pictures so children can see their entry in Santa’s nice or naughty list,  and add in a specific toy on their list.

 

Elf Yourself: You enter pictures of your family and/or friends that are placed on elf bodies that dance around to your choice of music.  The first year I did this, my oldest was almost 1, and she wanted to watch it non-stop.  Then, there was only 1 dance to choose, but now there are 9 dances to choose from.

 

NORAD Santa Countdown and Tracker: Every year, NORAD has a Santa tracker, where you can track Santa’s location on Christmas eve as he flies around the world.  They now have added to this by having some information about some of the cities Santa travels to, so you learn along the way too.  They have also added the Countdown Village, where a new game/activity opens up each day until Christmas.  My oldest and I have had a lot of fun with the games available so far.

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Bountiful Baskets – 11/19/2011

20 Nov

This week I got the conventional basket.

Oroblancos, pears, bananas, pineapple, grapes, celery, carrots, spinach, red potatoes, yellow squash, onions, and grape tomatoes.

The red potatoes I will probably use to make mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.  I like to clean those really well and leave the skins on  for mashed potatoes.  I will probably make Spinach & Lentil Tortellini Soup in the slow cooker.  Since I froze last week’s celery to use for bread and celery dressing on Thanksgiving, I might use this celery and the carrots and make chicken & noodles.

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Change Your Clock, Change your Batteries

5 Nov

On Sunday, November 6, it’s time to “fall back” and change your clocks.  Well, unless you live in Arizona, like me, and don’t do daylight savings time, so our time won’t change.  However, whether you change your clocks or not, it’s a good opportunity to check and change the batteries in your smoke detectors.  I have done all but one of my smoke detectors, one requires a ladder which I am still working on getting.  But all the ones in our bedrooms have fresh batteries, have been tested, and are in working order.  You can click on the picture above to get more information on smoke alarms and fire safety.

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Butterfly Snack Bags

27 Oct

My oldest daughter is turning 5 soon, so she wanted to take in treats to share with her friends at school.  I came across a cute idea on Pinterest that was snack bags that looked like butterflies.  I had snack sized zipper bags, clothespins leftover from some other activities I made, and plenty of pipe cleaners.   Don’t have googly eyes, but decided to use a marker to draw a face.  Then, we needed to pick a snack, so we picked frosted animal cookies to give them a little color.

Here is how I went about making them.  I cut the pipe cleaners into 3 pieces to get the right size for the antenna of the butterfly.  I kept the snack bag sealed and clipped the middle with the clothespin.  Then, I opened each side, put in the cookies, and re-sealed the sides.  Then, I drew eyes and a smile on the clothespin.  I folded a pipe cleaner in half, rolled up each end a little, and cinched it in the clothespin in the hole at the top.  Here is the finished product.

 

You could decorate the clothespins with paint or markers to spruce it up a little.  But, my almost  year old was pretty impressed with this, especially when I let her help draw the smiley faces.

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Toddler School – Week 5

23 Oct

This week we did a letter E worksheet.  Let me tell you, it was a little tough to come up with E words that they would recognize or that they wouldn’t things was something else.  In the end, I think it turned out good.

I searched for a while for some new activities to do.  I came across these number printables and figured since we had worked on number recognition somewhat last week, that it would be fitting to work on numbers again this week.  I ended up printing out all the printables available and laminated them, then cut them apart.  This week we only used the numbers with the colored dots on them.  Then, I got colored pom poms at the dollar store, and we used those to put on the colored dots to practice counting.

Then, we did something more crafty, we made butterflies like I had found on Pinterest.  You flatten a coffee filter, then paint it with watercolors.  Once it is dry, you fold it accordion style.  You cut a pipe cleaner in half, then fold that half around the folded coffee filter and twist a couple times.  Bend the ends for the antenna.

This week I decided to start keeping the activity materials together in gallon size zipper bags, much like busy bags.  I will have a post coming up talking about busy bags, the ones I have made, and some ideas for new ones.

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Toddler School – Week 4

16 Oct

Last week we weren’t able to meet because my friend’s kids were sick.  So, even though this week is Fall Break for the older kids, we got together and had the older kids do some of their own activities and do some activities with the younger kids.

I needed to do some prep work still for the activities, so first the kids all colored the D worksheet I made.  Again, this is to introduce the letter for recognition and simple words that start with that letter.  For the older kids, we had them also write their names and write uppercase and lowercase Ds.  Next, I had gotten some foam pumpkins and various Halloween foam stickers in the dollar section at Target a few weeks back, so I got those out for them all to decorate.

Next, we divided up the older kids and the younger kids.  For the older kids, I picked out pipe cleaners in colors the corresponded to the bead colors that I have.   Then, I put a piece of tape at the top of each pipe cleaner and put a number.  Then, I had them sit and put beads on the pipe cleaners, they had to match the color and put as many beads as the number on the tape.  They both did really well with this.

While the older kids did this, the younger kids got to play with a sensory tub.  I had purchased some foam puzzles at the dollar store, 2 with numbers 0 – 9, 2 with the uppercase alphabet, and 2 with the lowercase alphabet.  I took the numbers out of the puzzle and put them in a plastic bin, then put egg noodles in to bury the numbers.  So, they had to dig through the noodles to find the numbers and put them in the puzzle.  They had a lot of fun playing with the noodles and finding the numbers.  We did work on recognizing the numbers as well.

The younger kids were pretty much done at that point, it was enough activities for them for one day.  The older kids wanted to try out the noodles in the tub, so I got out the uppercase and lowercase letter puzzles and hid those letters for them.

Next week, we’ll do the letter E, and I’m on the hunt for some new activities!

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W.H.A.L.E. Program

13 Oct

Since I do not have a job that being a Child Passenger Safety Technician Instructor is a part of, it sometimes is difficult to find opportunities to do community events.  Back in July, I was contacted by the San Pedro Kiwanis to help them at a Back to School Fair in our city.  The Kiwanis Club does a number of community outreach programs for kids, and one of those is the WHALE program.  WHALE stands for We Have a Little Emergency, and is used to help emergency personnel care for a child in a crash if the parents can’t speak for the child.  The first sticker is a bright-colored sticker, and you put the child’s name, any allergies or medical conditions, and emergency contact names and phone numbers.  Then, there are 2 stickers that say WHALE that go on each side of the car seat to let emergency personnel know to look for the information sticker.  The last 2 stickers say WHALE as well and go in the rear vehicle windows, again to let emergency personnel know to look for the information sticker.  At the Back to School Fair, they wanted CPSTs available to do car seat checks along with putting these stickers on car seats.  At that event, there was another CPST and myself, and we checked and put WHALE stickers on 13 car seats.  Then, the Kiwanis Club contacted me again about doing a car seat check event to distribute more WHALE stickers.  This time we had 4 CPSTs and one of the CPSTs had recently obtained a number of car seats, so we had car seats available to give to people who came with no seat, an expired seat, or an outgrown seat.  We got 20 seats checked and stickers on that day, 10 of which were new seats we gave out that day.  It was a really great event, and the Kiwanis Club members are a great group of people to work with.  Hopefully we’ll be able to have another event in the spring to continue to get the WHALE stickers out there and to make sure seats are properly installed to keep kids safe in the car.

Here is a picture of some of the seats we had that day.

And here is a scan of a picture and blurb in the local paper of myself showing one of the moms that came in for a car seat check how to check for proper harness tightness at the shoulder.

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Toddler School – Week 3

30 Sep

For this week, we started with coloring a Letter C worksheet I had created.  I didn’t have time to get items together that started with the letter C this week, so we just talked about the things on the worksheet.

Next, we worked on shapes.  I had come up with idea to create a sheet with shapes, then have cut out shapes to match them, maybe using double sided tape.  But, then I ordered a lamniator over the weekend, I decided to use it for the sheets and cut out shapes, then put velcro circles on the back so that they could be re-used.  So, I printed 2 copies of the shape worksheet and colored one of them with crayons.  Then, I laminated both of them.

Next, I cut out the colored shapes, and added the velcro circles.

It went over very well with the kids!

Next, they wanted to do the color match activity again.  I laminated a piece of paper in each color this time so they would be re-usable too.  I also added the color name to each one.  I know they aren’t anywhere near reading, but at least it’s exposure to the words.  We also got out the water beads again.

That was about all the attention we got out of them for the afternoon, so we went for a walk.

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My new laminator is here!

29 Sep

With doing more learning activities with K, and doing “Toddler School” with S and her friends, I had been debating on buying a laminator.  I had a few projects in mind, but wasn’t sure it would be worth the cost.  So, when the Amazon Deal of the Day was a Scotch Thermal Laminator, I had some thinking to do. I went back and forth on it, then finally decided to go ahead and buy it.  Since it only comes with 2 laminating pouches and I had a few things in mind to do, I also ordered a 100 count package of pouches.  I was a little nervous about buying that many pouches without knowing how it all would go, but it was the best value, so I went for it.

Thank goodness for my Amazon Prime so I didn’t have to wait long to get it!  It came 2 days after I ordered, but of course, my UPS deliveries don’t come until after dinner, so I had to wait until the next morning to give it a try.

First thing I did was laminate construction paper for the color matching activity we’ve done with Toddler School.  Turned out pretty well.  I don’t think the pouches I got work perfect, but for what I’m using it for, it’s great.  Next, I made a handwriting practice sheet for K.  I had gotten a tablet of lined paper at the dollar store, so I put her name on the first line, then uppercase A, lowercase a, uppercase B, and lowercase b on the remaining lines. We have dry erase markers, so I had her write with that to practice the motions of writing the letters for now.  The markers just wipe right off.  Since I used a permanent marker to write her name and the first letters on each line, it is visible on the back since the paper is so thin.  And of course, I thought about doing it double-sided after I made this one.  For the rest of the letters, I will use 2 sheets of the paper to make it double-sided so I only have to use up 1 laminating pouch.

Next, I laminated some sheets I made for a shape activity for toddler school.  I left 1 uncolored and then colored the other one before laminating.  I colored with crayons to save on color ink, which is so expensive!  I’ll give a preview of it now, but will explain the activity in a post later this week.

This was only using the pouches from the 100 pack, I have not used the 2 pouches that came with it.  I had read that the Scotch pouches are a higher quality, but that comparison will have to wait for another time when I decide what will be good to laminate for comparison.  For now, I’m please with the pouches I got and the laminator as well!

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Toddler School – Week 2

24 Sep

This week for Toddler School we had a few extras, my friend was watching a 3-year-old and 1-year-old, plus another friend with a 2-year-old decided to join our weekly learning adventures.  Even though it was a little chaotic, we still got through a few activities.

First, we started with coloring a Letter B worksheet that I created.  I also brought some toys that start with the letter B, a bird, a bear, a baby, and a book.

Then, we went outside to do the color match activity with the foam shapes that we did last week.  However, instead of the water beads, I filled the tubs with bird seed.  We chose bird seed because we knew it would be messy, so we wanted to do this outside, but were worried about not getting all the rice picked up and didn’t want the birds to get rice.  Plus, bird seed starts with B, so it fit in with the letter B theme.


That activity got a little out of control, with bird seed all over, so we moved on to pipe cleaner activities.  First, I got out the beads to work on motor skills by getting the beads on the pipe cleaners.  We tried to do some color matching with this, matching bead and pipe cleaner color, but focused more on just getting the beads on.  That was challenging enough for little hands!  Next, we got out a plastic strainer with holes to make pipe cleaner rainbows.

After that, we just played and watched a movie until it was time to get the big kids.  We have some fun things planned already for next week!

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