Organizing the #Craft #Clutter

With the Christmas tree and decor gone, I’ve been able to start organizing certain areas around our new home that were driving me crazy because they weren’t organized properly. So, one afternoon, my daughter and I took some time to organize a bookshelf with their crafting items.

Before:

After:

Everything is clearly labelled now, and although my son and I continue to “discuss” where the little drawer unit with pencil crayons, erasers, pencils, etc actually goes (he believes on the floor around him while he’s on the ipad, which for some reason he prefers to use on the floor as well, sigh), everything goes back where it’s supposed to. What a concept!

 

The only things I bought were the 3 large green containers for a measly $8 each. I had everything else lying around.

Pre #Christmas Fun!

Some pics from our Pre-Christmas activities:

My daughter‘s handprint mitten ornaments, painted completely by her.

My son‘s handprint mitten ornaments, red is painted by him. I painted the borders.

Cookies decorated at my son’s IBI therapy Christmas carol-singalong. My son decorated the one on the left; my daughter, the one on the right.

My daughter on the City’s merry-go-round in the Holiday Train display they hold every year.

My son HUGGING Santa!!!! He initiated the hug!!

It’s been an amazing pre-Christmas time, and we still have a few more activities planned.

List of #Summer Activities

 

Happy first day of summer!

 

Summer has hit us hard here. We’re currently in day 3 of a heat advisory. Today’s forecast is 33 degrees Celsius (92 degrees Fahrenheit) with a humidex that will make it feel closer to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). Needless to say, all our Canadian igloos melted days ago…ha!

 

Recently, I blogged about trying to get organized to get crafty and have activity ideas readily accessible (so I don’t have to think), so I thought I would share our list, compiled by Googling “summer activities” and asking on Facebook mom groups what everyone is up to over the summer. Here are some of the things the kids and I will be doing this summer:

• Make homemade ice cream in a bag
• Make homemade popsicles
• Ride bikes outside
• Make a “Park Passport” and check each park off as we visit new ones
• Wrap a piece a duct tape around wrist with sticky side up. Take a walk around the neighborhood and stick leaves, small pebbles, sticks, and other treasures onto duct tape bracelet
• Paint the sidewalk with water
• Washand detail the car (get ready for a water fight!)
• Make a bird feeder
• Go to the splashpad
• Go on an “Alphabet tour”: go for a walk with camera & notebook, and beginning with the letter “a”, find something that starts with that letter (i.e.Adams Street). Take a picture & write it in your notebook. Continue with each letter. Each child has a personal and creative alphabet memory book for the summer.
• Go to a local pond and record items, animals and plants you see
• Go to a Farmer’s Market
• Play with a Hula-Hoop
• Go on a picnic
• Collect rocks and paint them; make them into Rock People
• Go to the library
• Go to the beach
• Pick some flowers
• Draw with chalk on the sidewalk
• Blow bubbles
• Go swimming
• Water balloon fight
• Play Frisbee
• Play soccer
• Play baseball
• Build a sandcastle
• Lie down on the grass and find shapes in the clouds

 

I have printed these activities on a label template, and put them in our Summer Box.

 

What are you going to do with the kids this summer?

 

Superhero and Villain Party on a Budget (Guest Post)

So your kids want to be superheroes and villains.  Why not let them with the ultimate do it yourself superhero vs. villains birthday party theme.  Not only is this fun for everyone, but your kids will get a great workout and learn to play as a team.  Here are some ideas that you can use to throw your own Superheroes Vs. Villains birthday party without breaking your budget.  

Costuming

Superheroes and villains need capes.  Fortunately you can go to a fabric store and find cheap white or solid colored fabric on sale.  Buy enough to be able to create a 2 or 3 foot long cape for each of the kids.  You’ll just need a rectangle for each.  While you’re there, pick up Velcro and decorating supplies like markers, glitter and glue.  

When you get home, take a paper plate or something circular and cut out a semi circle from the top of each piece of fabric.  Now take a piece of Velcro and attach it to the corners of the top of the cape where you cut out the semi circle.  Now you have your very own decorate your cape favors for the kids to take home with them.  

When the party begins, have each kid create their own superhero or villain identity and create a logo or emblem on the back of their cape.  You’ll also want each of them to write down what their special super power or ability is and keep track of it for later on in the party.  If there is enough time, you may want to let them make paper plate masks with the remaining markers and you can use elastic on each end to go around the back of their head and hold the mask in place.  

Games

Superhero and Villain Training Academy: Every hero and villain needs to be in shape.  Villains need to be able to jump and leap as well as sneak around buildings and cities while superheroes need to be able to catch the bad guys.  Relay races are a great way to get everyone’s heart rates up and energy levels moving.  Set up a relay race where the first kids have to run a few laps around the yard then pass a baton onto the next two kids.   

The next two kids will have to roll sideways across the yard and back to pass the baton off to the next kids.  The third round will have to crab walk to one end of the yard and then spin walk back to pass it to the fourth.  Set up as many types of walking and running or crawling that you need to make sure each kid gets a turn.  The team who finished the relay race first wins the game.  

Superpower Charades or Pictionary: While the kids were picking their superhero and villain identity, you asked each what their power was.  Now it’s time for them to play charades or Pictionary as a team to guess what those powers are.  It is important to make sure that they don’t tell the kids on their own team so that the game will be an even match.   Heroes vs.

Villains Flashlight Tag: One thing that is always fun when it starts to get dark is to play Superhero vs. Villain flashlight tag.  The way it works is that you have two people who are it.  One hero and one villain.  The hero and villain each have a flashlight and are trying to catch the people on the other team before they can make it safely to their hideouts.  The two people that are it have to shine their flashlight on any of the people playing they see and yell out their hero or villain name.  If they get the name right than that person is out.  If the hero accidently shines their flashlight on another hero, that hero is out of the game.  If the villain who is it shines the flashlight on another villain, then that villain is out of the game as well.  This makes it tricky.  The last person to get caught or kicked out of the game becomes the next person whose it for the heroes and the villains.  

Superhero vs. Villains birthday parties are fun for everyone.  The kids get to use their imaginations, learn about team work and develop their social skills.  Parents love them because their kids are worn out and ready for bed when they get home.  Having a superhero and villain party can also help to make getting kids pajamas  or superhero pajamas , a gift that they will enjoy, instead of throwing over their shoulders. 

This is a guest post from Adam Reimer with FunKidsPajamas.com.

I received no compensation for this post, but I found the information fun and useful, and I hope you do too!  

Trying to get organized to become #crafty

Last week, I mentioned I had created lists for crafts and activities to do with the kids. I’m not a crafty person but honestly, Pinterest has actually inspired me to think I may be able to handle some crafts. Even bought my first container of Mod Podge (was a bit thrown off that there are different types, but I’ll fumble my way through)! So, if I show any crafts here, I can guarantee you that anyone can do them!

I wanted to have pretty containers for my lists of crafts and activities so the kids and I went to the dollar store and found 4 boxes we liked (ok, I liked…my daughter picked out some really brightly coloured ones with a very strange pattern – I just couldn’t imagine myself looking at them all the time).  We bought:

• 4 same-sized boxes
• scrapbooking paper (as a non-scrapbooker, of course I don’t have any at home)
• 2 pages of letter stickers to make sure I had enough letters for all the words I was going to use (I actually had some letter stickers, but in colours that didn’t match the boxes)

I traced the green side of a box that showed under the lid onto the black paper and cut it out. Then I just eyeballed to make it smaller than the side of the box (see, really technical here!), and cut the paper smaller.

I went to add the word “summer” to the paper for that box and encountered a bit of a problem before I even stuck the letter stickers. I have really good spatial awareness, so I realized that they were too big to fit horizontally across the paper. I stood there and looked at the letters, then the paper, back to the letters, back to the paper, cursed the “M” for being so wide, especially when I needed to use two for the word “summer”.  Took me a few minutes (ok, closer to 10 minutes, but I’m new to this!) for me to realize I could put the words on diagonally. So, that’s what I did.

(You would think I would have taken pictures of the word “Summer” in progress, alas, I did not. And clearly I need a better camera…any sponsors? Am willing to test out different ones…hint, hint!)

Then I repeated the same process for all 4 words I’m using to classify the lists: Summer, Rainy, Crafts, Winter.

Then I taped these “cards” onto the four boxes, and voila! I actually did a “craft” of some kind.