Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?...Featuring You #1

Here we go with our very first opportunity to feature a few fabulous bloggers out there with great ideas for summer activities with the kiddos!  I may try a few of these during my last week of work!  This week I found several different "bucket lists," of things to do!
The gals at Apron Girls have lists of things to do to stay busy in the heat of summer.  Check them out here and here.  One of them is a "bucket list," a family put together for what they want to do this summer.  Another list is simply a long list of fun-packed activities!
Being Frugal has a few general ideas of cheap things to do with your kiddos!  Check out the ideas here and  here!
Berlin's Whimsy is a brand new blog I found.  Her ideas are very original and sound like a lot of fun!  Click here and here for her ideas.  I will warn you, the lists are very similar but not quite the same!  Have fun!

Next week I'll be featuring a few specific projects and activities.  If you have an idea posted on your blog, and would like to be featured, leave me a comment!  I'd love to feature you!  If I featured you in this post, be sure to grab a button. (And if they don't work, tell me and I'll get to work on them...they're brand new!)

Oh, What do you do in the Summertime? Part 2

I have to apologize…there will be minimal pictures today…and none of them will be taken by me.  I still have to figure out how to take pictures of the activities and respect the privacy of the family I work for.

I have done some fabulous activities with my kiddos (yeah, their not my kids…but I call them mine anyways), and here they are!  We did all things food this week!

My kiddos love popcorn, and they love helping me make it.  I have one of these that makes it a lot of fun for kiddos.  It’s called a Whirley Pop, and you can make popcorn on the stove quickly and easily.

 A note about Safety: I don’t let them actually cook the popcorn with the heat on.  I have the kids help me pour in the kernels and oil in the pan, and then I set it on the stove and they each get to turn the handle 10 times (with the heat off), and then it’s my turn to really cook it.  If they’ve caught on that they don’t actually cook it, they don’t care :)

If you don’t have a Whirley Pop, you can make popcorn on the stove with a regular pan or in the microwave or any other way.  Here’s a site that has instructions with pictures.  The activities just need popcorn…it doesn’t matter how you make it!

After snacking on our delicious treat, we drew the outline of a tree on a paper.  Older Kiddo chose black paper, so I busted out the sidewalk chalk to make it visible.  The kiddos thought this was cool!  I made squiggles with Elmer’s glue on the tree and they covered them with popcorn.  The kiddos requested doing Christmas Trees, so that’s what we did!  I was thinking spring trees, but such is life!  I think the request was inspired by the book we’d read earlier (pictured below). 

The kiddos asked if we could string popcorn and play bingo with popcorn another day.  I said sure (thanks for planning for me…love that)!

We read lots of books about food this week.  Some of our favorites included:

The kiddos didn’t know it, but the last two books are part of a series called Math Start.  They help kids learn the first basics of math such as more, less, same and different sets.  The stories are very cute if you want to read for fun, but still get some learning in.  Fabulous!

A couple other things my kiddos love can be printed here and here.  I had cutouts of different fruits and vegetable for them to glue on.  It’s great to see how many different foods the kids can recognize!

Have fun with your food!  And guess what?  The weekend is already here!  Enjoy!

Oh what do you do in the summertime? Part 1

Last summer I worked as a nanny.  I got really bored, really fast.  This summer, I am working with the same family.  To prevent boredom, I have planned several “themed,” days.  I decided that if I was expected to blog the ideas, I’d keep the momentum going, so here we go!  I will most likely be doing 1 themed day per week, but if I do extra, I will definitely post about it!  My very first series, how exciting!
Disclaimer:  I am not a mother.  I will try to plan activities that take very little prep, but I know moms are busy.  Use as many or as few activities as you want.  Simplify as much as you want as well!  These activities are for a four year old and 2.5 year old, but can be “grown up” or “grown down” (is that even a real phrase?!) as much as you’d like!
So let’s get started.
Week 1: Potato Day!
You’ll need:  A few of these babies, and some other stuff (to be explained later in the post)

Activity #1: First, we’ll do potato prints! 
You’ll need:  Potatoes, a knife, washable kid paint, paper
I got this idea from the Family Fun cookbook my mom gave me years ago for Christmas. 

Cut the potatoes in half, and then cut them so a shape sticks out.  I am not particularly good with knives, so I will not show you pictures of this.  I also found that simply cutting the potatoes at different angles worked great too.  That way you have several sides to use as stamps.



Then get your washable kid paint out, and go to town!

Activity #2: Potato Pals, People, Monsters, (whatever your kids decide to call them!) 
This idea also came from my handy Family Fun Cookbook!
You’ll need: potatos (mildly soft ones are easier), toothpicks, and any other crafty items you have (buttons, raisins, yarn, cupcake wrappers, material scraps, etc)
*If you think your potato pals will simply sit on the counter for others to adore, cut the bottom of the potato to help it stand up flat.  If not, leave it so you don’t get potato juice all over the house.  (I left mine whole…the potatoes visited every room in the house!)

Stick the toothpicks in the potato where a body part will be.

Then put buttons or anything else you’d like on top of the toothpick to make a face!  My kiddos used yarn for hair, cupcake wrappers for beds/bathtubs or hats, etc.
Activity #3: Potato Faces!
You’ll need:  Paper, Marker, print out of body parts, crayons if your kiddos want to color the faces
For my body print outs, I used the Crayola Art Studio program my husband got me for my birthday last year.  It’s pretty much a glorified version of paint, but it has many images that are very useful for preschoolers/kids.  I LOVE this program!  I think it was around $25 ( I just saw it on Amazon for under $20), and it’s very worth it!
***SUPER COOL!*** I was checking out Crayola’s Website, and found some printable coloring pages with face parts on them!  So go ahead and print these pages out here and here, and you’ll be set!

Take your paper and draw what looks like a potato.  (Yes, I used blue paper… :)


Here’s just a couple examples.
Have fun!  Posting to these linky parties
If you do any of these projects, I would LOVE to see them!  If you have any ideas on what I can do in the summertime, leave me a comment and I’ll try it out!