FunThingsToDoWithUrKidz

With holidays coming up I tried to make everything hand made for my sons birthday party. That included his cake. He loves colors and all he wants was a rainbow cake, so off I went to try to figure out how to make one. I found it was a lot easier then I thought. To make one all you need is white cake mix(ready to go, so make the cake mix like the box says)  and food coloring. After the cake mix was made we split it up into few different bowls and mixed food coloring in. After that we poured them into the pan and baked. (we followed the baking directions as the box said) Our cake when done got a little darker on the top but stayed very bright inside. My son and daughter both loved being apart of the process and enjoyed how colorful it was.  

Above is a small shelter we made in the woods the other day. My kids love playing in the woods and personally I never feel like it is to early to start teaching them survival skills. So this time out in the woods we collected stick, leaves, bark to make a small shelter. It was interesting to see what their ideas are and it was just all around fun to create. We talked about keeping dry and the importance of having a safe shelter. Other things kids should know are~ Not to panic simple first aid how to find food defending themselves find their way home stay warm and how to get help This all comes with time but remember to keep at it cause you never know if/when it will be needed.

My son wanted to be a snake this year so we decided to make his costume. We used green clothes, felt, black hat and hot glue to put it all together. Anyone else make a costume this year?

Double doodling is a activity that you draw one picture using both hands. You can draw anything symmetrical. Start with both pens at the center of the paper and work your way out from there. (you can use markers,crayons or any other drawing material) What ever one hand does the other must follow on the other side. I found hearts was a easy way of showing my kids this concept but if you are looking for more skilled things to draw try few of these~ Face rabbit house butterfly tree

Give away time!~ One lucky person will be receiving these new Sunstaches! To enter go over to the Sunstaches Facebook page give them a like and let them know Funthingstodowithurkidz sent you! Will end Nov.1st Sunstaches fb page~ https://www.facebook.com/ SunStaches?fref=ts If you can not wait and want to order now check out here!~  http:// sunstaches.evyy.net/c/ 190828/207587/3587

This is our hungry crocodile learning box. Made from a old dish soap packet box, felt, and hot glue. We filled it with words for my daughter to spell and write. The whole point was to try to make studying fun for her and it worked! Everyone ended up getting in on it and she loved that members of her family picked out words for her to spell and write. Every piece of paper has a word on it and some have a star(for bonus words that she will be learning in school soon). Once she got the spelling/sounding them out right it went off to the side to pick another word out.  It was very easy to make and doubles as storage for all the words.  Note~ this could be done for every subject in school! Math you can write problems and have them pick out one to solve. Other subject you can write questions and have them answer them. 

To make this activity dough you will need  one 15oz can of pumpkin one box of corn starch (corn flour in the UK) Place all the pumpkin in a bowl then add about 1/3 box of corn starch at a time and mix. We used all the cornstarch but a very little, we placed the little bit left on the table. Only cause that is what my daughter wanted to do. The dough was not sticky once mixed.  You could also add pumpkin spice but it is really not needed. side note~(The snake thing in the back is my sons Halloween costume. ;) We had to make it home made this year cause he just HAD to be a snake.  Soon after we started playing my son came over and like normal wanted to add the dough to water. He is experimenting and learning so why not. I gave him a bowl with a little bit of water and he went to work mixing the dough in a little bit at a time. After mixing all the dough in it really didn't change much. It became more of a free flowing dough but was not really messy. 

Bath time bombs #2 We did this recipe before but used lavender and didn't add the epsom salts. So this time we tried something different.  Recipe~  In a bowl mix  baking soda(about half cup) epsom salt (we used a epsom salt that had clay mixed in)(about one cup) food coloring (don't need a lot and it didn't stain my tub or kids) and water (not a lot, just enough to be able to mix and place into molds) note~If mix is to watery just add more epsom salt or baking soda) Once you fill our molds place in freezer to freeze over night. I found with rubber molds they came right out after a little smack on the table and that it was much harder with plastic molds. I suggest only using one or two per bath time as that is really how much we use when we do detox baths, but if you use more then one you could practice some coloring mixing fun!

Let me start off by saying this book is a really fun book. It's by Dr. Seuss and is a must read. (If you can not find the book you can also listen to it on Youtube) This book goes threw the shapes of different things by looking at the shadows they make.  This makes for a fun activity of going outside on a sunny day and seeing what other shadows we could find. We started by finding our own and each others shadows. We did things like jumping and running to see how our shadows follow us.  Then we went on to different objects. ^This was his Lego tower and car. One made a long shadow and one a short shadow.   Our van witch made a big shadow!  Our trash can, flower, mailbox, flag and flag pole were more we found. We talked about how some shadows are tiny, thin, and some were big. We talked about how the sun hitting different objects made the shadows and how each shadow outline the shape of the objects it hit.  We even found that our house had a shadow and that

With my sons 4th birthday coming up and this being right after we moved and at the start of the holiday season I knew what ever theme he wanted would have to be on a budget. So given myself time I asked him a month ahead of time and good thing I did cause when his answer was Shopkins I wasn't surprised. Shopkins are on their third season (another one coming out soon :p ) and are highly collectible. There is little to no birthday party supplies out there and personally I can not afford Etsy crafts right now so we went with making everything hand made with stuff we had. This is what we did!~ Above are Shopkins stuffies made from felt, hot glue, and plastic bags. To make them you just outline the front first, make and add the eyes, mouth, and any other extras. Then you hot glue a big piece of felt on the back. Make sure to leave a hole to stuff it. (to stuff ours we put in one plastic bag so it make noise and any scrap felt pieces, nothing went to waste) Once done cut off any

Easy way for little kids to get involved in the pumpkin making fun.  Just cut a window out of a clean pumpkin and let your little ones go wild creating different scenes. Ours was just a fall theme with fake leaves,light, and a deer but be creative. Maybe use skeletons, or animals. Anything your little ones might be into at the time.   

Bobbing for apples is a fun way to use fine motor skills and have fun at the same time.  All that is needed is water, a big bin, apples, and different tools to pick them out.  We went down a line trying different ways to get the apples until we came to the end of the line. Then we tried no tools juts theirs mouths, though i am pretty sure my son juts liked dipping his head in the water and didn't care about grabbing a apple. :) This is a great fall game and could be done easily at any party. At the end they both enjoyed a apple as a nice snack.They deserved it for all their hard work.

Need to make this goop~ 1/2 cup of cornstarch (con flour in the UK) 1/3 cup of dish soap(we used a green one and that is why our goop is light green) 1 Tablespoon of water apple pie spice We added little leaves that we bought last year and keep reusing but it is not needed.  All you need to do is mix everything together in a bowl.  As play time went on my son asked for water and really how could I say no.  So he went on to mix more water into the goop witch made more bubbles and made the goop even more sloppy. Of course after awhile he dumped it and dance threw it, making little foot prints every place. 

Cheap and easy messy activity!  need~ Toilet paper (we used 1 and 1/2 rolls)  shampoo water food coloring First rip up the toilet paper in a large bin, then add about half cup of shampoo and water. I am not sure how much water we added but you want your mixture to be like goop. When done split the mixture into different balls. I pressed the mix together tightly to make ours, then add in food coloring to each individual ball. Note this did stain my hands a little but when it was done mixing it did not stain my kids.  I highly recommend this as a outside activity as it can get pretty messy. My son ended up adding more water and shampoo and making lots of bubbles.   He played with his hands and feet! He said it felt smooth and  squishy. Thanks to the shampoo it also smelled amazing!

To make this easy decorative piece you will need~ Pumpkin  Permit marker Flowers First clean out all the insides of the pumpkin. Make sure to get all the seeds and goop out. (you could spray with a bleach/water solution to keep it fresh for longer) Then cut the flowers and place in pumpkin. Make sure to write your greeting on the outside and done!   Besides the bleach part (if you do, do that) this is a child friendly craft and could even help with cutting  practice. It's interesting to see what color schemes my kids come up with and how focus they are on placing the flowers.

So no we didn't write our 4 part apology on the best piece of paper but the meaning behind it goes way deeper then what paper it's written on.  Some times the sorry that we hear may sound a lot like a TV script..on repeat. They become less and less form the heart and more just to say it and get it over with. In a effect for my own kids to start taking accountability for what they do we start our own 4 part apology.  We wrote it down and hung it up. The four parts are~ I'm sorry for.... This is wrong because... In the future, I will.... Will you forgive me? note~ This is something we went over before anything ever happened so when something did they all ready knew what we would be doing.