July 7th, 2010 Outdoor Toddler Child Craft Ideas Posted by Melitsa in Outdoor play, play activities, Seasonal play, Sites to visit

So I was thinking, when was the last time I let my kids go outside and just have fun playing with things that were not store bought? I mean when I was young the highlight of my week was gathering up cardboard boxes from anything and everything and uses those to make toys. Yeah, cheap thrills! Hehehe!

Here are some fun and purposely messy crafts for toddlers and kids. Oh yeah – and a lot of this stuff is pocket friendly!

Sheet Painting – ages 4+

We all have old mangy looking bed sheets, admit it– time to finally drag one out and let the kids use it for some fun. Grab some spray bottles and fill them with acrylic or tempera paint diluted with water.

Lay the sheet on the ground or grass. If you are able to hang it on a clothesline it could even bring a bit more fun spraying a moving sheet. Let them spray that sheet until their hearts are content!

Once completed the kids can turn this huge art piece into a tent for camping or whatever kids want to use it for. Try not to limit their imaginations or give them instruction on how to express themselves. When it comes to art especially messy projects like this the less direction the better!

Drop-and-Splat Painting – ages 2+

This is an incredibly messy but fun and easy outdoor activity for kids. This is a project for a warm summer day when you can put those little ones in an old bathing suit or clothes that are OK to get messy.

Items:

• Plastic cups
• Water
• Food coloring
• Old clothes to wear (staining WILL happen!)
• Newspaper>
• Paper
• Rocks
• Straws

Fill old yogurt cups with water (or plastic cups) and set them outside.

Add a few drops of food coloring to each cup to make different colors.

Lay out a sheet of newspaper or paper on the ground. Idea: add rocks to the corners of the newspaper/paper to keep it from flying away!

Put a straw in a cup of colored water, and show your kiddies how to place a thumb or finger over the top end of the straw. This will keep water inside the straw when you remove it from the cup.

Next, lift the straw out of the cup and over the paper and uncover the straw end so the colored water drops onto the paper.

Try experimenting by raising straws full of water to different heights and observing how the height of the drop changes the resulting splat.

Variations: Try soaking cotton balls in the mixture and letting the kids splat them on the paper. You can also experiment with foil balls, rubber band balls, pinecones, and whatever else you can think of.

Some more quick and easy ideas:

Got Extra Kool-Aid?

Painting with Golf Balls

Cut out a large piece of paper and put it in the bottom of a plastic pool. Place golf balls dipped in different paint colors on the paper. Together the children can hold the edges of the pool and roll the golf balls around. This makes a great design when you are done.

Bored with the sandbox?

Give the children spray bottles with colored water. When the children spray the sand it will change color until they shovel it up.

Look for more fun kid crafts ideas at Crafts for Kidlets!

July 1st, 2010 Summer vitamins and Watermelon seed spitting Posted by Melitsa in Homemade, Outdoor play, play activities, Sites to visit, Thought of the week

Do you have your PURTS the new summer vitamin?

Are your toddlers getting their vitamins?

With the start of summer more of us will be aware of covering up our toddlers to avoid skin problems. We’re careful that they eat their greens and munch an apple to get their Vitamin C.

It’s what caring parents do. Vitamins are vital to the health of us all.

I’d like to propose five new vitamins just in time for summer. Release date is worldwide with no known side effects–except possibly the big bi-product of laughter, smiles and contentment.

Give your child PURTS this summer.

Vitamin P

To read more about the benefits of these amazing vitamins please visit my post over at Steady Mom.

Drowning in Watermelon?

What will you do with all those seeds?

Keep your toddler and preschoooler happy with this Watermelon noise maker

Vitamin P

To read more about this craft please visit my Blissfully Domestic post..

Friday 2nd July 2010 is the final day to enter the Outdoor products contest. Easy entry and multiple bonus entry opportunities

June 26th, 2010 Outdoor products for the summer Posted by Melitsa in gardening, Media, Outdoor play, play activities, Roundups, Seasonal play, Thought of the week

Welcome KMGH-TV Channel 7 Denver viewers! Thanks for watching this morning and stopping by for more information about the products I featured on TV.

While you’re here, you can learn more about me and my work on my profile page.

Featured products

Sport Brella

At the park, beach, pool or campsite, the SKLZ Sport-Brella gives you instant protection from the sun, rain, and wind with its domed shape, side flaps and 125 SPF. Its umbrella action open mechanism allows it to be set up in just three seconds and fits the whole family. Includes top wind vents, side zippered windows for efficient airflow and additional visibility, internal pockets for gear and valuables, convenient carry bag and tethers/ground stakes for use when necessary for additional stability. $69.99, sklz.com

Thermacell Outdoor Lantern

The ThermaCELL Outdoor Insect-Repellent Lantern is the best option for keeping mosquitoes and other insects in any outdoor setting. The Patio Lantern is both a powerful insect repellent device and a functional and portable, long-lasting outdoor LED lantern, with both functions being usable separately or together. Providing a 15×15 ft mosquito-free zone, it is 98% effective (tested and used by the Department of Defense and the United States Army), making it the most effective insect repellent device on the market. It is also non-toxic, safe and non-intrusive, being DEET-free, silent, portable and odor free. Rather than a harmful toxin, ThermaCELL utilizes allethrin, an artificial version of a natural insecticide found in chrysanthemum flowers. Weighs only 13 ounces. $31.99, mosquitorepellent.com

Pottyflip

Pottyflip is a full size, clean, safe, portable, disposable and biodegradable child potty that folds out from a palm-sized package. Easy to carry several in any purse or handbag, it is also easy to use. Just unwrap, flip open and it is ready to go. After use, fold it back up and dispose of the whole potty. No mess, no fuss. No more dirty public restroom seats or trying to find some hidden corner for a child to go to the bathroom. Also environmentally-friendly, it is fully and rapidly biodegradable. $24 for a pack of 12, pottyflipusa.com or at stores throughout North America.

Snack-Trap

The Snack-Trap is a child feeding product (designed for toddlers/kids ages 1-5) that minimizes wasted snacks and saves associated clean up time while promoting the development of self-feeding skills among infants. Consists of an attractive, colorfully imprinted, tip-resistant, handled cup that allows toddlers to grasp and hold the cup themselves with a unique, patent-pending lid with slits that allow toddlers to see and retrieve food with ease themselves but automatically closes when the toddlers remove their hand. 4.99, snacktrap.com, or at retailers throughout North America.

I’m giving away these 4 items. All as seen in the TV segment.

• Green Sport Brilla
• ThermaCELL Outdoor Insect-Repellent Lantern
• Potty Flip (2) unopened.
• Green snack trap with a dinosaur.

Four winners will be randomly chosen, each person winning one item.

To enter, leave a comment and tell me which two of these products you’d most like to win and why.

Please leave your e-mail address so I can reach you easily if you win.

For bonus entries, you can do one or more of the following – be sure to leave a separate comment for each extra entry:

• Follow me on twitter at @playactivities and tweet “@playactivities is giving away awesome outdoor products at http://tinyurl.com/2wqqazq . Enter today! “
• Subscribe to the RSS feed for play-activities.com
• Subscribe to the Play-Activities newsletter
• Subscribe to the Raising Playful Tots newsletter found here
• Post an entry on your own blog about this giveaway and link back ( trackback)
• Subscribe to Raising Playful Tots, the play activities podcast through iTunes. Come back and leave a comment here.

Contest details ( closed)

The contest will close at 11:59 p.m., MST, Friday 2nd July 2010. Four winners will be chosen using random.org. I will do my best to match the item to the person’s first or second choice, however I cannot guarantee that. If a winner does not want the assigned item, another item will not be offered, they will forfeit their win and another person will be chosen. After e-mailing the winners, they will have 48 hours to respond before I draw another name. I will publish the winners first names on my site after they have confirmed. Continental U.S. Entries only.

Disclosure: I was not paid to appear on TV or review these products. I did receive free products so I could show them during the segment. I was given the option to keep all of the products, however, I am choosing to share the love and give them away to readers. I will personally pay shipping fees to mail products to the winners.

Good luck

June 7th, 2010 3 summer places to visit Posted by Melitsa in Articles, Outdoor play, play activities

Your old school

You choose which one. Don’t live nearby? We don’t either. Photographs and yearbooks. But better yet they are likely to be online now. You can give your child a virtual tour. It’s hard for your preschooler to understand that you were their age and that you went to school.  If you are able to visit, take pictures and show them your route to school. Dig up a fun memory. Little ones need to have connections in the past and see how history develops.

An outdoor market

I still smile at, “  3 pound of Bananas for a pound!”. It’s what I grew up hearing as I went through my local market town on a Wednesday market day. Buying my fruit and veg in brown bags. The sights and sounds are amazing. Usually we’re on a mission to get everything and get out. But try one time that the market is the attraction. Meander and wander. It’s a sensory zoo of sensations so not for the faint of heart. Farmer’s markets holds similar promise. Find some strange fruit or vegetable to buy and try.

Photo credit:RKG

Top of a hill

Kids need to experience rolling down a hill. Running down a hill and falling, not like Jack and Jill though.

Grassy verges make for great rolling. The LO this weekend took off after his brothers up the steep hill in our local neighbourhood park. He stood proud as a peacock at the top looking down on me. Then burst into tears, for a short moment. I think he realised how far away we were. His brothers were still running. He was hesitating to come down by running. In fact, he stopped after a few steps and turned around like he LOVES to do downstairs.

Do your children do that? Bump down the stairs on their tummy at speed. Sounds terrible and you have to look every time because it really could be one of the coming down head first.

He lay on the grass. Arms above his head and waited. And instead of the usual whooshing down the stairs he just stayed there.

Alas no camera!

He got up and ran down the hill with a mix of laughter and fear………..hysteria I think sums it up. He made it down smiling, laughing,  crying and clung to my leg. I could feel his little heart beating away as I scooped him up. He wriggled to be down and looked at the hill. He’d conquered it. Looked at me and ran off along the path to the floating blossom.

Where would be your summer place to visit?

May 12th, 2010 Unstructured play in snow Posted by Melitsa in Outdoor play, play activities, Seasonal play

Can’t beat it!

With the forecast of a Winter storm warning in effect for the next 24 hours with snow estimated to be 18+ inches to the North West of us. I thought these winter play pictures would be appropriate for May in Colorado! ( Just a hint of sarcasm there!)

It may take 30minutes to get on all the gear and the same to drag it all off and put it somewhere other than in a steaming heap on the floor afterwards…..but boy do they love to go outside in the snow!

I think the biggest surprise for the MO was falling backwards to make a snow angel and not realising the snow was so wet and the sides caving in on him. That was the last picture I took. Shortly after this shot I had to wade over and recover a very wet surprised MO.

Unexpected snow fall + ample playtime outside = unstructured play and deliriously happy children.

Hot chocolates all round today!

Thanks for stopping by.

This post is part of Childhood 101 ” We Play” Please visit the others and find out what they were playing this week.