Love it or hate it, there are so many reasons to start playing PokemonGo with your kids. I was a skeptic at first, thinking it was just another timewaster of an app, but after playing with my son a few times, it became clear that it was a must-have app for us to enjoy together!
I am all about tradition during the holidays. Our annual trip for Thanksgiving, Christmas advent calendars, gingerbread houses… but then I realized my family has zero traditions for New Years’ Eve. Our idea of an NYE party? Flipping channels and drinking some sparkling grape juice at midnight… IF we make it to midnight. But that has to change– I can’t have a holiday without a tradition! So we’ve decided to build a family time capsule that we can open together. When I sat down to think about what would go in this family time capsule, I had a few ideas…
It’s here… it’s unavoidable, it seems. Commercials, advertisements, it’s Black Friday madness. And as Black Friday starts earlier and earlier each year…. if you cannot stand to go out in the crowds to shop, you can….
Spring is an amazing season filled with all kinds of great sensory experiences for kids. There are new smells, new sights, new life, new tastes… all kinds of amazing things. To help you get a jump start on sharing this awesome season with your kids, here are five ideas on how to experience spring together as a family!
Play piggy! When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things to do was dress up in old clothes, have my mom water down a dirt patch in our yard, and let me just roll in the muck. It’s a great sensory opportunity to squish the mud, feel it between toes and fingers, and enjoy the texture. With the right consistency of mud, you can even practice writing letters with your fingers in the mud or spelling words. Otherwise, even the mucky texture is a learning experience all by itself! Pretend to make mud pies, listen to the slurpy sucky sound mud makes when your feet stick in it, and experience the smell of fresh mud. Have some towels on hand, and make sure to schedule bathtime afterwards for easy cleanup!
Plant together, or tend a garden. Zach loved cultivating blueberries with me, and then enjoying the fruits of our labor– literally! Whether you’re planting flowers or food, gardening together is a good sensory activity, plus it allows children a chance to experience growth, cause and effect, and weather, and understand how things are grown. You can discuss color, shape, petal count, and more as you watch your plants grow and change. If you live somewhere where you can’t plant a garden, consider doing a small container garden or an indoor herb garden to get that experience, or…
explore plants in a different setting! You can go on a nature walk locally or visit a local garden center to talk about the colors, petal count, and more of different flowers. You can experience different smells and different sights when you see hundreds of flowers together, and get an appreciation for the plants! You can still point out parts of the flower plant, even if you can’t bring them home.
Get in the kitchen and make a delicious springtime treat! Whether you’re making a seasonal fruit salad with the newest seasonal fruits available, or being inspired by the colors of spring with a sprinkle-topped goodie. There are a lot of good spring recipes right here on DigitalEraMom.com, but any recipe that gets you cooking together this spring is great. From chopping with supervision, to measuring, to pouring and scooping, it’s all educational, and best of all, fun. Some possible ideas are chopping fresh spring vegetables for a delicious homemade pizza, making mini fruit pizzas on sugar cookies, or making a delicious chopped salad. This is especially great to save for a rainy day when you can’t do the other activities on the list!
Don’t underestimate favorites like sidewalk chalk and bubbles! They’re favorites for a reason. Whether you’re drawing a hopscotch board to practice numbers, creating a fun scene, or just practicing fine or gross motor skills while jumping from circle to circle or scribbling a picture, chalk teaches so many valuable lessons. Blowing bubbles is another fun activity, and chasing them is a great way to get some extra energy out. Include some other fun like hoola hoops or cones and you can even have a fun relay race!
Splash during a rainstorm. No lightning associated with the falling rain? Then it’s totally safe to go outside and play or dance in the warm spring rains! Talk about how the rain feels wet on your skin, how it falls from the sky, and about gentle rain sprinkles versus a heavier soaking rain. Make sure you have towels on hand just inside the door, then warm up with a little hot cocoa. Of course, if there is even a hint of lightning, stay indoors! Don’t want to splash DURING the rain? Find some fun puddles post-storm and go splashing in those! Other options are investing in a kiddie pool or water table to splash in on a warm day!
What activities do you love celebrating spring with? Share your favorites in the comments below!
When forming our bucket list for fall this year, there was one thing that absolutely HAD to be on it! With my sister, Carolin, visiting from Germany, we really worked hard to find out what we really needed to get done while she was here.
We made sure to include things like going to Silver Dollar City when it’s dressed up for fall, heading to a Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze this year, and other awesome stuff. But one family-friendly activity was done right here at home, and it had to be one of the best things we could have done this fall.
We went old-school with our s’mores, which meant instead of fancy marshmallow roasters, we took knives and sharpened some good ol’ fashioned sticks.
It’s definitely a task for adults, not children!
In the meantime, Jeffrey started the fire…
It took SO long to get it to start up, with a little bit of wind, but he is a fire-pit PRO!
While I love getting creative with plenty of stuff when it comes to s’mores, like flavored marshmallows, the addition of Nutella, Peanut Butter, or flavored chocolates, but for this particular night, we went all natural, baby! We stuck to staples like Honey Maid grahams and Hershey Chocolate.
By the time the food was set out and the sticks were sharpened, the fire was blazing!
Yum.
My proper s’more technique? To slowly roast the marshmallow until it gets gooey, but then you catch it on fire and let it smoulder. Then, it’s time to blow it out and sandwich the scalding marshmallow between two layers of chocolate and grahams. It gets the chocolate all melty!
Even Zach got in on the s’more fun– the eating, NOT the fire part!
All in all, an evening spent with family, fire, and delicious food, was perfect for a night at home. After running here and there to accomplish our fall bucket list, it was great having a thing to cross off where we didn’t have to go anywhere!
What’s on your fall bucket list? Do you plan to go-go-go all season, or did you plan at home activities?
For Advent, we’re always looking for creative ways to bond as a family, as I’ve previously shared. I love trying to do this in new and different ways. I had been considering ways that we could really either get to know each other better, or prove that we knew each other very well as a family.
When I saw these awesome Gift Card coins from Target, my idea came to me pretty suddenly.
Aren’t they adorable? They look like little cookies! You can load any amount on them, but the only catch is that all 5 coins in the package have to be loaded with the same amount. I chose to load $5 on each gift card, meaning that this pack was $25 total. I can think of so many awesome ways to use these other than the way we used them, such as:
-Teacher gifts. Buy the whole package, load the amount on all of them, and have your student pass out a coin to each of their teachers.
-Stocking stuffers. Put a certain amount in each one and slip it into stockings for a great gift that allows the recipient to pick anything out they want.
-Rewards. Potty training? Give your little trainer a gift coin for every certain amount of times they use the potty. Give them for good grades, one coin for each A, give them for doing extra work around the house or as a reward for siblings being extra nice to each other one day.
-Allowance. Instead of giving the kids cash for allowance, try a gift coin. Since you can pre-load the amount on multiple coins at once, you can keep the stash and give them out one at a time (or to multiple kids at once).
-A way to put yourself on a little bit of a budget. If you’re like me, you can’t enter Target without spending ridiculous amounts. By purchasing these with my limit in advance, I can go through the post holiday sale knowing I only have a certain amount of money to spend. Then, come Valentine’s day sales, I can pull out another coin and spend that amount in THAT sale.
I’m sure you can think of a ton of other ideas for these awesome coins, but for our gift challenge, this is what we did:
When we entered the store, we had a small pow-wow. I gave each person a gift coin (since our family has 6 people, I had to purchase one extra gift card separately) and each person drew a slip of paper with another family member’s name on it. Each person had $5 and 30 minutes to find the perfect gift for their recipient. I personally had to shop for my person, and help Zach find his gift for someone, as well.
The best part of the challenge was that, sometimes walking around the store, you’d see someone else in the family. Immediately, one of you would dart behind a sign or head down another aisle. Since none of us knew who had us, we didn’t want to spoil our own surprise, and we didn’t want the person we were buying for to see their gift, either. I kind of felt like a super spy when trying to participate in the activity!
At the end of the activity, we each checked out separately using our Target gift coins, and then we met in the cafe area at the front of our store. Then, it was time to head home and unwrap our gifts. It was at home that we would find out who our Secret Gifter was. We gifted in order of age, youngest to oldest.
It turns out that Nicolas drew Zach’s name. Zach was eager to find out what might be inside of his shopping bag.
CARS!
Jeffrey was next…
Dad clearly did a good job with his! Jeffrey and Nicolas often have Nerf wars around the house, so it’s not uncommon to have a little orange bullet whizzing past your head at any given moment. It was a great choice under $5 for Jeffrey!
Nicolas got a great variety of snacks from Jeffrey, including some favorites like Goldfish and Hershey’s Kisses.
Mom bought me one of my favorite things– Ghiradelli chocolates filled with caramel!
When I drew mom, I found the perfect present for her quite easily… when she had gotten her shoulder surgery a few years ago, she constantly needed help from me. You see, she puts on socks at night, but then by morning, they’ve somehow fallen off of her feet. After surgery, I had to look for them, since she couldn’t search under the covers to find them!
I purchased some warm, cozy, fuzzy socks so that for years to come, we’d get to play the sock game.
Nicolas didn’t think it sounded very fun, so mom said “Don’t you insult the sock game!”
We wrapped up with Zach’s gift to my dad (his Grandpa), a pumpkin pie and a leg lamp stress ball!
It was amazing the creative gifts that we could get for only $5 each! It was really cool to see how creative each of us got and how much thought we put into our gifts. I loved that each person was thoroughly pleased with what they received (and with what they gave!). $5 was plenty to get an interesting and unique gift for each person… and it helps that Target has a lot of sections that have affordable gifts. It also helped me see how many great gifts I could get for Christmas, as well, even though I’m on a strict budget.
The front of the store has a great $3 stocking stuffer section currently, as well as plenty of items priced at $1 and $2.50. The seasonal section includes gobs of seasonal candy and gifts at great prices, as well as more stocking stuffers at a $5 price point. There are also many great books, CDs, and movies in the $5 range, as well as food, gourmet coffee, and gifts. For example, 4 pairs of fuzzy socks for $5? That’s awesome!
My family did consider ways that we could have done things differently. All of us thought that more time would have been helpful. A lot of us spent more time worrying about whether we were on time than if we were getting the right thing, so having an hour instead of 30 minutes would have made the experience more fun. We also were surprised that if we had $7 instead of $5, it would have totally changed what we could have gotten each other, and absolutely made a difference in the number of items or quality of items we could have purchased. It’s amazing what a huge difference $2 could have made!
All in all, it was the perfect evening for our family, filled with fun and giving, and we loved having a great opportunity to try to pick out the perfect gift for other members of our family.