Posts Tagged ‘games’
One day Elli invented a new game. I don’t remember it evolving from any patterns or previous games. I can’t even think of where she might have gotten the idea. As far as I can tell, it’s all her own and she definitely owns it!
After I change her diaper, I usually stand her up on the changing table to pick her up. One day when she was facing me she held up her hand for me to kiss. So I kissed her hand. Then she held up the other hand for me to kiss. So I kissed it. Then, without warning, she planted both hands firmly on my the upper part of my chest, like you see in the picture. It startled me so much I almost lost my balance!
She has repeated this game for over a week now. She absolutely loves it and giggles the whole time. I keep wondering where she came up with the idea. I guess I may never know. But I do know that it’s so fun to interact with her in a game that she initiates. I feel like the child waiting with excitement to see what the next part of the game will be. Elli’s the parent patiently teaching me what to do, like when I first didn’t realized I was supposed to kiss her hand and she nearly smacked my lips so I’d get it.
What games have your little ones invented that you had to learn?
I love the first snow of winter! I love the first morning we wake up and there is frost covering the grass. The novelty of winter is exciting. But, come January, I’m feeling a little blah with the cold and often inconvenient weather. I’ve noticed, though, that the girls see the snow with new eyes every time. They rarely tire of going out to play. Most of the time I don’t want to hassle with it, but when I embrace their enthusiasm for the outdoors we have a fantastic time. Here are some ideas for outside activities in the snow and when there’s no snow.
Enjoying the Snow
Build a snowman! We get excited about building a snowman by singing Once There Was a Snowman while we gather winter clothes for the snowman. When we lived in Utah and had lots of snow, we would also make chairs out of snow and the girls loved climbing in them.
Make a snow angel! When Sammi was just 7 months old we had a pretty good snowfall. I bundled her up in her pink snow outfit and plopped her in the snow on our back porch. It was THE cutest snow angel to date that I’ve ever seen. The pic doesn’t do justice, but I couldn’t just leave her in the snow to take a picture! (She could have moved and ruined the snow angel!)
Sledding! The first time Brent took Sammi sledding was last year around Christmas. She was hesitant at first, but Brent wrapped her securely in his lap and down a little hill they went. She loved it and wanted to go again and again. Brent’s fondest winter memories are when his mom would drop him and some of his siblings off at the park and they would sled for a couple of hours at a time.
Enjoying the Lack of Snow
Watch your breath! On a cold morning, bundle up and head out. We have been fascinated by seeing our breath. Sammi and Elli both have noticed the cloud of air on a cold morning. We talk about how it comes from inside our mouth or nose and that makes it warm. In the cold winter air, the warm air from us looks like a cloud. Sammi got the idea that she was making the cloud appear. It was a great little science lesson.
Go for a walk! I love to wrap the girls up in blankets in the stroller and walk around the streets surrounding our house. They love being outside and getting the fresh air, but they are still warm under the blankets. I appreciate getting out and moving as much as they do. We usually talk about how things look different in the winter: trees, grass, animals (winter coats), etc.
Relish the sunshine! Even in Utah we had sunny days in the middle of January or February. Here we have them a bit more often. So when it’s sunny, even if it’s still a bit chilly, we dress appropriately and head outside to soak in the sun. We’ve had fun kicking or throwing balls around in the backyard. We’ve also gone to the park and played on any equipment that wasn’t wet or muddy.
No matter what you do, it’s terrific to get outside in the winter. It’s good to experience the cold, briefly, and let little ones understand first hand why gloves, hats, scarves and coats are important. For us, that has reduced a lot of fighting over getting bundled up. We went to the park yesterday. And while it was wet and Elli somehow managed to plant her dirty shoes right on my chest, spending time outside, being active was just what the girls, and I, needed.
It is recommended that children of all ages get at least 60 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. I know this winter has seen a drastic decline in the girls physical activity and I don’t know that we’re hitting that target. A lot of our activities are sedentary: reading books, crafts at the table, cooking meals, etc. I’m so glad for the great music we’ve discovered recently because that has really helped us get moving when we are indoors. Here are some additional ideas (year round) for indoors and outdoors activities to fill that 60 minute goal.
Comments on this post count as extra entries into the Winter Wonderland Carnival‘s giveaways: Everyone Loves To Dance by Aaron Nigel Smith, Personalized Gummi Labels by Sippy Stuff, This Is Me Journal and a Dress-Up Cape from BBGU! Make sure you read about all the ways to enter the Winter Wonderland Carnival!
What are some of your favorite winter outside memories either from your life or your children’s lives?
After making the Pumpkin Patch craft, we had lots of extra pumpkins so we continued the pumpkin theme in our crafts. In this post we’ll be showing you
- Five Little Pumpkins
- Make Your Own Pumpkins Faces
- Pumpkin Ring Toss Game
- Pick the Pumpkins Quiet Book
Five Little Pumpkins
This is my favorite Halloween finger play. I love the board book illustrated by Dan Yaccarino, who’s got to be one of my favorite children’s book illustrators. I finally bought the book this year since our library here doesn’t have it. We used the pumpkins while we read the book. The first time through we took away a pumpkin for each pumpkin in the book and then the next time we put one pumpkin back as we read about each one. Sammi loved this and we read the book several times with the pumpkins. The pumpkins are fun all on their own with out the book.
Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one says, “Oh my, it’s getting late.”
The second one says, “There are witches in the air.”
The third one says, “But we don’t care.”
The fourth one says, “Let’s run and run and run.”
The fifth one says, “I’m ready for some fun.”
Oooo went the wind and out went the light.
And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.
Make Your Own Pumpkin Faces
Sammi's faces are on the left. My example faces are on the right.
With another set of pumpkins we added cut out shapes to make faces. I cut out triangles, squares, ovals and different mouth shapes. Then I arranged them on the pumpkins to show Sammi what a pumpkin face looked like. Then I took the shapes off and helped her build her own pumpkin faces. We’ve been working a lot on emotions: happy, sad, angry and afraid; so we made a face for each emotion (2 for happy, of course!) Then Sammi glued the pieces on all by herself. I really had to let go of the finished product and let her do it how she wanted. She did a good job, I thought.
Pumpkin Ring Toss Game
We did a Fall Festival Trick or Treat at Brent’s school this last weekend. We decided instead of just having candy, we wanted to have games for the little ones to play so that it was more fun for them. Admittedly, there aren’t an awful lot of medical students with children so we wanted the few who came to have a lot to do! And we wanted it to be interesting for the students themselves who came. So we made this ring toss game. I saw this idea on an old school Reading Rainbow episode. (I sure miss that show.)
We covered a box with orange construction paper. Then I printed off the face from here and colored it in with yellow and black. On the other side, my crafting buddy, Holly, painted vines and leaves. She also painted the craft sticks green, with a shade of green we mixed ourselves for the occasion. When the sticks were dry we taped them with purple duct tape inside the box. Then we cut out rings from sour cream lids. The kids, and even adults, had fun tossing the rings onto the sticks. They were then able to reach into the box and grab their candy.
Pick the Pumpkins Quiet Book
This last activity I’m really happy with. It turned out better than I imagined it would. It sort of developed as I started to put it together. The pumpkins are sitting in the pumpkin patch. You pull the pumpkin out of its pocket and place it on a hay bale on the opposite side to decorate them for fall.
- I used an old cereal box for the pages. I duct taped the two pieces together to form the book. I covered up the duct tape in the inside with brown construction paper.
- I used the smallest size pumpkins that we had.
- I first created the pumpkin patch on a piece of brown construction paper. I used a brown marker to draw the patch and the lines where the pumpkins would slide into their pockets.
- To create the pockets I painted glue on the back side leaving boxes with no glue under the lines that allow half the pumpkin to slide into the pocket.
- Then I put a piece of tape over the line and used an exacto-knife to cut just the construction paper along the line. This created the opening of the pocket.
- On the opposite page I wrote out the instructions then glued six rectangles of brown felt for the hay bales.
- I finished decorating the pages with stickers of leaves and other fall things.
- Then I glued smaller squares of felt onto the backs of the pumpkins so they would stick to the hay.
I was thrilled that Sammi enjoyed it. She loved pulling out the pumpkins and putting them on the hay. She even got that each hay bale got one pumpkin. She could even put the pumpkins back into their pumpkin patch pockets all by herself. Yippee! I was hesitant to let Elli touch it since I didn’t get any of it laminated and I was worried she’d do a number on those little pumpkins. But I decided to be brave and let her give it a go. She loved it too. And she was fairly gentle with the pumpkins. A double success! And it made for a nice activity at church yesterday.
We had lots of fun with pumpkins this week. Now it’s on to bats and ghosts. I have some fun ideas we’ll show you all about once we’ve tried them out. Happy Halloween (uh, in about two weeks!)
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