Carnival

Set up a carnival in your house!
Have each child come up with two carnival games and create a sign to draw people to them. Allow them to choose what they would like to give out for prizes.
My girls chose to give Stuffed animals, coins, and easter candy.

Here are a few of the games they came up with:

Block Bowling:
Set up a couple of block towers. If they knock down one of the towers with the bowling ball, they get a prize!


Hanger Toss: Stand behind a designated line and try to toss the hangers over the water bottles. If you get one hanger on the bottle you get a small prize. If you get all 4 around the bottles you get a big prize.


Relay race. We had to run around the room 2 times and say a chant to get the prize.


And what's a carnival without food?
Choose a favorite food that you might find at a carnival and let your children help prepare it.
We thought caramel apples would be fun (is that a carnival food? I don't even know)
but we didn't have any caramel. So we melted some butterscotch chips with some milk and dipped our apples in it.
It was incredibly rich and delicious... but unfortunately made one sweet little girl have a tummy ache :(
Popcorn....homemade donuts....nachos....hot dogs.. Ask for their input and have some fun with it.

Roll the dice

Here's a fun way to practice counting-

Cut out 33 little squares of paper.
Organize the squares into piles of 3 (you should have 11 piles)
On the back of each one write a number from 2-12, so all of the cards in one pile should be labeled #2, the next pile of cards should be labeled with #3's, etc.
On the other side of the paper, write a question, or a task.
For instance:

Jump up and down 8 times.
Tell me the names of 3 States that you've been to.
What kind of things do you find on the beach?
Tell me what you'd wish for if you had 3 wishes
Tell me how to make your favorite kind of sandwhich.
How many vowels are there?
How many syllables does the word 'Thanksgiving' have?
What is your telephone #?
Find 4 things in this room that begin with the letter S.

Fill the cards with any question/command that you can think of.

Place the squares of paper on the floor with the words facing down and the numbers facing up.

To begin:
Have your child roll 2 dice, then count the total number of dots on the dice. Tell them to pick up a piece of paper with the number that corresponds with the number they counted on the dice, and bring it to you. Read the question/command out loud and have them follow what the paper says.

If they roll a particular number more than 3 times, have them roll again until they get a different number.


This provides a good opportunity to ask review questions about whatever topic you may have taught them about recently, as well as a great way to encourage the use of their imaginations......all while getting some great counting practice

Skills

Teach your kids some new skills today! Anything goes :)






Teaching your child to iron, obviously has it's risks, so if you choose to teach this skill, keep the iron on a low setting and make sure they understand to only touch the handle.

If you're worried at all about this one, I'd suggest teaching them another household chore that might benefit them (and you) in the future. (Folding clothes, mopping, cleaning out the refrigerator, etc) They'll be thrilled to learn anything.



This is Miss Hayley learning the basics of sewing.




And Miss T learning to eat with chopsticks. (A skill that this mom has yet to develop)

Who needs a paintbrush?

Make an abstract painting with marbles!

Place a piece of paper on the bottom of a 9X13 baking pan or any container with raised edges.

Pour small amounts of paint into different bowls. Roll a marble around in the paint
to coat it.

Place the marble on the paper and roll it around to make a beautiful/colorful masterpiece.






Now that is art.

Book Day

Spread a blanket out on the living room floor and gather some of your favorite books together. Have your children sit by your side as you introduce them to the different parts of a book-

Point out that every book has

a Title: What the book is called
An Author: The person who writes the words in the book
An Illustrator: The person who creates the pictures in the book,
And Characters: The people, or animals that the story is all about.

Talk about some of the books you loved when you were a child, and ask them if they have any favorites.

Read 2 or 3 books to your children and ask them the following questions

What was the title of this book?
Who were the characters?
What do you think of the illustrations?
How do you think he/she made the illustrations? (Painted? Colored? Used cut outs? etc)
Point out that one of the great things about stories is that the author can make anything happen in them, even if it can't happen in real life. Ask if they noticed the characters doing anything in the story, that people/animals probably wouldn't be able to do in real life.

ACTIVITY: BOOK BINGO
Set up 5 rows of children's books (5 books in each row) that the you have read to the children at one time or another.

Use Shoes or anything else around the house as your Bingo markers.


To Play:
Describe a book in one of the rows by talking about the characters, or the story line. For instance: "I'm thinking of a book that has a character who is very mean and tries to kill a princess with a poisenous apple."

Or "This book teaches us to take good care of animals" or "The illustrations in this book were made with playdoh"

Have children take turns putting their marker on the book you are describing.

Tell them when they have laid down 5 markers in a row, they should yell BINGO!!!

Keep on going for a blackout!

Mani/Pedi

Ok, this one might be just for the girls in the house.

Cut out several tracings of your hand, making sure to draw finger nails on each of them.

Set up a mini nail salon with your finger nail polish and a little table, and let your child go to work.

I would recommend doing it away from carpeted areas. Not that you wouldn't have thought of that on your own.






(Tia treated each hand like a real customer and asked them what colors they would like on their nails today.)
Try this with toes too!

Cut and Style

Welcome to our hair salon.
We specialize in cuts and styles....and apparently manicures too.



Step 1: Stuff an old sock with plastic grocery bags, or other filler to make a head.
To make the sock stand up, slip it over a vertical paper towel holder, or a cardboard tube.

Step 2: Have your child create a face for your new customer. Draw eyes, a nose and mouth on a piece of paper, then cut them out and glue them to the head (we used hot glue.)

Step 3: Cut SEVERAL pieces of yarn, and attach them with hot glue to the top of the head.

Step 4: Hand your child some scissors and let them cut and style to their heart's desire.

This one was kind of a high maintenance customer and demanded to have her 'nails' painted too.


We also are known for making our customers very comfortable.





And the final result. I think she did a fantastic job.


And look at all that hair!


Girls will go crazy for this activity....but I'd suggest trying it out with the boys too. I imagine any child would jump at the chance to cut hair!

There's a use for lentils after all.

Time to play! (With our food that is)



Raid your pantry, refrigerator and spice cupboard for items to help your child create a food art masterpiece.
Anything goes, really.


Use a piece of cardboard (side of a cereal box) for the base, and glue the food items on to make a picture.


Who knew that Lettuce, poppy seeds, cake sprinkles, cinnamon, shredded wheat crumbs, spaghetti noodles, peeps :), pepperoni, cheerios, bread, oatmeal, lentils and "mosh-o-mallows" could work so well together?

Don't shoot your eye out!

Learning about vowels doesn't sound like too much fun....but when you bring guns into the mix, things get a little more interesting. :)

On this particular day we learned about the short and long 'A' sounds. Before you begin the activity, explain to your child that the letter 'A' makes two different sounds. Demonstrate the sounds that the long and short 'A' make and give some examples of each to make sure they understand.

Then you are ready to proceed.

Step 1: Tape several hand-drawn, or cut-out pictures of things that have either the short 'A' or long 'A' sound in them, to the window.



Step 2: Hand child a gun. Preferably one with soft darts.


Step 3: Have them aim and shoot at one of the pictures. If they hit a picture with the dart, have them take the picture off the window and tell you whether the word has a short 'A' sound or a long 'A' sound.


Step 4: Have them put the pictures that have the short 'A' sound in one pile, and those with the long 'A' sound in another pile.


Step 5: Do it all over again, until all pictures have been collected.


Safety goggles are recommended.

Sideways Puzzles

Horizontal puzzles are all the rage these days, didn't you know?

Step 1: Find a piece of paper any size (I used 12x12 scrap paper) and draw a picture on it.


Step 2: Cut the picture into horizontal strips about 1/2 inch wide.


Step 3: Shuffle the strips so they don't stay in order, then hand them over to your child to put back together.




Make a few, they're easy and fun.