Category Archives: activities for kids

It’s All About the Simple Things … and the Booty

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Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are the best.

Simple ideas, for example. I wrote a Squidoo lens with suggestions for Jake and the Neverland Party Ideas, and I pinned a bunch of the photos from the lens, things like decorations and cakes and activities.

This photo was one I pinned. I’m really not sure where the image originally came from, so if it’s yours, let me know!

What I wanted to point out, though, was that this is a photo of a very simple concept: fill a bucket with sand and plastic coins and jewelry, hand kids some shovels, and let them dig for pirate treasure!

There’s no fancy branding or advertising on the photo, just a concept. But a fun-filled one that could entertain kids for hours.

And others were attracted to this simple concept as well, because my pin was re-pinned over a thousand times in just over 3 months. A thousand times.

See the stats for yourself.

Unbelievable. And unbelievably simple.

{{{This was originally posted at roamingrosie.blog.com, but I’ve since transferred my blog here}}}

Dirt Soup: In Contact With Creation

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interacting with nature

When I was pregnant the first time, I began to read about Maria Montessori.  I not only liked, I loved her ideas.  All of her explanations made perfect sense to me.

One quote:

“It is necessary for his psychical development to place the soul of the child in contact with creation, in order that he may lay up for himself treasure from the directly educating forces of living nature.” Maria Montessori

She suggested that children explore and interact with nature every day.

Luckily for my girls, Grandma has a fairly large backyard filled with endless wonderment.  They love playing there, and are always asking to go outside, no matter the weather – or the time of day.

Here you can see them involved in one of the favorite activities:  making “soup.”

The little one pretty much copies whatever her older sister does these days, and that would regularly include making soup out of dirt and water in Grandma’s empty flower pots.  This also involves the collection of leaves, small sticks, seeds, acorns, and flowers from the surrounding plants, and finding a large stick to stir it with.

The eldest sprinkles dirt over the top like a connoisseur seasoning their masterpiece.

I never tire of watching them play and discover and experiment in this fashion.  And they never tire of doing it.  They’ll replicate these activities anywhere from the park to the beach, varying them depending on the available materials.

We talk about the colors and textures of everything, and they like to describe what they’re doing and what their soup will “taste” like when it’s done.

But I think the most important part is just letting the kids roam freely in nature, wherever that may be.

They learn so much more on their own, in nature, than I could ever teach them from the inside of a stuffy classroom.

Roaming Rosie Signature

{{{This was originally posted at roamingrosie.blog.com, but I’ve since transferred my blog here}}}

Free Animal Matching Worksheets for Preschoolers

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This is a cute matching worksheet that I recently pinned because I thought my daughter would enjoy it.

She seems to like worksheets like this, and I like it because these are free and there’s a whole line of them that you can find at Turtle Diary: Match Animals Worksheets.

There are a lot of resources on the site, actually, so I suggest exploring the site to see if there’s anything else your kids would enjoy. I know this certainly won’t be the only activity I use from there!

{{{This was originally posted at roamingrosie.blog.com, but I’ve since transferred my blog here}}}

Inspire Kids to Write Poetry with Shel Silverstein Free Workshop Kit

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Celebrate Poetry Month with Shel Silverstein

This is a great resource that you can get from the Shel Silverstein website.  See all of the Poetry Month downloads, or go directly to the 2013 Poetry Month download.

This year’s download is full of Silverstein’s drawings and poetry, offering examples and illustrations, and prompting kids to write their own versions.  Types of poetry include rhyming, epigram, visual, concrete (shape), list, rebus, non-rhyming, and acrostic poetry.

Even though most of it is still outside the grasp of my toddler and preschooler, they do enjoy his poetry.  I’ve been known to read aloud from my old copies of A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and Where the Sidewalk Ends to my kids while they play.  Many of the poems I have nearly memorized.  :)

So why am I suggesting this?  It’s cool.  If nothing else, you can read the included poems to your kids and talk about the silly sketches.  And even if they’re still too young to write (like my girls) they can still use it for coloring pages.  And if they are old enough to write – what better way to inspire your little artist?

{{{This was originally posted at roamingrosie.blog.com, but I’ve since transferred my blog here}}}

Make Your Own Color Shadows

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color shadows

My 3-year-old daughter loves to play with flashlights.  She’ll carry them from room to room, turning off lights, and organizing “sleep over parties.”

We often make shadow puppets with our fingers.

Then, this morning, she happened to put down the large flashlight next to a yellow sippy cup full of apple juice.  And, lo and behold, the light cast a yellow shadow on the wall behind the cup.

Oooohhhh….. project!

So I grabbed some red and blue sippy cups from the kitchen, filled them with water, and we lined them all up in the room to see how their shadows would look.

Mostly, the 16-month-old was interested in drinking from all of the cups.  What can I say?  She’s my eater.  Food = more exciting than shadows to her.

Anyway, we made shadow finger puppets in front of the red, blue, and yellow shadows.  We moved the cups closer to and farther from the flashlight to watch the shadow get bigger and smaller.  We moved around the cups to see where they had to be in relation to the flashlight to cast the brightest colors.  We made new colors by overlapping the shadows.

Lots of learning, but it just seemed like fun to the girls:  the best kind.  :)

{{{This was originally posted at roamingrosie.blog.com, but I’ve since transferred my blog here}}}

Our Trip to “The Dali”

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We recently took a trip to “The Dali,” as the The Dali Museum is affectionately known.  I hadn’t been since I was a kid, and I was excited to return.  And to my delight, my girls had a great time, too.

Granted, the 16-month-old was just happy to be out and about and exploring new places, and the 3-year-old didn’t really grasp everything – but we toured the gallery, did crafts directed by a docent, completed the scavenger hunt, and had tapas in the cafe.

My oldest studied the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, her eyes focused on the painting as she walked backwards and forward again and again, until finally announcing, “Yup, I see it.”

They both climbed on the sculpted windows as we ate our tapas, and they threw change into the fountain at the foot of the giant stone that appears to be supporting one corner of the building near the front entry.

All in all, a great day.  I’ve written about our outing, about Dali and his artwork, and some of the Dali-themed crafts we did at home on Squidoo:  Salvador Dali Crafts and Lessons for Kids.

Here is a collage of some of our pictures from the museum and the crafts we did:

Dali Crafts for Kids

{{{This was originally posted at roamingrosie.blog.com, but I’ve since transferred my blog here}}}