Tag Archives: Children

More Dirt Soup

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dirt soup

I love the fall.

And now that it’s November, fall seems to have finally reached Florida.  (Most days.)

So we’re spending a lot more time outdoors, which is a great boon to my outdoorsy kids.

As I’ve mentioned previously, in Dirt Soup: In Contact With Creation, my girls love digging in the dirt and mixing various things with water, all while explaining, in great detail, the flavors of their soup-like creations.

Today was a nice day.  It called for soup.

And, above, you see a quick snapshot of my daughter in her fort (spaceship), next to her soupy creation and some gigantic rocks from the garden that were gifts we were bringing home from China.

Which is also why, incidentally, I usually let her tell me what we’re doing.  Her imagination astounds me.  Reminds me of how boring adults can be.

Free Kid Activity: Developing Fine Motor Skills with Crayons

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free activities for kids developing fine motor skills with crayons

This is another one of those activities that just kind of happened on its own.

My kids were coloring on the kitchen floor, and, for whatever reason, my daughter decided to go into the pantry and take out the bundt pan.  Then both of my girls started filling the hole in the center with crayons.

I realized this was good for developing their fine motor skills (and keeping them busy while I was otherwise engaged in the kitchen), so I encouraged it.

They would insert the crayons into the hole, and once it was full, I’d show them they could pick it up, move the crayons, and start again.

You could use just about any small or skinny object for this:  pipe cleaners (maybe cut shorter), pom poms, small toys or balls.  Heck, you could even pretend it’s a volcano, and use small dinosaur toys.  Let your kids get creative and pick what they want to use.  Or compile a bunch of small toys and let them experiment to discover what will fit.

Turkey Treasure Buckets

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Turkey Treasure Buckets | Great Thanksgiving Activity for Kids!

This November, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and Autumn, one of the projects we did was to make these Turkey Treasure Buckets.

My girls LOVE being outside.

They’d sleep out there if I let them.

Anyway, I wanted a project that would involve nature.  So we made some turkey buckets to collect autumn leaves.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of beautiful, colored leaves where we live in Florida.  Our backyard pretty much has a bunch of brown Live Oak leaves.  And some sticks, and some mulch, and some grass…

So, nature:  yes.  Beautiful fall colors:  not so much.

I feel bad, too, because we we just in Georgia a couple of weeks ago and we collected a ton of fantastically bright fallen leaves.  But I didn’t think to bring any home with us.

So, we improvised.  Used what we had.

And the kids had a blast.

Turkey Treasure Buckets | Great Thanksgiving Activity for Kids!

We started with some copper-colored mini buckets from the bargain section of Target and a handful of clothespins.

We painted the clothespins with a variety of colors and sprinkled sequins over the wet paint to represent the turkey’s feathers.  It was messy, but fun.  My girls love painting.

And we only did one side.  You could do both if you prefer.

I cut a quick face out of construction paper while they were painting, and they helped me glue on the eyes, beaks, and waddel.  Then I hot glued the faces to the buckets.  This was a sure way to keep them securely attached, but with an easy way to remove them later to reuse the buckets for another project.

Then, they clipped on the clothespin “feathers.”

Voila!

Turkey Treasure Buckets | Great Thanksgiving Activity for Kids!

Here’s a picture of my baby searching the backyard for treasures.

The clothes pins are a little heavy, but my girls wanted as many as possible.  You could always use less if the weight is problem for you.

Turkey Treasure Buckets | Great Thanksgiving Activity for Kids!

And here’s one of the buckets, filled with leaves and sticks.

They had so much fun with this.  And they played with the buckets over and over, filling them with all kinds of treasures, including tiny toys.

And I had a blast watching them and helping them seek out fun discoveries in the backyard.  It’s so great to spend some outdoors with my girls.  I’m sooooooo happy that the coolness of fall is finally showing its face in Florida!

Momism #8: Crusty

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Momism 8

Sandwich crusts, pizza crusts, crusty pieces of unidentifiable charcoal-y chunks of something that fell off the food that was grilled… this is the fate of moms.

Not a particularly terrible fate, however, if you’re a carb lover like me.  (And a fan of burnt chicken skin, but, really, that’s another story.)

Either way, I find many a crust entering my life nowadays.  :)

DIY Dry Erase Books for Kids

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DIY dry erase books for kids

I’ve seen a few versions of this around the web, and I decided to make my own.

I picked up a couple of $1 flexible photo albums/brag books at Walmart and some dry erase markers.  My girls love markers, but, even though these things wipe right off the book pages, they do not wash easily from clothing and carpets.  So, the next time I’m at the store, I’m going to be looking for some dry erase crayons.

Anyway, the books themselves were a big hit with my girls.  My 18-month-old pretty much just scribbles over the pages, but, because even at these young ages they both have to have exactly the same things, I made the same pages for both her and my 3-year-old.

The only difference was the first page, on which I drew their names in dashed lines to make them easy to trace.  My 3-year-old LOVES this.

Then I created pages that had other activities, like mazes, lines to trace, and coloring pages that included learning opportunities, like shapes and counting.

I cut plain white computer paper into 4″ x 6″ and slipped them into the pages of the photo album.  The first 5 pages had activities, but then I filled the rest of the book with blank pages, so they could draw whatever they wanted on those pages.  In the future, I’ll probably add more pages of activities.

When the girls use them, I provide a paper towel for them to wipe clean the pages, but you could also use a small sponge or an eraser made for dry-erase markers.

DIY Halloween Felt Board

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DIY Halloween Felt Board

During one of my recent random wanderings of Michaels, I was passing the racks of felt and thought:  ooh – Halloween felt board!

Why not?

So, I picked up a few sheets of regular felt in orange (for pumpkins), white (for ghosts), and purple (for bats), and also a sheet of “stiffened felt” in black for the background (a night sky).

DIY Halloween Felt Board

I had a few scraps of felt left over from previous projects, so I grabbed the brown and yellow remnants, and cut a spooky tree and full moon from them.

All of the shapes, including the ones listed above, were all cut out by hand.

I considered drawing faces on the ghosts and pumpkins, or cutting out small pieces of felt to let the kids make their own jack o’ lanterns, but I decided I just didn’t want to find tiny, tiny pieces of black felt faces all over the house for the next month.

So:  no faces.  But I like the clean lines, so I’m happy with the decision.

DIY Halloween Felt Board

Felt sticks to felt, so you don’t need any glue or velcro or anything like that, but I do have to warn you:  the felt doesn’t stick firmly to the stiffened felt, so we played with this on the floor, instead of hanging it on the wall or fridge.

Still a lot of fun.  :)

DIY Halloween Felt Board

What kinds of felt boards have you used?

Check out my Halloween crafts from last year, and our new Chalkboard Pumpkins!

Letter K: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by

Here is a list of links for all of my free worksheets for Letter K Day.

Letter K Printables

If you’re new here, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter K.  They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell them.

K is for Kangaroo and Kin

K is for Kangaroo Kisses

K is for Karate

K is for Kitten Knitting

K is for Koi

K is for Kooky Kites

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Have fun!

Roaming Rosie Signature

Free Kid Activity: Chalk on Construction Paper

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drawing with chalk on construction paper free activity for kids

Okay, it’s not technically free because you have to buy the chalk and the construction paper, but if you’re like me, those are things you had on hand anyway.  So, kinda free.

The photo shows some ice cream-shaped chalk that I bought for our Letter I Activities.  We were doing something else with the construction paper, and the chalk was nearby.  My 18-month-old started playing with the chalk, so I showed her she could scribble on the construction paper with it.

This works best on dark paper because of the contrast, but it also works on lighter colors, so you could let your kids play with a variety of colors to experiment with the results.

And this is a great project because chalk washes right out of clothing or off of carpet or couches or whatever else it gets on.  Easy clean-up is always a benefit.

Especially great for rainy autumn or snowy winter days!

Frilly Pettiskirts for Babies

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These pretty pettiskirts from Butterfly Wishes are so fluffy and frilly I can barely stand it!

Technically, I could still get away with putting my toddler and preschooler in a skirt like this, but it’s just not the same as a newborn.  And, with the recent birth of my great niece, I’ve got a touch of baby fever.  Can’t seem to stop thinking about fluffy and frilly things.  :)