Shark Ball Toss

August 13, 2020Leave a comment

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Here’s the perfect sport to bring along to your family’s next day at the beach. The homemade charm has a leg up on all the koosh ball competition!

To assemble, cut about 2 inches off the ends of two empty (1 L) soda or sparkling water water bottles. The edges were rough, so we sanded them until smooth with squares of sandpaper. Travis thought this was neat, wondering if the roughness of sandpaper can ever be completely worn away.

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Paint the bottles with two coats of blue acrylic paint; let dry overnight.

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In the morning, we drew shark features on craft foam, including jagged teeth, dorsal fins, and eyes.

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Because our wiggle eyes had long lashes and our foam was pink and purple, our sharks had a decidedly feminine appearance!

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Now simply head to the beach (or another outdoor location) and bring along a tennis ball. Toss back and forth, catching the ball in the shark “mouths”.

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A word of caution: This is hard! The players really should only be a few steps apart and it takes some practice to give the ball the right toss out of one shark’s mouth and into the other.

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So don’t worry if kids just end up rolling the tennis balls into the shark bottles. That was fun, too!

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Octopus Bottle Buddies

August 11, 2020Leave a comment

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Travis has been a little bit homesick at camp, so we made a “buddy” to go along with him today… attached right to his water bottle!

The first step was to draw an octopus outline on craft foam, and this was tricky even for me.

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I copied an example in Highlights magazine and still needed a few tries, so I didn’t expect Travis to master the shape. But he sure loved drawing on extra craft foam (little sister, too!), making this a great art session even before we moved on to assembling the rest of the craft.

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As you draw, make sure the top two arms of the octopus reach up over its head and nearly touch; you’ll need to glue them into a loop that will hold on to the water bottle.

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Once you’ve drawn the octopus shapes, cut them out. Next, draw accessories on additional craft foam and cut out. These shapes will be simpler for kids to help with. We included a surfboard, sunhat, and a little ukulele. Think anything beachy and tropical!

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Use tacky glue or hot glue to add wiggle eyes and the foam accessories to each octopus, and glue the top two arms into a ring.

Once the glue dries, your new “buddy” slides right onto a water bottle.

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Travis chose the blue one to take to camp!

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Cardboard Weave

August 11, 2020Leave a comment

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I’ve been working with Travis on weaving this summer, which is not only great for fine motor skills, but also the perfect craft for Camp Mom. Here’s another version that’s very easy for beginner fingers. The trick? Instead of a tiny needle, your child will weave with a stick!

I cut a small square of cardboard from an old delivery box, and wound yarn around it a few times, taping on the back.

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Now we took a stick (you can use one from a recent nature walk, if you like!) and wrap a second color of thick yarn around it a few times.

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Begin threading over and under the yarn on your cardboard.

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Travis was able to do this with no assistance, unlike more delicate weaving projects. He liked the way the stick pulled through at the end of each row.

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That said, he did still tire out quickly, so his final product was only a small scrap. Snip the yarn from the cardboard down the middle of the back, and tie the loose ends together. Chances are Travis can find a way to feature this weaving in games with his action figures!

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Craft Stick Chain Reaction

August 10, 2020August 10, 2020Leave a comment

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If you thought dominoes made for a great chain reaction, try this neat craft stick version! It’s sure to make kids (and grown-ups!) say wow.

The set up is definitely a little tricky, and best done with two sets of hands.

Cross two jumbo craft sticks into an X. Add a third stick, so that it is under one part of that first X and over the other. You have to keep your fingers on the cross of that first X, or the whole thing is going to jump apart!

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Keep adding sticks in an X pattern, under one, and over the other. Once your start to move outwards, move your fingers forward by one X to hold it all steady.

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As I mentioned, this gets tricky, and I needed Travis to lift the bottom craft stick so I had space to slide the new one under. You can literally feel the tension building in the sticks as your chain gets longer.

We only made a chain that was 4 X’s deep, but hypothetically you can keep going. Release and it pops apart! It all happens so quickly that it’s no surprise my picture is blurry.

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You might want to set a slo-motion camera on a smartphone to really grasp what’s happening, but here at least is a fast video.

A fun one!

Levitating Slinky

August 9, 2020Leave a comment

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Slinky play is such pure childhood fun. We have a new slinky from the dollar store, and mostly Travis just had a free-for-all with it today. But we threw in a tiny bit of science, too.

First Travis simply wanted to check out all the ways this toy can wobble, wiggle, and stretch. He loved turning it into a stretched-out U shape and calling it a smile.

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And of course we gave it the classic try down the stairs.

But what’s really going on in a slinky? To investigate, we needed a smartphone with a slo-mo video camera. Stand in a clear space and hold the slinky still, then drop it.

Ideally, what you’ll capture is that the bottom coil doesn’t move until the upper ones catch up to it. That’s because the tension of the coils is holding them together, even as gravity is pushing the slinky down. This makes the slinky appear to levitate just for a moment before it falls to the ground.

Our slo-mo camera wasn’t great at capturing this. I’d love to hear your results in the comments if you get a great shot!

Letter Learning with the ABC Mat

August 9, 2020Leave a comment

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With our ABC mat currently set up on the floor, I wanted to do a little letter learning and phonics review today. This game can be tailored to just about any age; young toddlers can simply learn their letters, but it’s a phonics review and more like charades for older kids!

I pulled out our bag of wooden alphabet blocks, which are fun because they feature not just letters but also pictures of objects.

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The task for Travis, as the big kid, was to pick a picture and act it out. He got silly with this, including curling up like an apple!

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Others were more obvious, whether buzzing like a bee or making animal noises.

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Then he had to put the block on the letter that matched the word’s beginning sound.

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Little siblings will want to get in on the charades, too!

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Then, to tailor it to Veronika’s age, I showed her how to match up letter to letter, rather than picture to letter.

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Check out our other recent alphabet mat fun here!

Bean Bag Toss Sight Word Game

August 8, 2020Leave a comment

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All you need to help prevent the summer slide is one great item: an alphabet mat! Today we pulled it out along with a few bean bags to do a quick review of Travis’s kindergarten sight words, because first grade is quickly sneaking up on us!

His class had a sight word song to the tune of Bingo, so we started with that. “There is a sight word of the day; the sight word is ‘my’. M, Y, My…” and so on.

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As he sang through each word, Travis’s task was to toss a bean bag onto each letter, and then remove it from the mat.

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To make things tricky, I didn’t arrange the letters in alphabetical order. He really had to seek them out!

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Then, he arranged the letters off to the side to spell out each word.

Next up was L-I-K-E, like!

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Travis tired out after a few words, but this was a fun way to do a sight word refresher, and we can work through his whole kindergarten list a few words at a time. You’ll notice little sister Veronika wanted in on the ABC mat action, too! Simplify this game for toddlers by tossing the bean bag on a letter and simply naming it.

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National Lighthouse Day

August 7, 2020August 8, 2020Leave a comment

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Happy National Lighthouse Day! Yes that’s a thing, and it feels appropriate that the “holiday” falls in summer, when beaches and shorelines are on everyone’s mind. Here’s a cute craft that Travis put together to celebrate.

Use white tape (or any light-colored decorative tape), to make two rings around a red plastic cup. This will be the base of your lighthouse. Turn the cup upside down.

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Cut a door and windows from black construction paper and glue on to the cup.

Now place a battery-operated tea light on top. Cover with a small plastic cup (clear is probably best, but we had a yellow one that looked neat, too!). Your lighthouse is ready to shine.

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Another fun activity? Have your child climb onto a stool (carefully!) and rotate around, flashing a flashlight. This is especially neat after dark.

Of course you’ll want to make story time all about lighthouses. Try Hello, Lighthouse or The Lighthouse Cat.

And if you can, take a trip to a real lighthouse!

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We visited one close to home for a day trip full of fun pics and salty sea air.

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Pulled String Paintings

August 6, 2020Leave a comment

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Travis loved testing out this novel painting method; not only was the process new and different, but the final product is a truly beautiful work of art, worthy of framing and keeping around!

To set up, fill small plastic cups with a little bit of liquid watercolor.

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Cut pieces of string, and dip them into the cups, one for each color, making sure the string is completely saturated.

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Working with one string at a time, place on a piece of thick paper. Cover with tracing paper, then place a small (empty) picture frame on top.

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Pull quickly on the end of the string that is dangling out, and the liquid watercolor will splash down in the frame.

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Travis was captivated! We repeated with three more colors, and then he decided it was finished. He loved that our red looked like a funnel, and that we had just a hint of purple.

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