Tag: baseball

Toddler Ball

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Spring weather and spring sports are calling us outside! It seemed like the perfect time to finally invest in a wiffle ball bat and tee set for Veronika. These sets are great because they work so many gross motor skills for kids. Batting, of course, was the first step. But then we mimicked a full game of baseball!

Whenever one of us whacked a ball off the tee, we ran to the nearest tree as a “base”. She might not have understood, but my excited modeling of the behavior and cheering of “Go go go!” had her running and grinning.

Pretend to try and tag each other “out” on the way back to home base.

Of course enext you can work on tossing skills (i.e. fielding the ball). She loved passing a ball back and forth.

For fun, I also had her kick the balls a few times, which is always good practice even if these balls were not meant for soccer. That meant we tackled three sports skills with one set: batting, throwing, and kicking.

It all looked like so much fun that big brother Travis ran out to play!

He even hit a few home runs out of the park!

Baseball Explored

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The final lesson to go with Travis’s Game Day recipes from Raddish Kids was an in-depth look at baseball… with a little art and drama thrown in!

First, I read Travis some facts about the game and we watched a quick video of the rules. Bedtime stories like Pete the Cat Play Ball! by James Dean, I Got It! by David Wiesner, and F is for Fenway by Jerry Pallotta all introduced the imagery and lingo of baseball and its stadiums.

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Even more fun was making a diorama of a stadium! I pulled together supplies, including a large box, construction paper, craft sticks, glue, markers, an egg carton, and tin foil.

We looked at images of Fenway and other baseball fields and I asked Travis what we’d need. Raddish included a full worksheet to fill out before beginning the diorama, but with an eager kindergartner and a one-year-old getting into all the supplies, we had to work a bit more quickly than that!

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Travis noticed what I hoped he would right away: We needed green on the bottom for the field. We glued down green construction paper, then I drew on the baseball diamond dirt with brown marker.

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The baseball field is a great chance to talk about shapes, in general. The dirt lanes form a diamond, the pitcher’s mound is a circle, and the bases needed to be squares. Travis chose shiny tin foil for the bases, a nice touch!

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I helped him think about what else his stadium needed. Soon we had an old egg carton glued on the sides as the bleachers with little pom pom “spectators”. Pipe cleaners were our players.

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Travis’s proudest contribution was adding a mini lantern to be the stadium spotlight.

The worksheet suggested adding food or drinks, which older kids can carefully craft. Travis was quite proud to glue together two craft sticks, crossed to look like soft pretzels.

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Next up: the drama portion! We watched a few suggested clips of movement in baseball, ranging from the best catches of all time, to how to slide into base, to how to throw peanuts in the stands. Travis then put on his acting shoes. Here is his baseball movie, in three parts:

Batting!

Sliding!

Tossing peanuts!

What a fantastic way to get kids up and moving on a rainy evening. There’s lots more that older children can do with this lesson, whether making a painting or collage representing baseball or reading biographies of famous players.

We intend to finish the lesson with a baseball movie (Angels in the Outfield is a great pick for younger kids) and a game on TV once the World Series starts!

Summer Bucket List Part II

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About a month ago, we came up with a bucket list of activities to enjoy before summer ended. Turns out it didn’t take us long to tick through the whole list – we already have ideas for next summer! But before I get ahead of myself, here’s a run-down of the fun we had.

June 4 – Catch a Minor League Sports Game

Thanks to discount tickets through our local library, we were quickly motivated to check this one off the list, taking in a minor league baseball game. The game didn’t start until 7 p.m., meaning this was a treat to stay up late, drink lemonade, and watch some ball while the sun set!

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June 6 – Dye Your Hair with Kool-Aid

The final week of nursery school featured “crazy hair day”, so how could we not try out the kool-aid method? We followed the instructions from Down Home Inspiration, which unfortunately didn’t work quite as well on short boy hair as on long hair.

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But we got a hint of dark color that lasted just long enough for the school day, and Travis got a kick out of it!

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June 9 – Go Berry Picking

Travis was officially out of school for the summer, and we celebrated with berry picking at a local organic farm.

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Since we picked blueberries last year, this year was all about strawberries!

June 9 – Eat Dinner al Fresco

We capped off a busy summer day (see berry picking above) with food and drinks on the patio. Eating al fresco for kids always feels slightly taboo, slightly invigorating, and definitely full of summer.

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June 16 – Spot Shapes in the Clouds

One of our favorite words from the recently-published Big Words for Little Geniuses is nephelococcygia or “finding familiar shapes in clouds,” so we were psyched to spot shapes over a weekend vacation with big cousins. Some of the kids thought this was a man o’ war or a fish.

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We even spotted a T for Travis!

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June 16 – Temporary Tattoos

Having the whole family together meant everyone got a temporary tattoo – moms, uncles, aunts, and kids included!

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June 19 – Play Hopscotch

When I first pulled out the chalk, Travis wanted to do his own thing, drawing buildings and then spritzing them with water.

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Meanwhile I drew us a hopscotch board. I finally coaxed him into tossing little tokens and jumping his way to them, at which point he declared, “I didn’t think I’d like this game, but now I do.”

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He got a kick out of watching mom jump, too!

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June 30 – Visit a Local Farm

For us, a farm has to mean a sanctuary, the perfect way to show vegan kids (or any kids!) that animals can live out their natural lives under human care. We’re lucky enough to have one just 15 minutes up the road. He loved the turkeys best.

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June 30 – Catch Fireflies

The suggestion to go backyard camping from Ranger Rick Jr. was a perfect excuse to cross another item off our list – fireflies! We didn’t catch any that night, but we loved watching them from the tent, and I even managed to catch a spark on film.

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Wouldn’t you know, a few weeks later we had a firefly in the house, and got a chance to observe it before sending it back outside.

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July 3 – Enjoy an Outdoor Concert

Check your town’s local listings; there is almost certain to be music or kids’ entertainment somewhere in a park near you before the summer is over. We had a magical evening at a local park, including a fun performance from a Grammy-winning kids’ song writer, Italian ice, and warm summer breezes.

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July 8 – Paddle a Canoe

Alas, this one was not a hit. We canoed across a beautiful lake in New Hampshire, and here’s Travis excited before we began!

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Soon, though, he was terrified, so it turned into paddling across as fast as we possibly could.

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July 8 – Skip Rocks

Better than that darn canoe was skipping rocks once we reached the pebbly beach at the lake’s other side! A moment of peace with Daddy and one of life’s simpler pleasures.

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July 13 – Plant Something and Watch It Grow

The final notch in our summer belt was to do some planting. We love ladybugs (and are firm believers that they bring good luck) so thought these ladybug seed bombs would be perfect on our patio.

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We also planted a few flower bulbs into recently decorated pots, and Travis sported his new kid-sized gardening gloves. Our patio has never looked prettier!

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Early Explorers Sports

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This month’s offering from Early Explorers, all about sports, was a fantastic one for getting active and introducing new games that even mom and dad didn’t know about! The booklet not only had us doing normal preschool activities – mazes, matching, patterns – but also brushing up on yoga poses and learning about neat new sports.

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And of course putting stickers on our map.

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Sports Craft: 

First up was making a game of tabletop soccer. First, glue green construction paper down into the bottom of a shoebox. We actually found that the shoebox lid worked better, since the sides weren’t as high.

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Use white paint to mimic the lines of a soccer field. Travis liked watching and naming the shapes I painted (which bigger kids can do themselves). 

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Fold pipe cleaners into the shape of goals and tape down. Now all you need is a pom pom and two straws to play. Players take turns blowing toward the opponent’s goal, while the person on defense tries to blow the pom pom away.

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Great fun!

Sports Science:

Ok, perhaps the following activity isn’t science, but since the booklet didn’t have anything that properly fit into this category, this will do: learning new games from around the world. The first, Semut, Orang, Gajah sounded like the Sumatran equivalent of Rock, Scissors, Paper but we got to learn cool new words and hand gestures. Here’s Travis with his semut (ant!) ready to defeat my gajah (elephant).

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The next game was a bit of a pickle: an Armenian form of egg jousting (!) played around Easter, where children crack hard-boiled eggs together until the loser’s egg cracks. How to veganize such neat sounding fun? I needed a food that would crack easily… So here we are chip jousting!

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It might not have been authentic, but it was certainly a delight.

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Sports Keepsake:

Travis loved the paddle ball from “Max and Mia” that came in this kit. He was determined to master the game, and I liked that it introduced him to a new activity.

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Sports Field Trip:

We had to go see a sport being played, naturally! Looking for cheap family fun? Check out minor league teams in your area. You’ll get great seats right up close to the action but minus the crowds, prices, and noise of major league parks. If you can’t make it to a local sporting event, tune into something on TV as a family and discuss the new game.

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Sports Further Activities:

We wanted to take the booklet’s suggestion and try a game we’d never played before. Little Passport’s blog post on games from around the world was the perfect resource. Okay, so we didn’t have enough players for a true game of Egyptian Drop the Handkerchief, but Travis loved diving in to catch it before the count of 5.

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We also got a great dose of physical activity with a family obstacle course. Stops along the course included: navigating a crepe paper spider web;

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and paper cup golf.

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As always, we hit up the library to further our exploration, opting for books on sports not featured in our packet.

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We talked about our favorite and Travis said his was baseball.

Finally, hit up the park and just play! Toss a football, kick a soccer ball, play a game of croquet, or whatever else suits your family’s fancy. Many thanks to this kit for getting us moving.

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