Horsey Camp for Little Ones

Posted on May 24, 2013 by vanderbiltwife

With my little ones done with their Mother’s Day Out program for the summer, I’m trying to plan some fun things for them. Last year we did Dinosaur “Camp” with great success. This summer, I’d like to plan a “camp” most weeks (this is totally stolen from my friend JessieLeigh, who says she stole it from Jessica … which is weird, since our names are all basically the same).

I asked David what his favorite animal is, and he said horseys. So we decided to start the summer with horsey week!

Now I had hoped to do more this week, but between Libbie getting a cavity filled on Tuesday and me coming down with the virus she had last week … things have been rougher than I had hoped.

But there’s no such thing as a perfect mom or a perfect week. So I am going to share what we DID get done. And you can check out my Horsey Camp Pinterest Board for more ideas.

We started off with this fun painted horse craft on Monday (via Learn Create Love). Libbie enjoyed painting the parts and gluing them together. I let her pick out a piece of scrapbook paper on which to glue them … obviously.

This paper plate craft was very easy {how do I love free printable crafts? let me count the ways).

I was feeling especially rotten yesterday, so I found the Farm Curriculum Pack at 3 Dinosaurs and printed off a bunch of sheets for Libbie to do. She put together some puzzles, traced lines, found patterns, and more.

For our snack on Monday, we had “horsey oats,” AKA granola. Other snacks could include apples and carrots (my Chock Full of Healthy Muffins have both and would be a fun thing to cook together).

Some of our favorite horsey books and books that have horseys that we read this week are:

Horseplay by Karma Wilson
Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: Rain or Shine by Erica Silverman
Pony Crazy (Pony Scouts Series) by Catherine Hapka
Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton
Little Blue Truck by Alice Shertle

We had a good time dancing to horse songs, too! These were the best ones on our playlist:

Horsey Horsey from Kid’s Box
The Pony Song from Will Clauson, Songs for Kids
The Great Adventure from Steven Curtis Chapman
Black Horse and the Cherry Tree from KT Tunstall
A Horse with No Name from America

Again, I have a lot more on my Pinterest board. I really wanted to take the kids to ride the carousel at Coolidge Park, but this was not my week. Maybe next week …

Do you plan activities for the summer?

Easy Pink Lemonade Play-Dough

Posted on March 4, 2013 by vanderbiltwife

Libbie is slightly obsessed with pink lemonade. Since I generally try to steer her (and all of us) away from food colorings, it makes me kind of desolate. But we eat dinner in a dining hall, and nearly every night she asks for pink lemonade. And often, we give in. Peer pressure.

I bought a little packet of Wyler’s Pink Lemonade mix yesterday at the grocery when I saw it for about a nickel on clearance, thinking I might make some at home for a special treat. But then I saw a post this morning about Kool-Aid play dough and got inspired. (On a blog called Serving Pink Lemonade, no less!)

I thought Libbie would enjoy playing with pink lemonade-scented play-dough, and I told her maybe she could make aliens. But other than supplies, I didn’t give her any real direction.

Aren’t they cute? She was so proud and had a lot of fun.

Easy Pink Lemonade Play-dough

1 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. salt
1 packet unsweetened Pink Lemonade drink mix (like Kool-Aid or Wyler’s)
1 1/2 T oil
1 c. boiling water

In a bowl, mix together flour, salt, and drink mix. Make a well in the middle and add oil. Quickly pour in water and stir together.

When it’s cool to the touch, knead a few times for dough to come together.

For aliens, provide cookie cutters, googly eyes, and pipe cleaner pieces to play with!

Look, Ma, We DID Something.

Posted on January 22, 2013 by vanderbiltwife

I’m really not a very good mom when I’m pregnant, which is half the reason I’m more-than-hesitant about saying I’ll ever do this again. I’m pretty sure I’m done with pregnancy after March … although you never know.

And parenting when I’m 7 months pregnant AND my back has totally spazzed out? Basically does not happen.

Which is why I was pretty proud that yesterday morning I managed to DO something with the kids.

We started out painting polar bears, an idea I got from Keeping Life Creative. I actually let David paint, which I don’t usually do. I asked the kids whether they wanted brown bears or white bears, and they both chose white, so voila, we had two polar bears.

polar bear art

polar bear art 2

(I did all the cutting and gluing, although Libbie drew her own face.)

Then, after we talked a little bit about how polar bears live in Antarctica and how humans can’t really live there, we watched two YouTube videos about the arctic. (NOT the ones titled “Polar Bear Eats Baby Seal.”

Had it not been Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I would have taken them to the library to explore books on polar bears and Antarctica. But since it was, I went by myself today (Tuesday) while they are in school and asked the children’s librarian for some suggestions. Here are the books we checked out to explore:

Antarctica: The Last Unspoiled Continent (to look at the pictures)
Tacky Goes to Camp by Helen Lester
The Practically Perfect Pajamas by Erik Brooks
The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett

I love having my little ones at home and having the freedom to have these sort-of-mini-homeschool units to let them explore what they find interesting. I think next we’ll make Toilet Paper Roll Penguins!

Source: ourbigearth.com via tracey on Pinterest

[please Pin this craft from the original source]

What other fun arctic-y things could we do?

The Lazy Mom’s Dinosaur Week for Little Ones

Posted on June 24, 2012 by vanderbiltwife

Inspired by JessieLeigh’s awesome summer “camps” with her kids last year, I decided this year I’d better make some plans for Libbie. That child is go-go-go; she does not like staying still and she loves every type of craft and activity. Right now she’s craving an extra helping of one-on-one time with Mommy or Daddy, too.

So for the last few months I’ve been Pinning ideas for activities we could do together. Some are well within my abilities, while others (dinosaur terrarium?) look cool but are just too difficult for me to get together.

Here’s what we actually did last week and some of our favorite dinosaur books. You can see more ideas (some more ambitious) on my Dinosaur Camp Pinterest board.

We started off by breaking the dinosaurs out of their dollar-store packaging and giving them a bath outside. Armed with a pitcher of water, a bottle of baby shampoo, and some washcloths, Libbie happily splashed for half an hour.

We made these No Time for Flashcards-inspired cardboard stegosauri out of cereal boxes. The kids colored theirs and Libbie glued on the eyes. (We both helped David color a little, as shown above.) Then Lib (3.5) painted all the clothespins for the spikes and I cut out the dinosaurs.

Starting one morning, I froze dinosaurs in layers in a bowl of water (froze some dinos in water, then added more water and dinos so they wouldn’t all float to the top). Libbie then splashed in the bath in her swimming suit and “excavated” the dinosaurs from their apparent ice age habitat. She had a blast and then gave them all a bath again in “a million dillion bubbles.” (Yeah, there’s an elephant in there, too. Maybe a wooly mammoth?)

One day post-nap, I set Libbie up with several sheets from this dinosaur tot pack, crayons, markers, a pen, and a snack of pretzels and dinosaur gummies (a RARE treat in our house). She thought the one-on-one Mommy time was divine, and loved tracing the paths for the dinos to get to the volcanos.

We checked out a BUNCH of dinosaur books from the library; here are our favorites.

There are a few more activities I want to do (dinosaur sock puppets, painting, and maybe a trip to the children’s museum to dig for bones) and then we’re on to Ocean Camp!

Do you plan your summer or just go with the flow?