A Family Art Gallery

With three children making pictures, it never took long to fill up the space on the front of the refrigerator. We started several art galleries in our house to showcase their work. Framing the children’s art makes them feel important. And I love the way it looks on our walls. It’s a fun family look. I’m not talking frame shops here, but something you can do yourself. If you’ve ever had a piece of art framed you know that it’s very expensive, and you probably picked from a mat or two to highlight the art. You can easily copy the … Continue reading →

Gardening With Children – Plants of Their Own

Today I took the boys to a local greenhouse and nursery. I told them they each could pick out a plant to take care of this summer. They were actually excited about the chance to pick out a plant of their own. Around our neighborhood we are just seeing signs of spring. We have a few crab apple trees blooming, and the trees are leafing out. At the greenhouse though – wow – everything was green, and growing, and blooming, and a rainbow of beautiful colors. We browsed through ten different kinds of tomatoes, many herbs and vegetables, and all … Continue reading →

Dress Up Play for Boys

Dress up boxes for little girls are easy to put together, but what can you do for little boys? Boys like to put on different clothes and have fun pretending too. I thought I’d share some of the things that have been in our costume box. Hats are fun and easy. And sometimes it’s all kids need to start rolling on a pretend game. When my oldest was a toddler, I bought a set of plastic hats that all my kids loved. There was a fireman’s hat, a construction hard hat, a police hat, and a motorcycle helmet. It was … Continue reading →

A Storybook Dollhouse

It’s no secret that we like books around here. Not only do they educate and entertain, but they give our family a shared common experience. Our library has done something with children’s books and a dollhouse that is so fun and unique. At first glance, it’s a furnished dollhouse. But the more you look, the more you find references to children’s books in this storybook house. The library’s house probably has at least a hundred. And at the risk of embarrassing him, even my teenager had a great time identifying the different objects from beloved books. See how many of … Continue reading →

When One Sibling Is Away….

My oldest son is in the Colorado mountains this weekend, building and living in a snow cave. Their scout troop had a two hour briefing on avalanches, hypothermia, snow blindness, and frost bite. Just what a mama wants to hear. Sometimes I am jealous of the scout trips – but not this one. Sleeping on top of and under snow? Brrr…. I like camping, but I like my nice warm bed and central heat more, thanks all the same. My fourth graders are jealous though. They are anxious for next year when they’ll be old enough for these camping trips. … Continue reading →

Forcing Forsythia – an Early Taste of Spring

We had a tease of spring day yesterday. Temperatures almost reached 70 degrees! We threw open the windows to air out the house, hung out sheets on the clothesline, and soaked up some sun and fresh air. Today we had snow and wind chills of 15 degrees. I know spring is happening in other areas of the country, but in case you are anxious for signs of spring like me and my family, then here is an idea to bring in the season a bit early. If you have a forsythia bush, you can have a flowers a few weeks … Continue reading →

A Winter Thaw – Treasures From Trash

As can be expected, we’ve had a long cold winter in Colorado. This week we’ve had a break in winter, with sunshine and warmer temperatures. All the snow melted away, leaving just a little ice in the shady spots of the yard. Today the boys and I took advantage of the warm day and played outside after school. They ran, climbed on the play set, jumped on the trampoline, and chased the dog. I walked around surveying the winter damage in our huge backyard. We’ve got a lot of small branches down that we will need to clean up. The … Continue reading →

Hand Shadow Fun

Since it’s snowing here in Colorado, I doubt any groundhogs will be seeing their shadow today. We can still have fun with shadows, even though I’m quite sure that Colorado is in for at least six more months of winter. Hand shadow puppets are easy and fun. All you need is a dark room, a flashlight or two and your hands. You can take turns shining the flashlight onto each other hands so that your hands make a dark spot on the wall. Or you can prop up the flashlight so it shines on the wall and put your hands … Continue reading →

Fun With A Tape Recorder

Do your children know what their voices sound like? Break out the tape recorder for some creative fun. Let them tape themselves talking and being silly. Play it back for their amazement. Tape their softest whisper and their loudest scream. Tape them singing a favorite song, or reading a book out loud. Have them imitate animal sounds. Be sure and tape their laughter. Once they’ve exhausted their voices by singing, and talking, and making strange noises, there is still a lot of fun to be had. Let the kids tape mystery noises for other people to guess. It’s really fun … Continue reading →

Sick Day Survival Games

We haven’t been having much fun at my house this month. Instead, we’ve had one sick child after another. I’m always glad when they are feeling well enough to get restless. Here are some things we do on recovery days when they are feeling better, but still not up to par. I have a small dry erase board that is also a magnetic board. We have the low odor type of dry erase markers. The kids can draw, or if I have time we can play tic-tac-toe or dots. The magnetic part is fun, too. We have some architectural magnets, … Continue reading →