Search Results for: blog fun with rubber bands

Fun with Leftovers

My dad’s New Year’s resolution is to kick his addiction to caffeine.  So far, he hasn’t had a drop of coffee in all of 2013.  Since my mom is a tea drinker, my parents’ coffee maker has been sitting idle since the last day of 2012.  What’s more, since my dad has gone cold turkey, he no longer needs his seemingly endless supply of paper coffee filters. Rather than be tempted by the white basket-shaped filters, my dad shipped them 5,000 miles to our home, which is filled with non-coffee drinkers.  We don’t even own a coffee maker.  Needless to … Continue reading →

Egg-strodinary Easter Fun

Unless an egg has money in it, my daughter is not interested. She’s seven. Still, I’m not giving up on getting her to appreciate the incredible, edible egg. By Good Friday, she better learn to love them a bit more because we are in charge of decorating three-dozen hard-boiled eggs to take to a friend’s Easter party. Thirty-six eggs; that’s a lot of dye and a lot of patience waiting for each egg to finish taking a bath in colored vinegar water. What’s more, I want to make our eggs stand out, so I can’t just hand them over to … Continue reading →

Family Fun on the Fourth

The countdown to the nation’s birthday is on, and with just a week to go until the parades, fireworks and hot dog gorging, there’s no time like the present to solidify plans for family fun on the Fourth of July. Whether you are planning a humongous backyard bash with extended family and friends or you are opting for a more intimate affair with just you, your significant other and the kids, consider making use of the following ideas to help get your party started: Spinning Sparklers These safe alternatives to real sparklers are fun for kids of all ages. Materials: … Continue reading →

Messy But Fun Fall Projects for Kids

I gave up on keeping messes to a minimum years ago. I am a mother of a young child who absolutely adores arts and crafts and there is no way I’m about to limit her creativity when her masterpieces bring her so much pleasure (and provide me with ample time to get the dishes, laundry and vacuuming done). Whether it’s paint, Play-Doh, markers, crayons or the dreaded Moon Sand I’m game as long as she is happy. (After all, when the cleaning process provides fodder for blogs how can I complain?) So the other day when my Martha Stewart clone … Continue reading →

Week in Review – Fun

We’ve had very cold weather here this week in Colorado. Maybe that’s why all of my fun ideas this week were for the warm indoors. Have you ever made shadows on the wall with your hands and a flashlight? Read Hand Shadow Fun for great ways to expand that simple game. If you have a few extra rubber bands laying around let the kids put them to good use decorating packages, candles, containers, and vases. See Fun With Rubber Bands for more details. Don’t throw away small boxes! Learn how to make them into fun puzzles in Jello Box Fun. … Continue reading →

Fun With Rubber Bands

Rubber bands are good for a lot more than just shooting at your brother. Here are some craft ideas that are almost “instant”. They don’t even need glue or anything messy! All you need is some colorful rubber bands and something to put them on. Here I started with a candle, a plastic container, and a gift box. You can also use the rubber band idea on vases, pencil cups, and flower pots. To decorate them all, stretch rubber bands around them. It’s that easy. Kids like to do this so much that you may have to hide the rubber … Continue reading →

Friday Fitness Funnies – These Excuses Don’t Fly

Fridays are a great part of the week – they are the day we kick back and relax and try to wind up our week on a positive note. When we’ve skipped our workouts at some point during the week, we’ll start to feel a bit of nagging guilt because whether we had good excuses for missing the workout or not – we feel guilt for having missed a day. For example, I’ve missed every one of my workouts this week and I know that my excuses were valid – my husband is recovering from major surgery and sleeping a … Continue reading →

Friday Fitness Funnies: Strengthen Your Funny Bone

Good morning and TGIF! It seems like Friday is coming around faster and faster. In some ways, that’s great because Friday means the start of the weekend. However, for a lot of us, Friday also means the start of the weekend hustle. This weekend, my daughter has a big Halloween party to go to at her gymnastics school. It’s a Parent’s Night Out that doubles as a Costume Party and Halloween celebration. She’s very excited about it. In the meanwhile, we have a dozen other things to do to get ready for Halloween on the 31st not to mention I’ve … Continue reading →

“Stop Touching Me!” Symptoms of Tactile Dysfunction

Our skin is covered with microscopic receptors that send information to our brains. This is our sense of touch, or tactile sense. We use our sense of touch to experience all kinds of things from itching, to tickling, pressure, hot and cold, pain, vibration, and movement. The “tactile sense” is necessary for all kinds of activities such as walking up steps, writing on a chalkboard, hugging someone, getting dressed, or testing water temperature. From infancy we require tactile stimulation to meet nearly all of our physical and emotional needs. We even need our tactile sense to develop good social skills. … Continue reading →

FUN with FOODS for Sensory Integration Dysfunction

Is your child a picky eater? Creative food play might help. In San Antonio, Texas, a group of families who have children with Sensory Integration Dysfunction (DSI)–and other eating disorders– get their kids together for a special kind of play group once a month. They appropriately named their program “FED UP.” Each “Fed Up” meeting not only provides a social opportunity for the preschoolers and toddlers involved, but it’s based around a theme. On one gathering, the theme was “balls and circles.” The children began their socializing in a ball pit in a tent to warm them up to the … Continue reading →