Monsters to the Rescue

Only 68 days until spring if I am counting correctly. We seem to be experiencing endless days trapped indoors escaping the bitter cold generously provided by Old Man Winter. Thanks mister.

Monsters to the rescue….

Our Monster Bowling will bring a warm fuzzy feeling to indoor play.

After working up an appetite from bowling, it’s time for Monster Sandwiches. Caroline at Chocolate and Carrots featured these frightfully delicious sandwiches at Halloween, but we are adding them to Monsters to the Rescue.

Miserably cold Minnesota winters must have some chocolate, and in the form of Monster Brownies today would be most fitting.

While in a monster mood, Mr. Printables has the 123 for making colorful  Monster Bites utilizing wooden clothes pins.

If you haven’t gotten your fill of Monsters by now, why not try your hand at making your very own loveable one? (for 3 years and older)

Any other monstrously fun boredom buster ideas to share? Please send them on over,  we would love to include you in a post.

Hanukkah 2019 Arrives

Chanukah is probably one of the best known Jewish holidays.  The Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the festival of lights, is an eight day festival beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which is the third month of the Jewish calendar, and occurs sometime in December of the Gregorian calendar. The Hanukkah holiday lasts eight successive days during which eight candles are lit, beginning with one on the first night, two on the second night, three on the third night, and so on.

Jewish Year 5780: sunset December 22, 2019 – nightfall December 30, 2019 (first candle: night of 12/22 last candle: night of 12/30)

Celebrate the holidays with our wooden Chanukka set! Kids can role play safely with our wooden menorah and 9 colorful wooden candles, dreidel, coins, potato latkes, spatula, pan and storage bag.

________________________________

Martha Stewart shows you how to make marshmallow dreidels.

Bright Ideas…Menorah Cupcakes would be a special edition to any celebration.

Importance of Pretend Play

“For children, play is serious learning,” Fred Rogers said. “Play is really the work of childhood.”

 Pretend play provides an outlet for children to practice coping strategies for stressful encounters. Imaginary play emerges around 3-5 years of age. It is important to encourage and allow opportunities for pretend play at home.

Here are some ways that pretend play impacts a child’s development:

• increases use of language and vocabulary
• expressing positive and negative feelings
• increases self-regulation
• helps in expressing empathy
• encourages problem solving
• allows for new communication
• teaches cognitive flexibility
• creativity in general
• teaches organizational skills

Start by cooking up some good pretend fun with a colorful kitchen.

Add a pretend waffle maker and you can enjoy delicious pretend waffles all day long.

It is that time of year to begin planning holiday cookie baking.

There are so many options each day to help your children with the importance of pretend play.

It all begins with imagination, both yours and theirs.

Albert Einstein once said: “Logic will take you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere.”

Mummy Monday

 

 

Wrap up some mummies and put them on your plate. Surprise the kiddos with the hot dog tucked inside. This how-to is found at Family Fun

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for a no brainer? This Mummy has no brain, just unwrap it and you will find Halloween Playdough and un-candy treat. Another recipe from the Idea Room.

_____________________________

Mummified Oreos could be your next surprise treat.

You can ask How She Does It, she will show you how to do it too.

_______________________

 

 

 

Mummy? No, it’s a baby silly!

Well… maybe a baby Mummy.

Babble claims all it takes is a roll of gauze. But of course you will need a very cute baby and presto change-o – you’ll have your own baby Mummy.

All you Mummys and Daddys have fun with your babies on Halloween.

Can You Remember?

“Can” you imagine a Sunday filled with fun and exciting ideas for the entire family to do together?

Visit KugAlls for inspiration on making these Sunday cans full of great ideas and activities.

Lorraine used Popsicle sticks and then Mod Podged the printed ideas on to them. For a complete tutorial with downloadable printable ideas hop on over to her blog.

Hello?… Anybody recall the tin can phone? Can you remember how they were made? They could make a comeback with instructions from education.com.

“Can”t let the can ideas go without remembering can cakes. Oh Happy Day will teach you how easy it is to make these delightful little cakes from everyday tin cans.

Cast a Spell on Your Kids

Schools out, now what to do to keep your kids from falling into the frightening world of boredom? Go ahead and cast a spell on them and see what transpires.

If you need some coaching in this area, Lisa, from Little Bird School of Stitchcraft can show you how to cast a spell on your kids (fingers) this summer. She has a super trick for keeping little hands entertained while learning an age-old craft at the same time.

Finger knitting is a great way of getting children interested in wool crafts, and it is very easy to learn.  It helps to improve a child’s dexterity and ability to concentrate.  No extra implements are required,  just fingers, the best tools in the world!

The finished product is a long thin strip of stocking stitch. In this tutorial, which is suitable for children, you will learn how to finger knit.  Any weight of yarn will work for finger knitting but for this tutorial chunky yarn was used which produces a nice stocking stitch.

To cast on, begin with the palm of your hand facing you with the tail end of the yarn between your thumb and index finger.  Weave the yarn over your index finger and behind the middle finger then over the ring finger.  Wrap the yarn around your smallest finger and weave back to your index finger:

Weave the yarn around the index finger again and continue in the same manner but above the first rows of stitches returning to your index finger again:

Try to keep the stitches fairly loose otherwise, it will be difficult for you to make the following moves.

The first row begins with the little finger, lift the bottom row of wrapped yarn up and over the tip of your finger (see below).  Ensure that you keep the top row of wrapped yarn on your finger as you go.

Continue the process of lifting the bottom row of stitches over the top row of stitches along your hand until you get back to your index finger:

For all subsequent rows, weave the yarn around the fingers again ending with the index finger. It should look like the image below:

Beginning with the little finger, lift the bottom row of yarn over the tips of your fingers.  Continue weaving and lifting the yarn over the fingers.  As you continue the process you will see a long strip of stocking stitch appearing behind your hand:

To cast off, do not weave the work around your fingers instead, lift the stitch off the little finger and pass it across to your ring finger:

Then lift the bottom stitch over the top stitch on your ring finger.  Continue to pass the stitches across and over until you get to the index finger with one stitch remaining.

Cut the yarn, lift the stitch off the index finger and pass the end of your yarn through the stitch and pull to secure the end:

Finger knitting is very addictive and children love it for its simplicity and ease.

For more crafty ideas, be sure to visit Lisa’s blog  Little Bird School of Stitchcraft.

Thanks again for sharing Lisa!

Recipe for Fun

Make your own PlayDough recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbs of oil
• 1/2 cup of  salt
• 2 tbs of vanilla
• food coloring

First thing is to mix all dry ingredients together in a medium pot. Add the oil and water into the dry mixture. Cook over medium heat, and be sure to stir constantly. Keep stirring until you get a consistency close to that of mashed potatoes. Remove from heat and add vanilla. If you want the playdough to be all one color, then you can add the food coloring now, and knead it into the dough until it is all a consistent color. However, this recipe makes a lot of playdough and I find it fun to create a few different colors. So if you like a little variety then divide the playdough into separate balls and work in the food coloring of your choice into each different ball. Get creative and have fun with it. You can even let the kids join in on the fun, so they not only have a blast with the finished playdough but they have fun making it too!

Tips:

• When adding food coloring it is definitely worth it to use some cheap disposable gloves so your hands do not get stained.
• A little food coloring goes a long way! In fact a little trick is to dip a toothpick in the food coloring bottle and then puncture a hole in the playdough ball. You can repeat a few times throughout the ball until getting the desired color in it and then knead the color to consistency.
• Store the playdough in a Ziploc baggy or a covered container and it should keep for a couple weeks. If you start to see a little sweat build up in the baggy or the container just add a little flour.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild to pick up a book and read with a child! – Dr. Seuss

Who hasn’t eaten some green eggs and ham? Have you ever put a cat on your hat or a hat on your cat?

Happy birthday Dr. Seuss!  He was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts on this day way back in the year of 1904.

With 46 published picture books, Dr. Seuss is considered one of the greatest children’s book writers and illustrators of all time. How many of his books have you read over and over and over? I remember knowing my son at age 2 was a genius when he “read” his first Dr.Seuss book aloud, over and over and over.

How about building a  Banana Strawberry Cat in the Hat surprise for your little ones? A Worthy Life was the inspiration for this healthy treat.

How would you eat your Green Eggs? Well, first you might want to learn how to make them.  So Wonderful So Marvelous holds the secret Seuss-y recipe, Hop on Pop and head over to learn how.

On fish, two fish. You can make them too fish and learn how over at Simple Girl.

These are some of our favorite Seuss-isms, what are yours?

1.  “You have brains in your head.  you have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.”

2.  “Today you are you, that is truer than true.  there is no one alive, who  is you-er than you.”

3.  “From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”

4.  “Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.”

5.  “Today is your day!  You’re mountain is waiting.  So…get on your way.”

6.  “If you never did, you should.  These things are fun,  and fun is good.”

7.  “I meant what I said, and said what I meant.  An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.”

8.  “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads.”

9.  “And you will succeed?  Yes indeed, yes indeed!  Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed.”

10.  “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

So…“Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky!”H

Toys Taking Over?

Doth your playroom runneth over with toys?

You are not alone if you find yourself suffering the post-holiday buried in toys syndrome.

Take advantage of this time to do some decluttering and organizing your kiddos toys.

Make room for the newly acquired toys by playing a game of lining up and counting all of the new toys. Next, have your child match each new toy up with one that is no longer being played with.  An excellent opportunity for teaching your children a lesson in sharing exists here. Explain how happy some other children will be to receive the toys and how they will be new toys for the other children to play with.

If resistance is encountered,  ask your child to think about the last time a particular toy was played with, and if it’s been over six months, “wouldn’t it be nice to let another child play with it?”

There are charities all across the country that collect toys for various organizations. Almost everyday Totally Kids fun furniture and toys receives new and gently used toys donated for Twin Cities families affected by Autism. If you are in the Minneapolis St. Paul area please drop off any toys that you can spare.

We would like to express gratitude to all of those who have so generously donated toys over the last few years. Thank you!

New Year’s Eve Countdown for Kids 2018

We love tradition at our house and so do the kids. Celebrating the last day of the year, and better yet, a special night that bedtime is delayed makes it a favorite tradition.

We like to start out the  New Years Eve Countdown with these clever party bags. The idea originated over at Organize Your Stuff Now. The kids look forward to them and they are a perfect way to keep the young ones entertained all night long! We like starting the countdown at 6 p.m. and then every hour on the hour.  There is a surprise in each bag. You can fill them with anything you like, ending with a special treat for the bewitching hour. You might include card games, bubbles, silly string, glow sticks or even some sparklers that the kids can take outside for some happy new year fun.

 

Don’t take down your Christmas tree just yet. Look at how you can transform it into a great New Year’s tree with a few balloons and streamers. Step it up a notch and add some crazy hats and noisemakers.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Mr. Kyle’s Kitchen Midnight Fantasy Fudge

If you want the best, the smoothest, no-fail fudge recipe for your party, try the original Fantasy Fudge.

This is the original Fantasy Fudge recipe from the back of the Kraft Marshmallow Creme jar.

3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 12-oz.  package semi-sweet chocolate chips (we prefer Ghirardelli)
1 7-oz.  jar Kraft Marshmallow creme
1 cup chopped nuts
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Combine sugar, margarine, and milk in a 2-1/2 quart saucepan; bring to full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Continue boiling 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring. Remove from heat, stir in chocolate till melted. Add marshmallow creme, nuts & vanilla beat till blended. Pour into greased 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Don’t fight over who gets to lick the spoon! Let cool and cut into 1-inch squares.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Gather the family and create a Family 2018 Time Capsule from an empty tennis ball container. Stuff the can with family photos, special mementos, drawings and written memories of the top ten moments of the year as well as comments about what is currently happening in the world and with your family. Find a spot in the backyard and bury your Family 2018 Time Capsule.

Be sure to draw a treasure map if you choose to use this Tiffany & Co. sterling silver ($1500.00) tennis ball container. BTW it was designed for keeping  tennis balls at “their optimum playing temperature whilst on the court.”

 

Keep it simple. Go ahead and shortlist your New Year’s Resolutions on these printables from the best ideas for kids blog.

Our wish to you: May all of your troubles last as long as your new year’s resolutions.