Spread the luck o’ the Irish this St. Patrick’s Day with a homemade shamrock stamp. Use it to decorate paper place mats, coasters, tablecloths, or anything else your little leprechauns wish to dress in green.
Materials
Make a very simple musical instrument using a cardboard roll.
Materials Required:
Hi, and Happy Easter. Well, almost! As I sit here hunting for March events for kids, I’m realizing something—there are a lot more events going on these days than there were a few months ago. To me, that means SPRING IS COMING!!! I can’t wait!
I’ve listed here a few fun Easter ideas as well as all of the Easter events I can find for families in and near Toms River. If you find any of your own that aren’t listed PLEASE send them to me at TomsRiverMom@gmail.com. Thanks so much.
Here are the Easter events I’ve found:
March 18, 2010 thru April 11, 2010 — The Easter Bunny will be at the Ocean County Mall.
March 20, 2010 — Breakfast with the Easter Bunny at Imagine That! Museum in Florham Park, NJ. Check their website or call (973) 966-8000 for details.
March 28, 2010 at 1PM SHARP — Easter Egg Hunt at Jenkinsons Aquarium/Boardwalk. All ages. Check their website or call (732) 295-4334 for details.
March 28, 2010 at 1PM SHARP — Easter Egg Hunt in Seaside on the Beach and Boardwalk. All ages. Check their website or call 1-800-Seashor for details.
April 3, 2010 — Breakfast with the Easter Bunny at the New Jersey Children’s Museum. All ages. Check their website or call (201) 262-5151 for details.
April 4, 2010 — Breakfast with the Easter Bunny at the Ocean County Mall for Simon Kidgits members only. It’s from 9:00AM through 10:00AM. Reservations are requested. Please call (732) 244-8201 to register. Admission to the breakfast is $5.
Things you can do at your home for Easter!
Or, of course, you could have your own easter egg hunt! It’s fun. It’s easy. And the kids LOVE it! You don’t have to make it huge, just get a few of your close friends to come over with their kids. Make the hunt a BYOB (Bring Your Own Basket) so each kid has his/her own personal basket. Get small things and toss them in the yard, or the house if it’s too cold outside. (Although, most of the kids don’t mind the cold if there is good loot to be found). If they fit in easter eggs, great. But if not, that’s fine too. As long as they fit in the basket everybody’s happy.
Have some appetizers and drinks for the parents and snacks for the kids, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to do anything elaborate – just have FUN! If dad want’s to get more involved, throw a Easter Bunny costume on him and have him play with the kids outside, it’ll be a great photo op too!
Click here for some fun and funny easter egg hunt ideas.
Keep an eye on the Crafts page for fun Easter crafts that you can do for an Easter playdate, or any time!
PUSSY WILLOW PICTURES
Here are a number of quick and easy ways for young children to create pussy willow pictures.
1. For each child, draw a brown tree branch on a piece of light blue paper.
2. Set out small glue bottles or cups of glue and Q’tip brushes.
3. Have children glue one of the following onto their tree branch for pussy willow blossoms.
Puffed rice cereal
Mini-cotton balls (or large ones cut into fourths)
Real pussy willows
Or have children use gray or white paint to make fingerprints on their branches.
HEALTHY FOODS MURAL
1. Hang a length of butcher paper on a wall at the children’s eye level.
2. Set out a variety of magazines and grocery store ads showing healthy foods.
3. Let your children look through the magazines and find the pictures of healthy foods to cut or tear out.
4. Have the children name the foods they have found as they glue the pictures to the butcher paper to create a healthy food mural.
FOOD PYRAMID
1. You will need a Food Pyramid poster for this activity.
2. Hang up a Food Pyramid poster.
3. Discuss the different sections with your children.
4. Ask your children which section is the largest? Yes, Breads and Grains.
5. Ask your children which section is the smallest? Yes, Fats and Sweets.
6. Explain that we need foods from all sections to be healthy but we need less of the ones near the top of the pyramid.
FOOD PLACEMATS
1. Make a food placemat for each child.
2. Divide 9” x 12” pieces of construction paper into 6 sections.
3. On a white piece of paper draw pictures of the foods in the six food groups.
4. Make copies of the pictures and paste 6 pictures on each placemat, one in each section.
5. Cover the placemats with Contac paper.
6. Prepare snacks that children can place in the appropriate sections of their placemat.
7. How many sections did they fill?
FOOD SORT
1. You will need one of the placemats from the above activity for this game. Cut from magazines small pictures of healthy foods.
2. Place the cutouts in a small ziplock bag or small box with lid.
3. Let your children take turns sorting the pictures and placing them in the appropriate section on the placemat.
HEALTHY FOOD CARD GAME
1. You will need 24 small index cards for this game.
2. Draw a picture of a food on each card.
3. Draw four foods from each of the six catagories.
4. Mix up the cards and place them upside-down on the table or floor.
5. Up to four children can play this game.
6. Children take turns drawing cards.
7. If it is from a category that they do not have, they keep the card.
8. If it is from a category that they have, they place the card upside-down in a discard pile next to the draw pile and lose their turn.
9. Game continues around in a circle until one child has six cards, one from each category of food.
Crown yourself a royal architect and build beautiful rainbow-colored ice castles.
Materials
1. Plastic containers
2. Food coloring
3. Natural Materials
Instructions
1. Fill containers (pails, gelatin molds, plastic storage containers, cups) with water. Then add food coloring (about 20 drops of color per cup of water) and freeze outside overnight.
2. Before building, bring the ice to room temperature. When you see a bit of water on top or when the ice turns in its container, that means the ice is ready to slip out.
3. Build away. Decorate the completed castles with sticks and mini pine boughs, if desired.
I’m on the hunt for some fun things to do with kids on snowy days. Here are a few things I’ve found
Snow Cream
Put a bowl out night before snow. Mix into bowl of fresh snow one can evaporated milk, 2 tbsp vanilla extract, 1 cup sugar (can also add choc syrup or any other thing for that matter). Eat immediately! (Thanks Trish!)
Slippery Tug-of-War
Everybody grabs their saucer sleds and divides into two sides. Take hold of either end of a long rope and pull. Try to pull your opponents over to your side without sliding toward them.
Snow Shapes
Wet, dense snow is like sand, in that it can be formed into shapes. Bring out your sandbox toys, buckets, Tupperware containers and other molds and make a snow castle or anything else your imagination comes up with.
Snow Bodies
Lie on the ground and form a snowman shape around you. Then try a mermaid’s tail, an angel with wings, a butterfly and other characters. Make sure your kids are bundled up well for this one!
Snow Paint
Make some homemade snow paint using water and food coloring, fill some spray bottles and let your children express their artistic sides in the snow. With a sharp stream on the spray bottle or in a squeeze bottle, kids can write their names in the snow or make a large message in the yard
Take a nature walk
In a nearby park or even your backyard. Look for tracks and try to identify what left them. Think of what each animal might be looking for in the snow.
Snowball Fight
Split into teams: adults vs. kids, boys vs. girls, or whatever works for your group of 2 to 20 and build your forts. Then stock on up “ammo” and let the battle begin!
Tree Decorator
Decorate a tree with yummy treats for the neighborhood wildlife. One idea: smear peanut butter over a plain unpainted pine cone, and roll it in bird seed. Hang it in the tree with a bit of yarn.
Snow Lantern
Click on the link below to find out how. It’s awesome!
Instructions
1. To make them, cut out the shapes shown from card stock or scrapbooking paper.
2. Glue on photocopied pictures of your child and googly eyes, then add details with marker (we also added a computer printout message to the card at upper right).
For faster assembly, you can make one card, then photocopy it multiple times before adding the eyes.
More messages:
We see eye to eye
Eye think you’re fun
To a good pupil
