Snow Fun for the Housebound

My girls love playing in the snow. No matter how long they actually play in the snow or how deep it is, they love it.  On occasion though, I have been known to say "no" to playing in the snow.  When there is sickness or it's just that cold outside. Yes, I'm a meanie.  I have come up with a few good compromises.  Here are a few examples of what to do when going outside for snow fun just isn't gonna work.

Snow Art -

The Supplies - medicine droppers, food coloring diluted with water, tray of snow, water for rinsing droppers and lots of imagination!

Using only 3 primary colors makes mixing colors so much more fun.

Snow play -

Simply fill a large tub or bowl with snow and have fun. Simple yet satisfying for those who are housebound.

Hope this provides some inspiration.  Thanks for reading!

Message in the mirror

Writing messages for daddy. Lydia wrote: "You are the best dad in the hol intir wrld."

So incredibly excited!

Sometimes we all need to feel special, loved, appreciated.  Take a dry erase marker and leave a message on a mirror.  Make someone else know how much you care and make their day. (or night as the pj's and wet hair imply.)

The Elves and the Shoemaker

It has been way too long since I last posted. We have still been learning, creating and having fun but I just haven't taken time to document it on my blog. I have to admit I kinda petered out on the letter of the week crafts and learning. I just lumped the last few letters together as animals the same week we went to the zoo and called it done. I just sort of lost energy at the end of the school year.

This summer I am taking some time to focus on classic (as deemed by me) children's stories and planning crafts and some learning activities around that. This week we read The Elves and the Shoemaker. The girls liked the magical idea of the elves helping out the humans and we had some really fun imaginative play. I had the wonderful role of the shoemaker which means I got to close my eyes and "sleep" while the girls laced up the shoes. I simply cut out a very rough shoe form, punched holes in it and let the girls lace them up. We did this several times and they had a blast and I really did get some good rest time even if I didn't really sleep.

After playing I took the girls into the kitchen and we made footprints on mural paper. I just used 2 old pairs of shoes, dipped the sole in paint and had them "walk" their hands over the mural paper. They had a lot of fun and both chose a different shoe pattern.

We also did some jump counting. Old hat for Lydia but still pretty new for Emma. The idea of "pairs" led to some great practice of jump counting by 2's. But enough about that, now just look at the pictures.


Here are the shoes that the elves had so much fun lacing.

Really diligent work.

Here is a picture of both of the girls prints.

Up-close of the "fancy" shoe print.

Up-close of the flip-flop print.

I really am looking forward to teaching the girls some classic stories and the fun of easy ideas that come from learning them.

Thanks for reading!

I am linking up to stArt at A Mommy's Adventures and to Red Ted Art.

Winter Imagination Sensory Bin

Here is what I included in our Winter Imagination/Sensory Bin:

White Rice (snow)
Blue Glass Beads (ice)
Cotton Balls (snowballs)
Snowflake cut outs (from some leftover winter paper plates) and some snowflakes from the winter printables at 1+1+1.
A few pine cones
Some snowflake buckets for scooping and collecting (from Dollar General after Christmas sale)
***As a special effect I covered the bottom of our bin with some cellophane snowflake bags so when all the rice is moved away or push to one side they have a nice winter feel to the bin itself.***



I included spoons for scooping and tongs for picking up the "snowballs" (cotton balls).

So far the girls have enjoyed playing in "winter woods" as much as they enjoyed playing in "autumn woods" and kept the fairy theme going.

To keep the fairy theme going we played hide and seek with some small Tinkerbell fairies we have. Here is Emma finding one of them. This was a form of entertainment for quite some time.



I love sensory bins and should make them every month but for now I will make them for each season and then throw some extras in whenever I feel like it.



Please feel free to leave me links in the comments to your sensory bin ideas so I can have more ideas. Thanks for reading!