Kids Activities & Crafts

Not long ago, I walked into our playroom to find my daughter surrounded by all her cooking items and talking aloud to no one.  I just smiled and she smiled back.

“What’s up?”, I asked.

“I’m doing a cooking show!”

I guess I had been mentioning Rachel Ray quite a bit (I mean, it was the holiday season and I’m more likely to search for new recipes and tape some of the food shows).

I do love the month of January. 

Not because of the snow or any special occasions — it’s because the month brings us a chance to slow down and reflect on all the great times from the previous year.

Live is busy; we all know it can fly by too quickly.  January offers us a time to think about all the wonderful memories and activities that we experienced. 

Hello, Hello!  And most of all — Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful time ringing in the New Year.  We all slept in today (which is a real treat in our house) and are getting a slow start to the new year.  Slow is good, right.

And we are also kicking off the new themes for the winter/spring Discover & Explore Linky today (yea!!).  We have four amazing blogs hosting the linky each week and we all love to see all the great ideas and fun activities that are shared.

We’ve already had our first taste of winter and the temperatures were brutally cold!  So I am ready to find a few new ideas before the next snowy day blows in from the west. Now, I’ll admit that no matter how snowy or cold the day, I do like the get the kids outside for …

We must have a BAZILLION old crayons in the house! 

I kid you not — old crayons from previous school years, the small packs the kids get when we eat out somewhere, crayons that we’ve received in treat bags at birthday parties — a bazillion crayons.

Wouldn’t it be great if the kids were able to do more for themselves during the holidays?! 

I know, most parents think it would be great if the kids could do more for themselves all the time but I think it’s extra nice if it happens during the busiest time of the year. 

So we rounded up a few ideas about how to help the kids be more independent from some wonderful activities shared at the Discover & Explore Life Skills linky last week.

There are so many benefits to getting kids more involved in the kitchen — kids are more likely to try new foods, more likely to eat a wider variety of foods and less likely to complain about what’s being made for dinner 🙂

But what to cook?

I’m sure your kids love to pretend just like mine — sometimes they dress up for pretend play and other times they employ the use of toys to create their own little worlds.

My daughter really enjoys playing with the small figurines in the Toobs^® from Safari Ltd^® – her favorites are the Mythical Realms and Ocean.  As we were exploring Ancient Greece, we thought it would be fun to build a playscape for the mythical creatures figurines.  Hands-on opportunities to create are always a big hit with kids 🙂

Ever since my daughter read the Percy Jackson series, she has been crazy about Greek Mythology!  The I-want-to-learn-everything-I-can-about-it kind of crazy.

It’s so important to introduce our kids to the amazing people in our city who keep our community safe and healthy.  Kids need to learn who they can go to for help and also a little about the work of community helpers. 

There were some excellent ideas for play & learning shared at the Discover & Explore linky this past week.  Here are a few of my favorite activities for fun ways to learn about those who serve and protect us —