Crafts and Activities for Parents and Children
Play dough Recipe
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1 pkg Kool-Aid (for colour and scent)
- 1/2 cup oil
- 2 cups boiling water
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and knead until cool. Store in a plastic container or Ziploc bag. * If playdough is sticky, add a little more flour.
Bakers Dough Creation
- 1 cup salt
- 1 1/2 cup warm water
- 3 cups flour
- Painting supplies
Pour salt into large bowl, add warm water and mix well. Add flour mix well then knead into ball. Mold into anything you want! Put in oven at 350 deg to harden. Time will vary according to size and thickness of item. After completely cooling, you may wish to mount on cardboard and/or paint.
Sidewalk Chalk
Combine all ingredients and stir together, then let stand a few minutes. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper or tin foil, then place your tubed containers on it. Pour sidewalk chalk mixture into holders, let stand until somewhat firm. Then remove the tubes and let dry completely (about 1-1/2 – 2 hours. Throw out any leftover chalk mixture (Note: do not rinse down the sink).
10 Fun Baby Games for Baby’s First Year
Fun baby games that can boost your child’s skills and development don’t need to be complicated
Peek-a-Boo
One of the best baby games to play with infants is also one of the easiest. Simply hide your face behind your hands and then move your hands away while you say, “Peek-A-Boo!”
Mommy see, mommy do
Just as you can read baby’s signals to know when to play baby games, you can take your lead on how to play from your little bundle of joy.
Dance around
All babies need plenty of cuddling time to help them feel secure and build emotional attachments to the important people in their lives.
Patty cake
“Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man, bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it and roll it and mark it with ‘B.’ And put it in the oven for baby and me.” This well-known clapping game may seem silly, but it’s a great way to help your baby develop a number of important skills.
Where’s your nose?
Want to work on developing language skills and make baby giggle at the same time? Then this silly, simple baby game is perfect for you.
Fabric fun
When baby is little, the world is a vast sea of new sensory experiences. The best development games provide ways for your infant to explore his environment safely.
Shake, rattle, and roll
There’s a reason baby rattles are so popular. Not only do they help baby develop, but they’re great fun to play with, too.
Rhyme time
Babies love to listen to the voices of people they know, and they’re also intrigued by repetitive sounds. Give your baby the opportunity to hear both by regularly saying nursery rhymes or other kid-friendly rhyming poems.
Have a ball
Yes indeed, you can play ball with baby long before your newborn is able to catch and throw.
Sing a song
Babies love music, from soothing lullabies to rhythmic drums and silly ditties. Even if you don’t think you can carry a tune, baby will love for you to sing to him and it will help you deepen the mother-child bond.
Car Travel Games for Toddlers
Surprise packages
In each bag put a wrapped item — usually a small toy. Then in some of the surprise packages you can add juice or a snack, stickers and a piece of paper, or something pertaining to the trip that you can talk about.
Drawing boards
Such as Magna doodle, Etcha Sketch, and small white boards with dry erase markers. These are great and very popular with toddlers and moms!
Felt Boards
These are fun, and you can even make your own. Use a large piece of felt for the back ground mounted on a sheet of cardboard, and cut out characters and shapes from different colored pieces of felt. Tell stories like the 3 pigs or Little Red Riding Hood using characters you’ve made. Let your child manipulate the pieces.
Give each child a “Trip Bag”
This can be a backpack for each child, or a canvas bag or even a big plastic bin that is used specifically for road trips. Kids can load it up with all their favorite road trip stuff an other toys so they can have it all handy and easily accessible to them in the car. You can even decorate the bag to designate it as their special trip bag and use it to collect stickers or pins from various trips.
Name the clouds
What do they look like ? Find as many different shapes as you can.
Silly Sound Game
Make up your own. Make sounds for different things you see. For example, say “beep-beep” when you see a yellow car, “ding-dong” when you see a yellow house, “ho-ho-ho” when you see a red house, and “honk-honk” when you see a goose, etc. You want things that you don’t see too often. Big kids like this game too.
The Animal Game
Play it sort of like 20 Questions. Take turns thinking of an animal and giving everyone else clues about it until they can guess it. “I’m thinking of an animal that has a long neck and eats leaves”, or “I’m thinking of an animal with sharp teeth, a long tail and spots…”. Tailor it to fit all ages of kids in your car.
Magnetic Games
You can use a small metal baking tray and bring along magentic letters and animals. Let their imagination run with creating words or pictures.These magnetic games are always very popular with my kids. They ask when we’ll be taking a car trip just so they can play some of these games. Keep them stashed away and used them only on the road so the novelty stays fresh!