10 Christmas Ideas Kids Love

Christmas is right around the corner.  Knowing this I wanted to put together our next 10 things Kids Love on that.  Here is a fun list for you to hopefully find an idea that you and your family can enjoy during the holiday season.  I know I have found a few I would like to try.

 

 

1. For the Firemen on Christmas Eve (pretzel twist) from Glittering Muffins is a great tradition to start and a fun snack to try.

 

 

2.  Christmas Count Down Blocks from See Vanessa Craft is a brilliant and fun idea for the kids.  I would love to make these with my oldest.

 

 

3.  Sock Snowmen from Mamas Like Me look like a fabulous craft to make with the kids. I must say I want one for myself.



 

4.  Ice Cream Snowman from Nurture Store looks like a cool treat for the whole family to enjoy.

 

 

5.  Christmas Bow Magnet Play from Teach Preschool is a fun filled activity for the kids.  I could see this keeping my boys busy for a while.

 

 

6.  Christmas Themed Sensory Bath from Growing a Jeweled Rose is my kids kind of bath.  We will definitely be doing something like this for the holiday.

 



 

 

 

7.  Snowmen from White Glitter Playdough from FSPDT(us) was a huge hit at my house.  I look forward to getting this activity out again.



 

 

 

8.  Book A-Day Advent Tree from My Little Bookcase is such a wonderful way to count down to Christmas and read along the way.



 

 

 

9.  Christmas Playdough from Creative Connections for Kids is a great no bake playdough recipe with fun ideas for creating with playdough for the holiday.

 

 



10.  Christmas Sponge Paint from Learning 4 Kids is such a fun activity and then a great gift wrap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't wait to try out some of these fun ideas at my house. Hope you find one too.

More post from this series include: 10 Books Kids Love, 10 movies Kids Love, 10 Snacks/Treats Kids Love, 10 Halloween ideas Kids Love

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All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

 

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Snowmen from White Glitter Playdough

We made white glitter playdough this year for the first time.  We loved how it came out.  We just couldn't wait to start playing in it.  I decided to let the boys make their own snowmen out of it.  I got to make one too.  We all had fun playing together and creating our own snowman.

What you need:  white playdough, googly eyes, orange pipe cleaner cut into small pieces, black pipe cleaners cut into small pieces but bigger than noses, and sequins or buttons.  I put these in small bowls and labeled them.

What to do:  Make playdough or use store bought.  Sit out the pieces you need to make the snowman.  Get the kids to come have a seat.  I gave both kids a piece of playdough.  I had to help them make the 2 ball pieces to make a snowman out of.  Then my oldest went through the bowls and made his own snowman.  My youngest and I sat out pieces for him on his tray to add  to his playdough snowman.

We had a lot of fun making our snowman family( my oldest said we needed a family) and we hope you and your kids can have fun with it too.

Linked up at tue tots

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

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How to Make: White Glitter Playdough

I am sharing with you my favorite playdough recipe.  I make almost all my playdough this way because it  seems to be the easiest to add extra things to(food coloring, scents...)  when making and it keeps the best.   I have yet to be disappointed with it and hope you can enjoy this recipe as well.

What you need: 1 1/2 c corn starch, 1/2 c flour, 2 c water, 2 tsp cream of tarter, 1 c salt, 1 Tbs oil.   Sauce pan, measuring cups, mixing spoon, and wax paper. Glitter!


What to do: put all dry ingredients in sauce pan and then add water and oil.  Cook over med high heat.  Continue to stir while cooking.  After about 5 minutes roughly it should start to clump.  Keep stirring every few minutes.  The playdough will start getting sticky fast at this point stir continuously.  The playdough always sticks to my spoon as I am stirring and when it looks like playdough remove from the pan.  I place mine on wax paper to cool.  Let cool at least 30 minutes before kneading.  Once the playdough has cooled separate into as many pieces as you want to make glitter colors for.  We did 4 separate balls of white playdough.  We kept one white.  The other 3 I placed on to paper plates.  I had my son pick out 3 glitter colors he wanted to use.  We then flattened the playdough on the plate and sprinkled glitter on.  Last my son mashed the playdough to mix in the glitter.  As he moved on to the next color I went behind him and gave the playdough a kneading:-)  We both had fun making the playdough but we always have more fun playing with it.  FYI:  you could just add the glitter to the playdough while cooking if you want just one color. 

We have been having fun playing & creating with our playdough.  We made snowmen is our playdough.  What would you create with yours?


More playdough post here.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

The Kid's co-op #33

Another fun week on The Kid's Co-op.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Reptile Bath learning & fun

Bath time is a fun time for me to set up simple themes for the boys.  They love these baths and can never get enough of them.  No we do not do these every night and a lot of times we do the same ones over and over on my sons request.  This nights bath theme was Reptiles.  We have been visiting the zoo a lot this year and we had just seen the house of reptiles the week I came up with this bath.  Sometimes our baths are just fun times but most of them have some element of learning.  With this one we went over the color green, the different types of reptiles we had in the water, and I went over basic information with them ( reptiles are cold blooded animals, they lay eggs, they like land and water...). It never hurts to add a little learning to bath time. 

Here is our bath.

We also added green colored ice cubes for extra fun!

 

Make bath time not just a time to get clean but a time to learn too.  Hope you and your family may have some tub time fun too.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

 

T is for Turkey coloring/worksheets

Here is a simple and fun activity for the kids to do today.  If you need a few min to finish getting the food ready... print out these sheets to give to the kids to work on.

*coloring sheets

*thanksgiving coloring sheets

*T is for turkey http://www.first-school.ws/activities/alpha/t/turkey.htm

*more coloring sheets

*turkey worksheets...

*Thanksgiving worksheets, crafts, ....

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Marshmallow Playdough-edible & fun

This is the second time we have made marshmallow playdough.  Here is our first attempt.  You only need 2 ingredients to make it.  It is also great because you and the kids can eat it if you want!  It is a little messy but worth it in the end.  We have enjoyed this playdough both times we made it.

What we use: marshmallows and peanut butter.

What to do:  Take the marshmallow and apply peanut butter to it.  Then squeeze the marshmallow and peanut butter in your hands. This is the messy part.  Once you squeeze these together for about 3-5 minuets the stickiness kinda fixes itself.  I know that sounds crazy but the mess starts to form a solid.  Once you have your solid you have your playdough!  Now you and the kids can play with it and then taste it if you want.

We hope you can enjoy this too.  If nothing, it is fun to see how the 2 substances form one new substance.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Bottle Cap Magnets- great gifts too

Bottle cap magnets, what fun craft to make with the kids.  Keep them for yourself or give them out as Christmas or other holiday gifts. We had a lot of fun making these. And they are great gifts for family and friends. My sons grandmother loved them as much as we did. Follow the above link to The Studio were we shared this post.  We hope you may have fun making these too.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of  mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Leaf Coloring- guest post by Coffee Cups And Crayons

Hi FSPDT readers! I'm Megan from Coffee Cups and Crayons and I am so excited to be guest posting for Jaime today while she takes a little baby break!

We love beautiful fall leaves, but now that we live in Florida we don't get to see too many of them. We had to venture to multiple neighborhoods to even find enough for our Pumpkin Man. When I commented on one of Teach Preschool's posts how jealous I was of their pretty leaves, the fabulous Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed., suggested I try Crayola 12ct. Twistables Slick Stix . She used them in her classroom to create gorgeous leaf men with her students.

I wasn't able to find those, but I did find Crayola 12ct Color Sticks and we couldn't wait to see if they would work. We went out front and collected a bunch of brown magnolia leaves from our neighbors yard and sat down to color.

And they worked! The kids and I were thrilled to see the brown leaves turn fall colors before our eyes!

We now have a beautiful collection of fall leaves! We have already made some for friends and have even got sets of Color sticks for our FL cousins--and in this month of thankfulness we are definitely grateful to Teach Preschool for this wonderful idea!

This post contains affiliate links.

Megan is the creator of Coffee Cups and Crayons, a blog that shares fun and useful ideas for modern parents. You can follow all of her learning activities, kids crafts, and party inspiration on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and G+.

 

 

 

 

I am so thankful to have Megan here to guest post.  She is one fun mom who loves to spend time creating with her kids too.  I just love this leaf activity and hope me and the boys can find some time to try it!  Please do check out her blog it is packed full of wonderful ideas.        

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Pumpkin Bread a Fall Tradition

My oldest and I love making pumpkin bread when fall comes around. It is a yummy treat for us to enjoy and it has become a fall tradition for us to make. We love to invite family over to share in our tasty treat. To see how we make our pumpkin bread follow this link to The Studio by Kiwi Crate.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Playdough Turkeys for Thanksgiving

 

We love to get out playdough and create something fun at my house.  I think playdough is fun both for the kids and me.   With Thanksgiving coming up I wanted to make something with our gingerbread playdough we had just made last month.( sorry I do not have a post for this yet.)  The idea of making little turkeys came to mind.  So I set out to find what we could use to do just that.  This is what I came up with.

 

What we used:  Playdough(you can use homemade or store bought), pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and feathers.

 

What we did:   I cut out yellow, orange, and red pipe cleaners for legs and beak.  I took the craft feathers we had and cut them in half.  I took the playdough and made two balls out of it, one smaller than the other.  I stacked them on top of each other.   Then I let my oldest make his own turkey using what I set out for him.  My youngest and I made one turkey together and then I let him have his own fun with the playdough.  We all had fun playing this day with the playdough and it smelled great too. As always we hope you can have some playdough fun too.

 

 

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

 

 

 

We linked up at Saturday show & Tell & Sunday Showcase

L is for Leaf scissor skills craft that also goes over texture & letter L worksheets)

We have started going over a new letter each month at my house.  I have a preschooler and a toddler so I try to keep it simple yet fun for them to learn their letters.  This month we are learning L for Leaf(or Leaves).  I have a few Worksheets/coloring pages... and I drew the letter L on a piece of paper to hang up for them.  I also put together a scissor skills craft for my oldest.  I also added the topic of texture to his scissor skills this month.  Both the boys enjoyed the worksheets.  My oldest really enjoyed the textures he got to cut with his scissor skills.

What I used:  Color/worksheets from above link, a piece of paper wit the letter L written on it,  a letter L traced out on paper with a leaf drawn on it for our scissor skills craft, and several different textures my son could cut up( foam sheet, yarn, pipe cleaner, construction paper, & cardstock paper).

What we did:  I hung up the letter L sheet that morning and went over our new letter with them.  That afternoon we got out our color/worksheets.  My youngest worked on his while big brother anxiously started his scissors skill craft.  I went over all the different textures I had out for him by telling him what each one was as we felt how different they were.  I told him each had a different texture.  After I helped him a little with cutting them up( I held the yarn & pipe cleaner as he cut them),  he added glue to his traced letter L and he started to glue all the different type textures to the paper.  He loved this.  Little brother got in on the fun by tearing up some paper and gluing it to his worksheet.  Both boys were proud of their finished projects.  That equals one happy mommy:-)

We linked up at TGIF.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

New Baby-making new family memories

We are so happy to share with you our newest family member, baby brother.  He was born the beginning of November: wt 6 lbs and ht 18 in.  After developing symptoms that were leading to preaclampsia the Dr decided to induce me at 37wks. ( Thank goodness I have not been feeling well for a while). We are happy that he is here. It has been a long and stressful first week.  Things are starting to look up.  Baby brothers check up went well this week and he is now nursing!  We look forward to each new week getting better.  The big brothers are so happy to have a baby brother.  My oldest loves to hold him and kiss him. The youngest big brother loves to rub his head.  I know this is a short and sweet post but I didn't have a lot of time to work on one but wanted to share our new baby with you too. We are making priceless memories this week with our newest family member and look forward to many more.  

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check us out on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Sulia, Google+,

and our G+ community, All Things Kids.

The Kid's Co-op #32

Another fun week on The Kid's Co-op.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Fun Dino Bath for The Kids

We love simple tub time fun at our house.  This Dino bath is just that.  My boys both loved playing with the eggs and dinosaurs in the tub.  They have also asked for this same bath since.

What I did:  I put little Dino's( I got from dollar tree) into Easter eggs.  I filled two bowls up with the stuffed eggs.  We have Dino soap we made and I added that to the bath also.  And of course we put in our color tabs to make the water green( we get these at walmart in the bubble bath section and I have never had my kids come out colored from them).  Last, let the kids get in and have fun!  And clean up is easy, just take out the toys.  We hope your kids can have fun with this too.



Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check us out on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Sulia, Google+,

and our G+ community, All Things Kids.

DIY multi purpose cleaner- lemon scent

Since my first son was born I have looked into using safer more green cleaning products for certain task in my house.  Now with the age of pinterest I have seen several DIY cleaners, laundry aids, etc...  Wow, I think to myself I would like to try that.   This cleaner is one I actually tried and did not just pin:-)  My first attempt at a multi purpose cleaner was with orange peels and it worked great.  However when it came time to make more I decided to try lemons.  And my husband still hates the smell all the same,lol.  But I like the way it cleans my hard surfaces and high chair.  I can't believe the smell doesn't bother me.

My last post if you follow link will give you directions.  Once the vinegar and peels sit for 2 wks take and strain the liquid over into a measuring cup.  Now you can pour it into a spray bottles.

Now you have a great all natural cleaner.

I will say that there are just some places like my shower that nothing other than good old soft and scrub are going to clean but this natural cleaner is great for  counters, my hardwood table, my son's high chair, and I can even use it on my hardwood floors for spills.  Hope you can find ways to use this great cleaner too.  

Another cleaner I do use in my tubs, toilets, and sinks is magic cleaner.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

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Ants on a log with a twist

What a fun new way to make ants on a log.  Great for kids with peanut allergies too. We thought they were quite yummy.  To find out how we made them check out our post on The Studio by Kiwi Crate.  I hope you can enjoy them as much as we do.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of  mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+

Fun Fall Mix

We enjoy making and eating snack mix at our house.  It can be fun to make and even more fun to snack on.  Since fall is in the air for us I decided to mix up some of our favorite snacks together and called it Fun Fall Mix:-)  Hope you and your family can enjoy it with us.

What I used:  pretzels, graham cracker gold fish( ours are cupcake flavor but use which one you like: van, choc...), raisins, and candy corn M&M's.

What I did:  I had a small to medium sized plastic bowl out and I just filled it with the same amount of each ingredient.  I added them as I went along to a large ziploc bag.  I added 2 small boxes of raisins to the mix.  Give the bag a little shake and the enjoy your snack.

This would have been a good snack to make with my oldest but he was happy running around playing with little brother behind me as I mixed it up.  Since they were having fun I put it together myself.  However, they did come join me in trying it.  We all gave it 2 thumbs up.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, twitter page, & Google+



 

Pinkalicious and the Pink Pumpkin Book and Craft

Even though I have boys I see no harm in a little Pinkalicious.  My preschooler read the book Pinkalicious and the Pink Pumpkin at school last fall and came home to tell me about it.  I had never heard of her and quickly forgot about it.  Later that week while at one of our favorite stores(walmart)  he saw the book as we headed for check out.  After looking through it I told him we could get it.  Now that fall has come back around we have gotten the book back out.  It is a cute story of a girl that loves pink and hopes to see pink pumpkins at Mr. Pink's pumpkin patch.  This book is a great way to go over the color pink with the kids.  Since the book's focus is a pink pumpkin we did a cute craft to go with it.  It's always fun to read a book with my boys and then add a fun craft to it. 

Our craft was a pink pumpkin with diy pink glitter paint.

What you need:  paper plate, green cardstock or construction paper, glitter, we didn't have pink paint.  I mixed white and red paint to get pink.  And paint brushes.

How to make glitter paint:  if you have pink paint just add the glitter to it and mix well.  For us I had to mix white and red paint to get pink.  I added a light pink glitter and you could not see it.  I went back and added a dark pink glitter to the paint and it came out great.

What to do: give the kids a plate and let them paint the whole thing.  My preschooler got to do this on his own while I was beside him helping my toddler.  This was my toddlers first time with finger paint and he loved it.  We usually use edible type paint with him:-)  I still feel better giving my tot edible paint so he can have more control of his project and I don't have to fear him eating it.  After they paint the plate let it dry.  I chose to cut out green stems for my boys to add to the plates once dry.  For older kids they can probably do this step.  Once the kids are able to glue the stems on, the craft is finished.  We just loved how the pumpkins came out.  The added glitter to the paint gave it just the right touch.  Hope you and your kids can have some pink fun too.

We linked up at jdaniel4'smom

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check us out on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Sulia, Google+,

and our G+ community, All Things Kids.