Waterbeads and Marbles Fishing Game

Have your kids played with waterbeads yet?  They are really the neatest things.  You can find them in the floral department of craftstores or even Walmart or the Dollar Store.  Waterbeads start off as tiny seed-like balls and expand dramatically as they soak in water.

Kids love the feel of them in their hands, and lots of people have written about ideas for playing with them.  Teach Preschool has a very fun list with lots of inspiration.

For M and G's birthday we filled a large tub full of them, added some water and threw in several dozen glass and plastic marbles.  Since it was a rainbow fish birthday theme we thought it would be fun to turn it into a fishing game.  Each child took a turn with a blindfold and had a minute to pick out as many marbles as they could.

It was harder than it looked!  The plastic marbles floated, and the glass marbles sunk; so contestants were free to find the method of sorting that worked best for them.  Any waterbeads that ended up in the fishing bucket counted as negative points.

We had some competitive kids.  They played over and over, beating each other's scores for over an hour and a half.  (My poor husband was such a trooper in overseeing the game for that long!)

The next day, M, G, and I had bonus fun throwing the waterbeads at each other. We found them to be terrific ammunition as they are soft, bouncy, and wet.

10 Toys with Longevity

Since it's Cyber Monday, I thought I might post a list of some of the toys/ gifts to our girls that have had a relatively long play-life around here.  (I'm definitely not in favor of loading kids with toys, but if you are going to buy a few things, it's nice to make sure that they're going to have some lasting value in your playroom :-)

1.  Melissa and Doug Stacking Train Set- The girls have been playing with these from about 18 months, and M (my 4-year-old) still plays with them.  I don't know what it is about kids and trains! :-)

2.  The Peter Yarrow Song Book: Favorite Folk Songs- Picture book and CD.  I'm pretty picky about children's music (I like it to be simple and gentle, but still pleasant for adults to listen to).  This CD gets played at least once a week in our house.  We all love it.  (It's the Peter from Peter, Paul, and Mary fame)

3.  2pc Adventure Play Tent Kids Dome & Children Tunnel Tube- This set gets pretty low reviews on Amazon, and I guess I understand why.  It is a little cheaply made and has gotten some holes pretty easily, but the girls have gotten LOADS of fun out of it- especially the tunnel- which they've put to all kinds of unconventional uses.  If you can find a comparable item that is of a little higher quality, that might be the way to go.  

4.  Dress-up Accessories- We don't own this exact set; so it's not really a recommendation, but it fits what I like in dress-up sets- lots of smaller accessories that can be combined in creative ways (rather than a single, expensive outfit that really only has one particular use).  

5.  My First Little House Books- Our favorite series of picture books (based on the original series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but simpler language).  I think the words and pictures keep the same spirit as the original books.  We've read each book over and over again.  I think our favorite so far is Going to Town.

6.  Glue Sticks- seriously.  What craft supply gives more joy to a toddler or a preschooler and is in more need of constant replenishment?  

7.  Toot and Otto- like a simplified version of Connect Four with several versions of play for different levels.  My two-year-old regularly begs to play this game (I think she mostly likes the feel of the tiles sliding in and out, but she's starting to understand the object of the game more and more).  

8.  Child-sized Broom- We discovered what a wonderful thing this was when we visited my aunt and uncle who happened to have one.  M used it lots.  After we left, she talked about it as if it were the highlight of the trip.  And of course, what parent can resist a toy that helps make their child want to clean?

9.  Melissa and Doug Pet Sounds Puzzle- Just about all of Melissa and Doug's wooden puzzles are wonderful, but this one is probably our favorite.  

10.  Create Your Own Pop-Up Books- This set really more for older kids (especially six through nine- year olds); so I've saved some of parts of the set for the girls for later, but M loves the interesting little books she's been able to color and put together already.  I've also learned some fun things from the set on how to create my own lap-book mechanisms for homeschooling.  


I'd love to get some ideas from you about long-lasting toys, games, and books around your house.  Please share!

Roll a Rainbow

Players take turns rolls a die with the colors of the rainbow on it; whichever color turns up, the player gets to fill in that color on their rainbow.  Whoever fills in all the colors on their rainbow first wins.

This activity only worked so-so.  I colored the sides of a die with dry colored dry erase marker.  As you might imagine, the colors rubbed off after a while. I think it would have been better just to paint a die with acrylic paint, but for some reason I didn't have any red; so we did it this way, and it worked ok.

 I suppose instead of using a die, you might put various colors in a bag, and let each child take turns reaching in to draw out a crayon.

The Activity Mom did a similar activity recently, but her version is a little more educational.  You can check it out here.

Museum Scavenger Hunts

Since Thursdays are free days at the Blanton Museum of Art here in Austin we decided to take a visit.  To make it more fun for the girls, I made up a pictorial scavenger hunt ahead of time by printing out snippets of paintings from the Blanton collections that I could find online.

I ended up making 3 different hunts:

1.  Unique objects (a book, or hat, jewelry, etc) from paintings in the European collection
2.  Animals from all over the museum
3.  A collection of black and white photographs of the very colorful modern art sculptures.  (The girls' job was to find each sculpture and color it the color that it appears in real life.)

It worked well.  I think they looked at the paintings more closely than they might have.  M enjoyed circling the pictures as she found them, and even G found a couple on her own.

I'll be tweaking the pictures for my particular scavenger hunts to share in another post in the next couple of days (in case any fellow Austinites want to use them), but I think the idea could work for other museums as well- especially small museums or ones with smaller collections of paintings so it is not too overwhelming for small children.

Butterfly Symmetry Matching Game

So many different kinds of matching games to do with little ones!  We were inspired to do this symmetry butterfly matching game by a post from Mama Jenn.  It was a hit!

 

We used magnets and folded the wings up a little (pretty and it helped them all fit on the metal tray)  Mama Jenn made hers lap book style in a file folder and used velcro.  

Learning Laboratory!

Review: Puerto Rico

CSN, an extensive network of online stores, (and a good place to look if you are in the market for a swing set right now) recently gave me the opportunity to review one of their board games, Puerto Rico.  I was pretty excited to do the review because Puerto Rico belongs to the same genre of German board games as Settlers of Catan- a huge favorite with my family and me.

Basic Idea:  The players go from round to round, choosing different roles for themselves and intiating the associated actions.  Players build plantations and buildings.  They produce goods and sell or ship them. Points are added up at the end to determine the winner.

For ages 12 and up.  3-5 players

What we liked:
1.  Like Settlers, there is very little down time.  Each person's turn still leaves all the other players involved and interested. 
2.  Choosing a role for yourself each time it is your turn is FUN!  The choice makes such a a difference in the outplay of the game that it kind of feels like a choose-your-own-adventure story. :-)
3.  It is a fun game even when you are not winning because you can work toward little goals.  Also, a person can come from behind at the beginning of the game and still win with a little careful strategizing.
4.  There are multiple winning strategies.  It's interesting to see what strategies different personalities gravitate toward. 

What we didn't like as much:
1.  The game takes a loooong time to learn, (longer than Settlers) and the game lasts awhile too.  (Generally 1 1/2- 2 hours)
2.  Each game is different because people make different choices, but the board varies very little from game to game (unlike Settlers).
3. Because it lacks any trading element,  Puerto Rico involves less psychological manipulation and teamwork than Settlers.  (Some people might consider than a good thing, but I always liked the interpersonal elements of Settlers)

Bottom Line:  Puerto Rico is great for a group of adults (or teenagers) who are willing to invest 2 or 3 hours several times within a few days in order to really learn the game. For our family, this kind of game is a really good fit for our holiday get-togethers.   It becomes really fun once you understand the strategies and makes for great bonding.  

We all pretty much agreed that it's not as good a game as Settlers of Catan, but for a group of people who have already played Settlers quite a bit and would like to try something different, Puerto Rico is a fun option. 

Edible Tic Tac Toe

R taught M to play tic tac toe with apricots and pretzel squares. (Winner takes all!)

Homemade Memory Game: Family Pictures

My family has wonderfully creative ways of making sure M and G don't forget them throughout the year (not that they're really in danger of that, but since we live on the other side of the country from both sets of grandparents a little extra exposure sure doesn't hurt!)

In M's stocking this year, my mother put a set of homemade memory game cards with all of our family members included (even pets!)

If you want an inexpensive way to make a set of these yourself, a good idea might be to sign up for a new account with Snapfish. (You'll be credited with 50 free 4x6 prints).

5 More Yes/No Riddles

One of the most popular posts ever on Having Fun at Home is a list of yes/no riddles (otherwise known as lateral thinking puzzles) that I put together about a year and a half ago. Since then, I've encountered a few more and thought I would share them.

If you are not sure how a yes/no riddle works, be sure to check out the explanation here.

The solutions are listed at the end; so if you want to be on the guessing end of these sometime be sure not to peek!

1. Tom and Mary are thirsty for some peach juice. Mary says that she wants two glasses of juice, and Tom wants just one. When the waiter comes, Tom orders five glasses of peach juice. Tom takes the three glasses off of the waiter’s tray and tells him to take the others back; he doesn’t want them. Why did he order five glasses?

2. A black dog walked down a black road in a town painted black with streetlights that were broken because of a recent power outage. A car came by driving 45 miles an hour whose headlights were both broken; it swerved and narrowly missed the dog. How did the car avoid hitting the dog under such conditions?

3. It is the middle of July. Detectives arrive on the scene in the middle of a park in Miami, Florida where there is a dead man lying in a slight depression in the grass. The medical examiner said that the man froze to death. How did the man die? And how did he get there?

4. He was lying there, in a puddle of blood, shattered glass all around him, curled up in the too small space, a bucket of water standing outside. He was obviously very dead.What happened to him? Where is he? And why the bucket?

5. The two victims, father and son, were rushed into the ER. The attending physician pronounced the father DOA. The son, however, was obviously still alive. He was rushed to the operating room. The surgeon came in, and prepared to save the young man's life. But when his face came into view, the surgeon started, and announced: "I can't operate! He's my son!" How can that be?

Solutions:

1. Tom has a speech impediment. He can’t pronounce the letter “r.” He orders five glasses because it does not require him to say the letter “r.”

2. It was daytime.

3. He had attempted to smuggle himself into the States by stowing away in the wheel bay of an airplane. Unfortunately, those bays area not heated, so he froze to death at 30,000 feet. When the landing gear unfolded over the park in Miami, he fell out.

4. The man was in a phone booth, calling his wife after a morning fishing. The bucket with his catch is outside. Bragging about his enormous catch, he spread his arms wide, accidentally smashing through the glass in his enthusiasm and cutting his wrists.

5. The surgeon was the boy's MOTHER!