Card games

I spent a lot of time playing card games as a kid – I would sit in my grandmother’s kitchen playing cards for hours on end. Card games are great for developing maths skills and excellent for those times when you don’t want to get lots of gear out. A pack of cards is portable and brilliant for taking away on trips. Here are some card games for different aged children.

Children aged 4+

Even quite young children can get the hang of simple card games and you might like to try:

• Snap 
• Memory

Children aged 6+

• Go Fish 
•  Old Maid
• Spoons
• Rummy 

Solitaire games

Solitaire games are great for helping kids learn to play alone or for when they just need some downtime. This website has the rules for a number of solitaire card games.

Websites of kids’ card games

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/card_games_for_kids.htm 

http://grandparents.about.com/od/projectsactivities/tp/Easy_Card_Games_for_Kids.htm

http://voices.yahoo.com/six-simple-card-games-play-kids-4848058.html

We hope you’ve enjoyed our series of school holiday survival posts and we’d love to hear how you are surviving the holidays! Feel free to leave your best tip in the comments below.

Rochelle

What is scrapbooking?

For those who haven’t heard of this popular hobby, scrapbooking is essentially putting photos onto a piece of cardboard/paper, surrounding it with cutouts and images and often, a little write up (‘journaling’) to describe what the photos show and some memories of that occasion/event.

Kiwi Families has a great overview on scrapbooking and the basic equipment you need to get started.  It’s most helpful to pick a specific event (trip to grandma’s, first rugby game of the season, holiday trip to the movies, birthday party) and gather together anything that is a memento of that event (a pressed flower, photos, ticket stubs, invitation etc.)

These tips for beginners will also help you get on the right track to a great result.

Layouts

A page design in scrapbooking is called a layout.  Check here for our guide to what to consider in a layout – from this starting point you’ll get a great idea of how to help your children plan their page and have an idea of what they want to communicate their layout.

When you’re getting started it might be useful to use a layout that you find on the internet, so you can copy it.  A good layout looks balanced and this is a skill that takes some time to learn – but if you pick something and replicate it, you’re almost guaranteed a fantastic result!

Journaling

This is such a great way to have some good conversations with your kids, find out their perspective on things and really see an event or significant moment from their point of view.  In discussing the focus of your layout, you can draw a lot of ideas out from your child and get them to put it in their own words on a colourful piece of paper to paste along side their images and other parts of the page.  Then these special words can be kept forever, you can bring your scrapbooking pages out to show others and get your child communicating with them about special times too.  In this way, scrapbooking can help with developing your child’s written and oral communication skills in a fun way that makes them feel important.

Longevity

If you really want your layouts to stand the test of time, it’s important to use acid-free products so that they don’t deteriorate (you can protect keepsakes in acid-free wallets and similar products – discuss these with your craft store if this is important to you).  Special scrapbooking sleeves are readily available (again, make sure they’re acid-free) to slide your layout in.  These will protect the layout from damage, and also allow you to store several pages in an album.  Here are some album ideas.

Further reading

Here are some great ideas for getting kids started with scrapbooking.

Scrapbooking has it’s own jargon, so if you’re confused by something you read about we have a list of terms and what they mean here.

If you have leftover card and scrapbook papers, we have some other ideas for using these up.

Water… water… water

• In my experience toddlers are fascinated by all things water so use this to your benefit!  Washing hands is a frequent activity in our house, with a little stool near the tap.  My 16 month old would choose to be there all day if he could!
• Fill the bath and tip some food colouring in for something a little interesting and different.  Also useful are the little water crayons that children can use on the side of a bath or shower, that wash right away
• Get out a large tray or baking dish and put a few different plastic containers on it.  Use a jug to part fill each with water and demonstrate how to tip from one to the other.  Colour the water for some variety… and have some rags handy, or else take the activity into the bathtub
• If you’ve got a shower where the spout can be removed, let it drop down into the bath and let your toddler(s) have a wonderful time with it.  Drinking, spraying, filling containers…
• Grab a chair and situate your toddler near to you to help you with washing the vegetables for dinner.  Once you demonstrate how, they will start looking for every possible vegetable to ‘clean’.

Paint

• A good washable, non-toxic paint can be used by toddlers with a variety of implements – fingers, brushes, stamps etc.
• Buy some inexpensive toy cars and have them dip the wheels in paint and drive them all over some paper
• Get a selection of balls (like the dryer balls with spikes, or squishy balls, old tennis balls) and dip them in paint, and roll them (gently!) across a table covered in paper (this could be a good thing to do in the garage).

Textures

• Try filling a bunch of vessels with different textures that you can find in the cupboard – lentils, pasta, flour, cereal etc. – tip from one to the other, throw it around a bit, bury things in it etc.
• Playing in the lounge with a couple of different textured blankets, pillows, mattress protectors/underlays, jackets etc. can be great fun
• Playdough is pretty fun to sink your hands into!  Do watch your child if you think they may put it in their mouth though.

Other ideas

• Here are some great ideas for putting stuff in and taking stuff out – a toddler’s favourite activity!
• This site lists some rainy day activities – including lots of fun indoor play ideas
• Try making this collapsible playhouse out of a box - your toddler will love it!

Have fun!  Your little person will love any extra effort you go to in order to keep them busy when they aren’t able to get out and about as they might do in their usual routine .

Sally

Some music-making activities

Spoons

What You’ll Need:

Old spoon

A range of different items to bang on- old cans, the kitchen grater, metal bowls etc…

Run a spoon up and down the ridges of a metal can. You’ll get a nice sound. Try sliding it across all the textures of a metal kitchen grater. (Be careful not to slide your fingers on the grater!)

You could try creating your own songs or playing along to cds.

Make your own instrument

There are endless ways to make musical instruments with kids – here are some ideas:

• Cardboard guitar
• Musical chimes
• Glass jar tones  
• Plastic egg shaker
• Drum

Music games

Freeze

Play your and dance to your favourite music and dance to your heart’s content. When your child least expects it, yell “freeze!” and stop the music. See what funny position you both wind up in.

Draw what you hear

Get a range of different music ready to play on your MP3 or CD player then get out some paper and pens, crayons or felt pens. Play a song and ask your child to draw what they are hearing. Get them to think about the mood of the music and what it might be suggesting.

Some useful sites

The BBC website has a whole range of useful music resources for children

This website has a whole range of ideas for teaching music skills to primary aged children

ZILLIONS of songs for children

Some great songs to use with your homemade instruments 

If you’re looking for songs, YouTube is a great resource. You’ll find songs, old and new, and you’re sure to have a blast watching the videos.

Hope you have a lovely time making music together!

Rochelle

• Music can bring kids of various ages together.  Put on a DVD of children’s action songs, or play a CD and get everyone to boogie together.  To add another element of fun, make some shakers together first (a jar or bottle or stock canister and something noisy like rice, lentils or pasta.  Make sure the top is sealed tight or even glue it on if you are concerned about choking hazards)
• Build a fort with chairs, old sheets or blankets – for an added dimension add fairy lights, a bell at the entranceway… whatever you can come up with!
• If you have large stackable blocks or connecting blocks, children from approximately 1 up will enjoy playing with these.  Be prepared for older children’s vast creations to come crashing down at the will of younger kids though!
• Make some edible paint, spread out some newspaper/newsprint and collect together some things you can use that are a bit out of the ordinary – cotton buds, old toothbrushes or old combs, pasta, plastic forks and spoons, baggies with the corner cut off etc.  – paint a mural to hang for the rest of the holidays
• Grab some chalk and hit your driveway or a fenced area with some paving for small kids – kids right from age 1 to school age can have fun with chalk art!
• Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes
• Get a large basin or bucket and fill with something nice to sink your hands into – sand, cold pasta, cereal… anything you have to hand.  Bury some treasures (plastic animals, little notes, cut out shapes – anything you can find!) and have each child pull out something in turn
• Find a large cardboard roll (a fabric store should help you) or piece of pipe and get a collection of balls to feed down.  Feed them into various vessels, have one child feed, another catch etc.
• Gather together a series of plastic bottles and place them in a bowling V – have each child roll the ball to see how many bottles they can knock down – smaller children will take joy in retreiving the ball and older children can endeavour to win a small prize by reaching the highest score
• Dress ups can work for the young to the older child.  You could play dress for an occasion… like a tea party or a teddy bears’ picnic.  The older children may like to help pick the dress up clothes for the younger ones
• Baking is always a hit
• Mark out a hopscotch in your lounge with some painter’s tape that removes easily (warning that very young kids will probably love to remove the tape, which could be their job after the hopscotch concludes… but they may be keen during!)
• Crayon crafts or colouring pictures
• Set up an obstacle course

As always, we are in this parenting thing together!  If you have an activity that is a never-fail hit with small children of varying ages, do post it below!

Have fun!

Sally

Walking games

You might find that some of the games you’d play on a long car trip can also be fun while out walking. Consider playing:

• I Spy – “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with… (a letter)”. With younger children, you could change it to a colour “… something green…” or a shape “… something round” 
• When I go on holiday – The first player says, “When I go on holiday I pack…” and states an object, for example, “hairbrush”. The second player repeats the sentence and adds another object. For example, “When I go on holiday I pack a hairbrush and a t-shirt”. The players keep adding to the list until nobody can recite the list correctly.
• What am I? –  A player chooses any object and says “What am I?”. The other players ask questions to guess the object but only yes or no responses can be given to the questions. For example, Can you be eaten? Can you be found in a house? Do you use electricity? The winner is the player that guesses the correct object.Alternative for young players: A player chooses any object and says “What am I thinking of?” and then describes the object without naming the object. For example, to describe a pea – “It is a type of food, it is green, it is…” The players continue to describe the object until a winner calls out the correct name of the object.

Walking activities

As well as games, there are loads of activities you can do while out and about in your neighbourhood. These games are great for really getting to know your local area.

• Photography challenge – Kids love cameras and getting them to take photos is a lovely way to help them pay attention to detail. If your family camera is an expensive one, you might like to consider purchasing a kids’ digital camera – which you can get fairly inexpensively. While out walking, set your children a list of things to find and photograph. These could include an insect, an interesting letter box, some kind of plant… the list is endless. For older children, you could make it like a scavenger hunt or race and let the kids compete to complete the list best / fastest. 
• Mapping activities  – You could use a real map and get kids to navigate to a new part of your neighbourhood or, alternatively, get kids to create their own map as you explore the neighbourhood.

Autumn is a lovely time to be out and about – it’s not freezing cold yet and there’s lots to see and do. We’d love to hear about what you do while out walking – feel free to add your thoughts below.

Hope you have a lovely Sunday,

Rochelle

• Ice cream.  Does anything get your kids into action like leaving the house for an ice cream?  You might want to head out to your local dairy, or go for a long drive and have an ice cream at the half way point.  Another idea is to send mum out and take the kids to the supermarket.  Stock up on ice cream, wafers, bananas and toppings and have a treat to remember!
• Tour the parks – does your town or city have more than one park?  You could do a timed-session at each park for a bit of fun.  Basically drive to one park, say ‘everyone out for ten minutes only!’ and let them loose – then back into the car and off to the next one!  Pack a few snacks to keep everyone happy along the way
• Get on your bikes and ride!
• Look up your council website, they tend to list all of the activities on in the city – particularly by council-controlled art galleries, museums, libraries etc.  Utilise these already organised functions for a hassle-free fun time out
• Most kids will happily spend some hours in the local swimming pool, likewise – put on their winter gear and head to the beach to go exploring (you might find some beach exploring ideas here)
• Milos, a big bowl of popcorn or chips and some board games
• Do you know some friends with a farm?  There’s a day out right there!
• Choose and watch a movie together
• If the weather isn’t too shoddy, try a picnic – or a hot drink in a cafe
• For an extra special treat for mum, make her lunch or dinner to return to!
• Crafty folks with more time on their hands might like to try a box maze.  It can get pretty elaborate!

Good on you if you’re giving your kid’s primary caregiver some time off today!  Time off is worth more than gold!

Hopefully you get heaps out of spending special time with your kids too.

A marble run can be a fun activity for a rainy afternoon and it’s an especially good activity for boys. Here’s one homemade marble run in action.

(picture of marble run from http://www.serving-pink-lemonade.com/2010/03/marble-run.html)

(From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5774yI7LeQ) 

What you need:

• Anything at all! In particular, you need to look for materials that are stiff enough to hold the marble and stay in place. Some good examples could be toilet rolls, empty yoghurt containers, egg cartons, empty tins (be careful of sharp edges, though…) etc… etc… 
• Scissors
• Tape
• Something to ‘run’. A marble is ideal but you can also use a small ball etc… (one article I read suggested smarties or similar lollies – but that’s up to you )

What to do:

Your marble run can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it. All you need to do is find an upright surface and go fo it! You could use the back of a door, or a piece of cardboard or wood, or create your run in a box. Just experiment as you go to make sure that your marble continues to run.

Some inspiration:

Here are seven different marble runs that might inspire you!

This simple cereal box marble run is easy to make and doesn’t require much in the way of materials.

Several different marble runs for children of different ages 

Happy marble running!

Rochelle

PS If you make a great marble run, we’d love to see it! Feel free to share it on our Facebook page or email rochelle@kiwifamilies.co.nz

Poppies

For most of us, Anzac day is marked vividly by poppies.

You could read In Flanders Fields together and explain the history behind the poppy.  Then get busy making your own poppies – if your child particularly enjoys words/writing, maybe they could craft their own Anzac poem too!

Here are some sites that look at different ways to put together a poppy.  Each uses different supplies, so if you don’t have what’s required in one, check out the others:

www.awm.gov.au/education/programs/prepost/PRIM_makePoppy.pdf

http://blog.silhouetteamerica.com/2010/09/inspire-u.html

http://www.thatartistwoman.org/2008/11/how-to-make-paper-poppies.html

(there aren’t instructions on this last one, but the effect is created by cutting and layering red card and rubbing a black ink pad around the edges and a little on the petals.  You could stick them together with glue/double sided tape and a black button, or use a split clip pushed through the layers to hold them together.  They would look great stuck on ice block sticks, toothpicks or on another piece of card).

If your kids get enthusiastic about this, why not create a whole field full, sticking the poppies into a tray of sand or even in an area of the back yard?  Make sure to take some photographs of your work!

If you’re looking for something very simple and hassle-free along these lines, scroll down this link for a way to carve a potato into a poppy stamp.

Online and printable activities

This site is great – it has some educational readings and online crosswords (or you can print them if you prefer).  Perfect to work through with intermediate-age kiddos!

Here is a word search that you can print off with Anzac-related words.

Food-based activities

Anzac biscuits are always popular and are a great tradition to read about and share!  (Here is a wheat-free version).  Or try something different with this delicious Anzac crumble or an Anzac cake.

Hardtack is like onomatapaeia – it looks as it sounds and I’m sure it doesn’t taste any better!  But what a great way to experience a little of what it was like for our Australian and New Zealand soldiers – unpleasant in so many ways.  Here is a recipe for Hard tack.

On this site, one step further is suggested in terms of experiencing life as a soldier in the trenches:

Organise a lunch with other Gallipoli rations – tinned corned beef, rice and jam. What would you wash it down with? How about a cup of billy tea, cocoa or water? Make sure that you do not eat or drink anything the soldiers would not have had on Gallipoli – soft drink is definitely out! If you don’t like hard tack by itself how else could you eat it? Some soldiers used to break up or grate the hard tack and mix it with water or powdered milk to make porridge. What would you prefer?

Have a really special time today observing Anzac day.  It’s an important day to reflect, be together and celebrate our freedom as kiwis.

If you come across any other great ways to observe Anzac day as a family, do share them with all of us!

The weather can be pretty variable in Autumn but don’t let that put you off – just put on warm clothes and head out! Your garden can be fun and interesting in wet weather as well as dry and if you go out on a wet day, you’ll see things you never see when the sun shines. Getting outside on wet days can also stop you and the kids going mad inside!

So here are some garden activities you could try these holidays:

1. Sow seeds. If you like flowers, sweet peas are a great plant for this time of year. The seeds are big and their easy to grow and they give lovely colour. You’ll need to grow them next to a fence or other support so that they have something to grow up.

Growing your own food is a fantastic way to help your kids learn about the food they eat. My girls love to go foraging in the garden for edibles! Try peas and broad beans at this time of year.

Sweet peas are an easy flower to grow with kids

2. Make some garden art. Let your imagination run wild! Here’s a great webpage that shows you how to make easy cement decorations that will brighten your garden in these dark months!

Concrete mosaic art. Picture from http://nurturestore.co.uk/school-garden-ideas

3. Go on a bug hunt. Some kids LOVE bugs; others not so much but they’re absolutely fascinating  Even if you don’t know much about bugs (or even if you’re not that keen on them yourself), going on a ‘bug hunt’ in your garden can be a good way to fill in some time – especially on a rainy day when you NEED to get outside. A magnifying glass can be a useful tool if you have one but it’s not essential.

You might even like to record some of your observations about the bugs – try talking about where you find them, what they look like, what they are doing etc… Landcare Research has a fantastic section that will help you identify the bugs in your garden. Your bug hunt could also lead into some bug crafts… perhaps toilet roll spiders or newspaper worms?

Here are some more ideas for bug hunting.

Hunting worms!

So there you go – three ideas for getting out in the garden these holidays. We’d love to hear what you found in the garden!!

Rochelle

PS Check out some more gardening activities here and you can also be in to win a kids’ garden adventure kit!