Pirate Treasure Maps <<Argh>>

My (not so) little boy has a birthday right around the corner, and while he's been planning it the last two months, just now have I jumped on board in preparing for it. He's picked a pirate theme for the party, which is interesting because not once has he shown interest in pirates before. But whether it's the lure of sword fighting or... wait... it's gotta just be the sword fighting.

We're putting together goodie boxes in the shape of treasure chests full of things like eye patches, bouncy ball "cannons", pirate gold, hats, and even swords. I figured a treasure map for each kid was in order, so this morning we sat at the computer and cut and pasted clip art from various websites to make or own maps, then printed them in black and white so that the kids could add their own color.

This activity took up some time, which was a good thing. The kids were so excited about it because they were able to feel like they were helping prepare for the party. Here's what our map ended up looking like, printed on cardstock for durability.

Big Picture Painting

Never underestimate the fun that can be had in simple activities. Today on our trip to the mega "grocery" store (one that I have declared boycotting many times, but like an addiction I just keep going back) I went down the craft isle. I let the kids pick out an afternoon activity. We walked out of there with a poster board for each kid.

My son got real creative with his painting, using some old packing foam as a paint brush, making some fun and different strokes. My daughter thought her poster board actually looked fine blank, and has not painted anything yet. My guess is I'll have to shoo my son away from it for at least a week, it will be the center of petty arguments, till finally I can let him paint it behind my daughters back. Yay, that's how things work in this house. :)

Kids museum day

I live in a big metropolitan area. I'm not sure what the population is exactly, but I know it's over a million people. With size like that you would think we have things like a decent museum, but you would be wrong. Until this year.

Our previous pathetic building of a kids museum was just renovated, and now we have something worth mentioning to visitors. Since I'm always looking for fun things to do with the kids in a place where my shoes won't melt to the pavement, I bought a membership. I'm sure we will spend plenty of time here this summer.

Summer reading program at the library

I think every library across the country has a summer reading program for the kids to stay interested in books, and not loose their skills gained from school during the break, complete with game boards and prizes. This week we went on down to our closest library and signed up. The kids are really excited about it, let's see if that excitement lasts long enough to finish the game! Lol

(I like this picture... You can just barely make out the top of "Molly Dolly's" head smooshed beneath the books.)

Camping!!!!

I can't think of a better summer time activity than camping. I love it. It's relaxing and refreshing, and I always feel recharged after being in the fresh, clean air away from city noises. The kids can get as dirty as they want and you don't have to worry about it getting on your freshly mopped floors, then you don't even have to worry about bathing them at bedtime... just let them soak when you get home. :)

This trip was extra great because we went with the boy scout troop. That meant there were plenty of parents there to help watch all the kids, and plenty of friends to occupy my kids, which meant I could actually sit down and enjoy the sunset with a hot cup of coffee.

Three days, two nights, and now we're back home with the bad part of camping... laundry and clean up. Blah.

Summer 2013

Well, I didn't really post that much over the school year. My kids were both in school and had different schedules with their extra circulars, plus I went back to work full time. I've been hanging on by a thread... Barely.

Towards the end of the school year show and tell was no longer well thought out and matching the theme of the week, but instead whatever plastic gold we could dig out of the car seat cushions in the parking lot. Reading logs got looser and looser on what I'd let fly as counting, and towards the end I even let my son pack his own lunch and he went to school with chips and a cookie. Yes, chips and a cookie.

My first reaction is, "Thank goodness it's summer!!" But that joy is shortly followed by fear. It's hot. The kids have energy. I partially work from home. How is this going to work???? Here we go on round two of finding 104 days worth of activities for them.

Day one it was my husbands idea to take them go carting. Go Daddy, great idea! We found a place that was reasonably priced and the kids had a blast!!

Egg Carton Toss Game

I save all kinds of "garbage" that I think might be useful in a craft someday, I think it's left over from my childhood days of hoarding toilet paper tubes for all my inventions, like radios and time travel machines. But under my kitchen sink was getting a little crazy and out of control, so when I got off work an hour early this last Friday, and somehow didn't have anywhere we needed to be... it was craft time!

 

 

I really didn't have a game plan when we started, I kind of made it up as we went. First I lined up all the egg cartons in a row, stacking the egg part on top of the lid part, tucking the little tab downward to form a tight fitting row.

 

 

Then I cut off the the closing part of the front carton.

 

 

And the lid of the last carton.

 

 

Then I got out the paints and we started giving our creation some color. We made up rules for a game as we painted, like red spaces are worth 100 points, dotted spaces are bomb spaces and you loose a turn, the brown space wins the game. By the time we were done painting my son had made up so many rules I had no idea how we were going to play... I couldn't keep track, and I don't think he could either!

 

 

After a short time the paint was dry and it was time to play! We gathered little balls from the toy room, designated a line to stand behind, and started taking turns tossing the balls into our new game. My sons rules grew as the game went on, and my daughter got frustrated at loosing her turn so many times (somehow she always landed on the "loose your turn" spaces), that the game quickly fizzled from being organized to being a free for all. The game evolved as the weekend went on, and was well worth the space spent saving those things.