Author: Summer

I am the mother of four busy children. I have two preschoolers and two toddlers (though one is only just a toddler). I have a bachelors in University studies with a minor in English and a cluster of child development. This means I was going for school as an English major but then decided that I really didn't want to be going to school until my oldest was two. My original plan was to go for a minor in child development. My child development classes have helped tremendously with my family life. My oldest child has had some developmental delays, though they still have not diagnosed them. My busy family life and busy life in general make it necessary that I take some time away to spend some time with my children doing something fun. I want to build a relationship with my kids, and this is done one activity at a time.
Kids Need Play

Coffee Filter Trees

Summer

Dear Readers,

We had some coffee filters lying around and I decided to use them for this really cute craft.

The skills this craft works on is coloring in the lines, pencil grip, and scissor skills.

To do this craft you need coffee filters, markers, something to decorate the tree with, a piece of paper for trunk and one for what you glue the project to as well as glue.

Using the marker color the coffee filters with marker. An option you can do is to dip the filter in water. This will change the look slightly. If you do this though it will add time to your craft. Ours took forever to dry, all night and the rest of the next day.

Whether you dip in water or not the next step will be to glue both the filters (folded into tree shapes) onto the stem and paper you are using for the background.

The final step is to add your decorations to the tree. We used some jewel stickers we had lying around but you can use pom poms, other stickers or whatever else you decide to use.

My girls liked this activity, but grew impatient waiting for it to dry. I think dipping it into water added an extra step that wasn’t necessary, but you live and learn.

Have fun and experiment!

Kids Need Play

Christmas Tree Handprint

Summer

Dear Readers,

This was a lot harder for me to do than I originally intended. Not because this is a hard activity, but my time management has been in question for a few weeks.

This activity is mostly self explanatory. First trace your child’s hand on a piece of paper the color you want your Christmas tree to be. Then cut it out. Get a second paper to glue your tree to and something for a trunk. Glue the trunk to the paper, then glue the handprint (or prints if you want, I wanted to have a family tree of all the kids). The final step is to let your little artist decorate the tree. This could be done any way you like. You could finger paint, use stickers, use crayons or anything you want. The sky’s the limit.

I decided I wanted to have my youngest finger paint the baubles on, but he doesn’t like having his fingers dirty apparently so it ended up being my second oldest doing it.

One caution I have is that if you decide to finger paint you will want to use washable paint or cover everything. My second oldest got both her shirt and the table painted, but I have washable paint for that reason.

In all this wasn’t a very engaging activity for my children. It was more a project for me. It is great if you want to make a keepsake or a gift.

  • only involved because of the story. could be free play
Kids Need Play

Ornament Decorating

Summer

Dear Readers,

A simple activity you can do with your littles is decorating ornaments.

This is a great activity for the holidays. It works on the pincer grasp and your kiddos will love to see their ornaments hanging on the tree.

My older kids also made their own ornaments so it is a great activity to include your elementary aged kids as well.

This activity can take as much or little time as you want or need it to, as long as you have things to add to the ornament. You can also go as simple or elaborate as you want.

This year we just used jewel stickers and a bell, but you could use a bunch of different things. You can even make one from scratch with popsicle sticks. If you do something with cutting it will work on your childs scissor grasp skills. Whatever fine motor skill your child needs to work on you can add into the activity.

Have fun!

Kids Need Play

Gingerbread House

Summer

Dear Readers,

This last weekend we built gingerbread houses. The girls really enjoyed it, mostly because they got to eat a lot of candy.

This is a tradition that my mother-in-law does every year. It was great to see how the kids did. The younger kids didn’t do so well, but the older ones did a lot better.

This was an exercise in having patience. Putting the sides together you need to wait until the icing dries. Then you need to wait until the roof dries. If you don’t then you will end up with a pile of gingerbread.

Decorating the house is the most fun though. Once they are put together you can let their imagination run wild. My oldest decided to put nests on the roof, and a candy cane was stuck to the side.

It was fun, but took a lot of time. It may take less time next year, though. With the kids getting older they will need less help.

Kids Need Play

Gravity Slide

Summer

Dear Reader,

Younger toddlers love to play the pick up game. This activity takes advantage of that.

The gravity slide is just a slide for toys. This can be made with any toy and long item to make a slide. I used the lid to a big storage tub.

My younger two really enjoyed this activity, so much so that they fought over it. My suggestion is to have one for each toddler or to try to help them learn to take turns.

My youngest toddler didn’t quite grasp this but if I tried again when he is a little older I am sure he will be able to do it. He will also have more of an attention span for it as well and I won’t have to be as much a part of it.

Kids Need Play

Shadow Puppets

Summer

Dear Readers,

I am always on the lookout for new ways to help my kiddos practice the different skills they need to have for school. Believe it or not, playing with shadows can help too!

There are a lot of shapes you can make. Making the normal duck shape, or any form of grasping can help with pencil grasp.

Hand dexterity is so important so practicing some of the other shapes is cool to.

You can add another layer to it and add some literacy elements by making a shadow puppet play.

Kids Need Play

I Spy Letter Sounds

Summer

Dear Readers,

As the school year began this year many parents were learning that their child had fallen behind on their reading skills. This pandemic has not been kind to those just learning the beginning sounds to reading. My child was one of those that suffered.

She really struggled finding out the way to pick out letters in the words. I thought and thought about how I could help her with her reading. Then an idea came to me.

My older kids love to play I spy. I had a brain spark about using this to help with the sounds of letters.

Stock Photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya from Pexels

Basically played the same way as the original, “I spy with my little eye, something that…” Instead of saying a color here I decided to change it to “something that starts with the sound sss.” You could do start with, ends with, or if they get really good you can do middle sounds. Also when they get really good at the sounds you could change it to the letters.

My oldest did well at this game but my next oldest didn’t want to play it that way. It was the difference between first and kindergarten age and knowledge I think. My second oldest is just starting out on her journey to learning letter sounds and names, whereas my oldest (who is behind) has a little bit firmer foundation.

All in all I think it is one we will play every once in a while, and keep revisiting when my second oldest gets a firmer foundation with sounds.

Edit: my kids are spontaneously starting this game as we wait for the bus, so they seem to like it.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Sponge Bath

Summer

Dear Readers,

As I have stated before, my kids love water. We are always looking for new ways to play in the water.

Today we decided to add sponges to our bath. My toddlers loved scrubbing the wall and each other.

You can use sponges to add another layer of sensory play. Another way to use sponges is to help your toddler learn the different body parts.

“Scrub your leg.”

“Now scrub your arm!”

All you need is sponges and a bath. You can add other aspects, we chose to add bubbles and color. It was so much fun!

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Tweezer Activity

Summer

Dear Readers,

Today I decided to work on the pincer grasp. Getting ready for pencil grasp will be important for when they begin writing.

This activity can have multiple levels of difficulty. To begin we had to make our tweezers. There are a couple different ways to make tweezers, but we chose to use some straws and hair ties. First you fold the straws in half (we chose these thick shake straws). Then you use the hair ties to wrap the fold. This makes the straw stay in the form of tweezers.

The easiest item we had to pick up was cotton balls. We also had varying sizes of beads to make it a little more difficult.

The girls played with this for a while, moving the items from bowl to cup and back again.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

National Read Across America day: Puppet Play

Summer

Dear Readers,

National Read Across America day is today! We decided to celebrate it by putting on a puppet play, but first we needed to have the puppets.

Puppets are easy enough to make. All we did was cut a gingerbread man outline out and then customize them. Once the customization was done we glued them onto the giant popsicle sticks. And there you have it, we had puppets ready for our play.

The play we chose was the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf. The girls loved making the puppets and had varying amounts of help.

With the puppets done the kids were able to put on the play. They enjoyed telling the story over and over and over again. They put on the play multiple times for us because they had so much fun doing it.

If you have kids like mine, you’ll need to be prepared to sit through multiple renditions. But on the bright side you won’t have to do much for it.

Summer at searchforseven.com