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

Ghost Busters

Summer

Dear Readers,

I have always enjoyed science. I love seeing how things react, so when I was trying to think of things to do that had a Halloween flare to them I just couldn’t resist making ghost shaped baking soda blocks and letting my kids melt them with vinegar.

The process was very simple. First make a paste with your baking soda and water. Second form into ghost shapes, I used a cookie cutter. Third let them dry. Fourth place in a cake pan or cookie sheet. Lastly give your child a way to drip the vinegar onto the ghost to melt it.

There is one thing I would do differently though. When I let the baking soda dry directly on the cookie sheet they were hard to remove. Next time I will let them dry on the cookie sheet I am giving to each child, or use baking paper for it to dry onto. That way they are easier to get where they need to.

My kids had a blast with this. They enjoyed watching the ghost melt away. My middle child didn’t want to stop and had I spun it out longer we probably would have been still doing for an hour.

This activity can be done with both toddlers and preschoolers. You just have to modify which tools you use. For toddlers pipettes would be the easiest, but you could also use a spray bottle. Preschoolers do well with syringes (the kind you get with liquid baby medicines) or spray bottles as well.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Beginners Connect the Dot

Summer

Dear Reader,

Do you remember the first time you connected dots to make a picture? I certainly don’t. I wanted to introduce my children to it slowly, see where they were at. Later I will add the numbers, but letting them connect different dots to make their own picture seemed like a good way to introduce my children to the concept.

I know I made a whole lot more work on myself, but I made dots on 3 papers to see what my girls were capable of. For the most part I just let them draw lines between the different dots. I let them choose any dots to connect.

The idea behind this activity was to work on controlling the crayon and practicing the correct grasp. My oldest really struggles holding her writing utensils correctly so this was a great way to practice.

They really liked it, but I may have put too many dots on the paper. Next time I think I will just try to dot them randomly on the paper, if my OCD doesn’t kick in and force me to make them evenly spaced.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Travel Dough

Summer

Dear Reader,

I have been struggling to get my child to stop playing with her spit. I don’t understand why she started in the first place, but she will spit on her hands and rub them everywhere.

As you no doubt know, this is very unsanitary and really really gross. Nothing I have tried so far has worked.

I have been at my wits end so I finally asked my other childs Occupational therapist for some ideas. Thankfully she had some.

The therapist suggested that we play with things like slime or playdough when she has the need to play with her spit. There was a significant drop in playing with spit when I finally let her play with the playdough.

A problem occurred though when I realized that some of the time she plays with her spit is in the car. Playdough/slime do not go well with a car.

That’s where this idea comes in. Placing the playdough in a ziplock bag she gets to play with the playdough without making a mess in my car.

There has been even less playing with her spit since taking the playdough in the bag, with only one instance where I had to tell her to take her hand out of her mouth. Even with this instance though she wasn’t sliming up her hand in spit, just placing it in her mouth.

So if you are struggling with a child playing with thier spit, like i was, or just want something for your kids to do in the car this is a good idea. Just place the playdough in a Ziploc freezer bag, tape it up, and let your kids have fun.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Rainbow Foam

Summer

Dear Reader,

My kids were sick over the weekend and I decided that now they are starting to feel better playing with soap would be a good thing.

To make the foam all you need is water, some soap (I used baby bath soap), and some food coloring. Mix the solution together with a blender, hand blender, or even an electric mixer.

As you can see I chose to mix this in my blender. The solution is 1/2 cup water, 2 T soap, 4-5 drops of food coloring. For most of my colors 4-5 drops was enough but you can’t really tell that the green is green in my foam.

I made 4 batches, but by the time I was able to get my foam out for my kids to play the first batch was already returning to water state, so I suggest you don’t do more than that or somehow make bigger batches.

My kids loved this, though the youngest was wierded out by the whole thing. He got a little on his hands because older siblings were flinging the soap around and didn’t know what to do with it.

As I said earlier the kids started flinging the foam around, so be prepared for this to be messy. I knew it would be a little messy and so I had them go outside to play with it. The great thing about this is that you can just hose off any mess.

Hope you enjoy this activity as much as my children did!

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Wheelbarrow Walk

Summer

Dear Reader,

As a kid we used to have vacuum races. Now I know how that sounds, but it was pretty fun as a kid. No we weren’t racing actual vacuums around but doing what i have recently learned most people call the wheelbarrow walk.

This great activity works on both the bilateral coordination and helps kids seeking proprioceptive input. Proprioception is the perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body.

For the wheelbarrow walk the larger person (usually the adult) holds the legs of the secon near the ankles. The second person walks on their hands around the room.

If you feel your child has mastered the wheelbarrow walk there are other ways to customize this activity. You could set up a course, or you could race other siblings or even thier own time.

If you can come up with any other ways to customize this activity be sure to let us know.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

Safari hunt

Summer

Dear Reader,

Today I combined my Toddler and Preschool activities because you can use the same activity to focus on different things for the different ages. For toddlers we talked about the different animal sounds and following in a line. For preschool we talked what the different animals ate and worked on seeking/finding.

To set up your safari hunt hide animals around the house. I mostly used animals that you would find on a safari but you could use other animals as well. Make sure you make your animals visible so your child can find them, otherwise it won’t be a safari but will be more like hide and seek.

Ride the train around to seek the animals out. We used a jump rope to form the train, but you could just hold hands.

As you find the animals discuss the different aspects of the animals.

“What sound does the elephant make?”

“What does the monkey eat?”

Have fun on your safari!

Summer at searchforseven.com
  • mileage may vary
  • some assembly required
Kids Need Play

Egg-streme Emotions

Summer

Dear Reader,

Today for our emotions week I played egg-streme emotions with my toddler.

Egg-streme Emotions is simple enough. All you have to do is draw faces on the plastic eggs you get from Easter. Draw sad, happy, mad and many more that your toddler will recognize (we don’t want to make it too difficult for them).

For a Toddler I would do around 5 eggs a child. So some options besides the 3 I listed earlier are: silly, sleepy, sick, disgusted, scared, surprised.

Once You draw your faces and let them dry separate the top from the bottom of the egg and let your toddler try to put the faces back together.

Discuss the different emotions, help your child understand them. You don’t have to stop at what I listed for emotions either. Just remember to have fun.

Summer at searchforseven.com
  • mileage may vary
Kids Need Play

Color My Feelings

Summer

Dear Reader,

Today we did rubbings of emotions. A rubbing is when you color over something and it leaves an impretion behind.

To do this I made pictures out of glue on a white piece of paper. Let the glue dry. Once your pictures are dry you will need crayons to rub the picture into sight.

My children love coloring so I thought this would be a great way to start our special week of emotions.

The glue adds a new dimension to coloring and my kids enjoyed it.

I suggest having the glue on the back of the picture (glue facing your table) because you will get a better result.

I hope you have fun and enjoy our emotions week.

Summer at searchforseven.com
  • mileage may vary
Kids Need Play

Calming Yoga

Summer

Dear Reader,

It’s emotions week for us. Today I did yoga with my toddler. Since she is only a toddler I chose to start with only 5 poses. The poses are inverted sitting, resting, sea lion, train, and downward dog.

I was amazed at how much my toddler loved doing this activity. She actually sat still for longer than she has ever before. If you know my child you know she id constantly moving and getting into things so any time I can get her to sit still it is a miracle.

My toddler’s favorite pose was the inverted sitting pose. She thought it was so fun to sit with her legs up the wall.

Resting pose is as simple as it sounds. Lie flat on your back with your hands resting beside you.

Sea Lion pose is one of the hardest I chose to do with my toddler. Lay on your belly and lift your top half up on your arms. Make sure you are leaving your legs resting on the floor and bending back at the waist.

Train pose is another fun one. Sitting with your back and legs straight move your arms around in a circle like they are your wheels.

The last pose is one I think is the most well known yoga pose. Downward dog you form a triangle with your body and the floor. Legs straight, bend at the waist and place your hands on the floor.

Your child’s poses might not be 100% correct, but know they will get better over time so don’t be a perfectionist on them. This is supposed to be calming, not stressed because they can’t get it right away.

Anyways, have fun. It is so much better when you don’t place too much expectations on it.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

**Freebie** Playdough emotions

Summer

Dear Reader,

Today is the first day of our special Emotions week. I decided to get my preschoolers to form emotions with playdough.

My sister was amazing and made me the face to use for my face border. Once I printed that off I found out that if you trim printer paper a little it fits into a gallon size bag.

Once I placed the paper in the gallon bag I let my preschoolers have fun with the playdough and allowed them to create their faces.

The bags I used did have some problems. The playdough didn’t stick very well to them. I know sone bags are smoother than others so maybe if I tried an off-brand it would stick a little better.

In all it was a great way to talk about feelings with my preschoolers. They understood a lot of different emotions too.

Here is the print-off:

Click here to download
Summer at searchforseven.com
  • mileage may vary