PB & J Sushi Rolls

Fun and simple twist on a staple lunch at our house. My kids got a lot more excited over eating these than they do the regular sandwich though. Here's what you do:

Remove crust from two slices of bread. With a rolling pin (or glass or whatever, really) completely flatten bread. Spread a thin layer of peanut butter and fruit spread on each slice of bread. Roll each slice into a tight spiral. Cut each spiral into four pieces. Eat and enjoy! Best with a glass of milk. :)

Pasta Dogs

This idea came from Family Fun. These are a couple of my kids favorite foods, and cooking them up like this made it so much fun to eat! Just slice up a hot dog, spear the pieces with dry spaghetti, and boil until the pasta is tender.

High Five Colors

I did this for my daughter's preschool one day. The theme was colors, so we played this little game. Just cut out handprints from different colored sheets of paper, and tape them to the wall. You then sit back and say, "Give Pink a high five!" And the child has to run up and "high five" the pink hand. It's such a simple little thing, but the girls LOVED it and we played for quite a while. My 2 year old even got into it later, and my daughter loved helping him out since he is just beginning to learn his colors. You can change it up anyway you want, such as "High five your favorite color and name it!"

(Sorry about the lack of posting! This pregnancy has really had me down!)

Sensory Bottles

Wave Bottle, Bubble Bottle, Slow Motion Bottle

This can be a great calming activity. They are fun to shake or roll and watch what happens with the different contents inside of the bottle.

Wave Bottle: fill 3/4 of the way with water, then add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil and a few drops of food coloring.

Bubble Bottle: fill 3/4 of the way with water, then add 2 tablespoons of dish soap. We added food coloring to this one as well.

Slow Motion Bottle: fill with a clear thick liquid, such as light corn syrup, shampoo or hair gel. Then add small items of your choice. I put fun beads, small metal scrapbook eyelets, paperclips, safety pins, and glitter.

Be sure to add a little super glue to the inside of the lid so your child can't open the bottle!

Kid Twister

The best part about this simplified game of Twister is that it is so versatile. Here's how we played: we have these little animal cutouts, so we placed them on the floor and then I would call out instructions such as "put your right foot on the monkey," then "put your left foot on the dinosaur." My daughter loved it. You can use different colored paper to help learn colors, or try shapes, or combine both to add more challenge.

Goop

This was a favorite of mine as a child, so I knew my children would love it. Just mix two parts cornstarch to one part water. This is how I did it: I put the cornstarch, water and a drop of food coloring (my kids LOVE colors!) into a ziploc bag, then I closed it tight and let my kids mush it all together. They had a lot of fun with that! When it was all mixed, I poured it onto paper plates so they could really get their hands into it. After awhile, they mixed their two colors together to make purple.

Balloon Paddles

My kids had so much fun trying to keep the balloons off the floor with these balloon paddles. Just tape a paper plate to some sort of "handle" (we had paint stirrers, so I used those, but you could use rulers, wooden spoons, or whatever you have), blow up a couple balloons and have fun!