Mommy Style Monday: Water Beads

There is something about January that I really dislike.  If my daughter's birthday wasn't during this month, I would be totally fine to just get rid of it all together.  I'm not sure where you live, but here in Utah we tend to get a lot of cold, overcast, snowy, rainy, slushy days in the winter.  My kids live for the outdoors, so wintertime is hard on them (and me).  I am a warm weather, sunshine loving person and can get a little bit of seasonal depression during this time of year.  I've found that staying busy is a big help and trying to rotate through a variety of activities helps my kids from going too stir crazy. *wink*

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Midway Ice Castles {plus a GIVEAWAY!}

I'll be totally honest: winter is definitely not my favorite time of the year in terms of the weather.  I get super jealous of those of you who live in places where it's warmer in the winter and always wish I could just hop on a plane and visit for a weekend and soak up some vitamin D.  I didn't include 'sunshine' as part of my blog's name for nothing! *wink*  That being said, there are some things about winter that I do enjoy because there isn't any other time of year to experience it (at least not where I live).  One of these things are the Ice Castles in Midway, UT.

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3 Fun Ways to Paint with Toddlers and Preschoolers

As a stay-at-home mom, I'm always trying to come up with fun activities for my kids to do beyond coloring and Play-Doh.  Not that there's anything wrong with these things, but my kids get bored of them pretty quickly.  And when they get bored, what do they do?  Bug each other.  Which in turn bugs me.  So it makes everyone a lot happier if I have a few new activities to offer, especially during the winter when it's cold and we're stuck inside and even when it's summer and it's hot outside. *wink*

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12 Fun Ways to Teach Your Child the Alphabet

This post originally appeared on Muddy Little Toes where I was previously a co-contributor.

One of the first songs I remember singing to my daughter was the alphabet song.  I'd sing it while changing diapers, in the car, during bath time, waiting for dinner...pretty much all the time.  When she was about 20 months, she started singing the song on her own with a little help here and there.  By the time she turned 2 years old, she knew the song and could recognize some letters (mostly the ones in her name).  Currently, she is 3 (turning 4 in January) and she knows all the letters by sight, can write about half of them, and knows 3/4 of them by sound.  I'm not telling you this to toot my horn or say that I'm a great teacher when it comes to letters.  But there are some tools I've used that have proven to be successful for my daughter, and my son is starting to catch on as well (he is 18 months).  Check out the list below and see if anything catches your eye!

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Kid Science: Dancing Rice

This post originally appeared on Muddy Little Toes where I was previously a co-contributor.

How are you surviving the winter?  After snowing all day yesterday and racking up another 10 inches of snow, I am so ready for spring to come.  Only 47 days left!  (But who's counting?)  You might remember a fun activity I shared a couple of months ago called Color Explosions involving baking soda and vinegar. (If not, you should totally check it out because it's so much fun!)  I thought I'd throw another baking soda and vinegar experiment out there for you and your kids to try out!  This activity takes basically no prep time at all and uses ingredients you already have at home: water, rice, vinegar, baking soda and food coloring.

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150+ Christmas Coloring and Activity Round Up

The last few days in our home have been filled with crying, whining, fighting, cabin-fever crazy kids.  It seems like the closer it gets to Christmas, the more the bad behavior increases.  Maybe we are all just sick of being with each other day in and day out since the weather turned really cold and we are stuck indoors more often.  I am usually a pretty patient mama, but lately I have been prodded and poked and pushed to my limits.

One thing that I always have in the back of my mind is trying to come up with new activities to keep my kids entertained.  Since my kids are still small, they need more guidance and instruction when it comes to the activities we do.  My daughter is only in preschool but her teacher follows the same schedule as the school district, so the kids are out the whole week of Christmas.  This can lead to less merry and more scary when it comes to everyone being at home together.  So I thought that doing a fun round up of Christmas/winter coloring pages, activities and crafts might be just the thing to keep us all sane.

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Reindeer Day

There is something so magical about reindeer.  Maybe it's the thought of them flying through the air pulling Santa's sleigh.  Or Rudolf's red nose.  Whatever it is, my kids can't get enough of them.  So I decided to put together a couple of fun activities and create a "Reindeer Day" for them.

My kids are still fairly young (21 months and almost 4), so I had to keep it simple.  We spent a total of about 3 hours doing these activities over the course of the day, however, if you didn't want to do reindeer activities all day, you could choose any one of these, or split it up across a few days.

Hand Print Reindeer

My kids loved this activity!  They are super hands on and don't mind getting a little messy, so paint is right down their alley.  They thought it was so fun to create a reindeer using their hand prints and some paint.

Step 1: Gather your supplies--We pulled out some blue construction paper, acrylic paint (white, red, brown and black), googly eyes, red or black pompom balls, bells and glue.  You will also need a foam brush, paper plate and paper towels or baby wipes.

Step 2: Squirt some brown paint on your paper plate, grab your foam brush and paint the palm of your child's hand (just one hand!).  If they are old enough, you could let them do this part themselves.  I had to make sure and use a little more paint on my kids' hands since acrylic starts drying quickly.  They thought this part was so funny and kept squishing their hands to feel the paint.

Step 3: Have your child press their hand onto the paper and push on the fingers to make sure the paint touches the paper before lifting it off.

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