Things to Read/Make/Do - Banish Boredom - Activities To Do With Kids That You'll Actually Enjoy

I have exciting news to share today - my friend Rebecca, from Not-So-SAHM, published a book and it's crazy awesome - full of fun things to do with your kids - from art and science projects to museums and field trips.

I've always loved Rebecca's blog and seeing her parenting philosophy captured in a book has made for a great read. In particular, I enjoyed reading about Rebecca's "personal approach to activities." As Rebecca explains, when looking for things to do with her children, she's had the best success "starting with [herself].

"Ask yourself what things do you want to do explore or learn more about? Pick one and start there. And then watch as your children react to activities involving that interest. I'm going to guess that as a parent of young kids, you're thinking something along the lines of:'Coffee. Coffee is something I can get into.' If so, find a local roaster and take the kids for a field trip! Maybe they'll be enamored by machinery, maybe they'll enjoy the smell, or maybe you'll come up with an art project out of coffee grounds. Or maybe you'll just get an amazing cup of coffee out of it."

That paragraph is probably the best parenting advice I've ever heard.

But the book also has so so much more - bouncy eggs, play dough, cloud classifiers, fake snow, frozen shaving cream (who knew you could freeze shaving cream?), etc. The kids and I can't wait to try several of these projects ourselves. I was planning to include photos of our own experiences with shaving cream in this post. But, it's the end of summer vacation, and I'm losing steam. So you'll have to wait a few more weeks.

In the meantime, Rebecca's book is available on Amazon, click here to pick up a copy! The activities are all open ended, so they should work with kids of all ages, but I think parents of children aged 4-7 would find the book especially helpful!

Things to Read - New Art Books (for Kids and Adults)

Two weekends ago, F and I spent Saturday morning at the Hirshhorn checking out the new Ai Weiwei exhibit, "According to What?" (click here to read KidFriendly DC's review). Of course, we eventually ended up in the museum shop. Usually, because I have three children with me, I do whatever it takes to avoid such an experience. But with one non-toddler child, everything seemed so accessible all of a sudden. And I could actually peruse multiple books that have been sitting on my Amazon wishlist for months. Plus, since we have a Smithsonian membership, everything is discounted by 10%, which is practically a sale, right? So I went a little crazy, here are some of the books we purchased (from top to bottom):





1. They Draw and Cook: 107 Recipes Illustrated by Artists from Around the World - A cookbook with beautiful art, full of all sorts of different recipes (most of them pretty easy to duplicate) - how could you not want this book? For those of you who don't want to spend the $13, the website is also pretty wonderful.





2. Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media-For Budding Artists of All Ages (Lab Series) - I already blogged about this book on Tuesday (click here for the post) and so far we're really enjoying it. The projects are all relatively simple (though sometimes messy), yet creative (as in "I never would have thought of that") and free-form (so kids can spend lots of time on them and use them as creative jumping off points for other projects).





3. A Year in Art: The Activity Book - F picked this out and I just love the whole concept of it. Every day (for 365 days) a new artwork is introduced, along with a simple activity. Sometimes the book encourages kids to write a story about a painting, other times the books asks them to recognize details in the artwork or create their own artwork. It looks like so much fun that I want to "play" along. F doesn't want to begin any of the projects until January 1, so she'll complete the book in order. Hopefully she'll stick with it and learn a lot.





4. The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science - How could you NOT want to buy a book where scientists and artists teem up to explain the world to us? Plus, it's just so so pretty.
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Oh, and if you're interested in other great, temporary art exhibits to see with your children, Not-So-SAHM has the kid-friendly scoop on the National Gallery of Art's Lichtenstein retrospective (I so want to go!).

Things to Make & Read - MOMA books & Imitation Art

When the girls were younger we spent quite a bit of time at art museums. Why? Well, mainly because, as a new mom, I didn't know where else to go (I seriously think that DC hospital maternity wards need flyers referencing KidFriendly DC and Go Out and Play!). Further, I like art and in DC very few museums charge admission. I think P learned colors while pointing at various works of abstract art in the Hirshhorn's galleries. Then came T (whose current nickname is "the tornado"). And we tried visiting art museums with him but that didn't work out so well (read about our past experience here).

This winter, in place of museums I decided to buy the girls some art books, figuring we could talk about the paintings. Unfortunately, I came across several art books geared at older children and quite a few geared at young toddler-age children, but not so many for preschoolers (if anyone knows of any PLEASE let me know). Finally I discovered Philip Yenawine's set through MOMA and lately we've been reading these quite a bit. The books all operate interactively with questions such as "What is happening in this place?" and "Can you tell how this woman feels by the look on her face?" Reading and discussing them with the girls has been great; I love to hear their stories - "I think this girl is sad because her friend won't play with her . . . " Each book ends with an easy project, for example "Can you use colors to make a noisy picture? A funny one?" We usually forgo the suggested projects and instead I ask the girls to pick out one of their favorite pictures from the books and reinterpret it (an idea I read about on A Passion for Play). I was a little apprehensive that recreating masterpieces would intimidate my children, but they jumped right in (F in particular) and lately we've been repeating this project while I make dinner. Often F likes her version better than the original. For example, in the pictures below F felt that a person was needed in order to appreciate the butterflies and wondered why the original artist didn't think of that.

If you live in the area and are interested in other "artful" experiences with your children, KidFriendly DC has a great review of the National Gallery's Stories in Art Program (the winter session is going on now, I really want to check it out). Plus, the Corcoran has a preschool program (weekdays only).