Things to Do - Two Great Activities for Kids in a Hotel Room

Kaleidographs

A few weeks ago I posted about wanting a set of Kaleidograph cards. Luckily, the manufacturer somehow learned of my post and sent us two sets for free (Flora and Crystal, which sell for only $12.99 on amazon). I waited until vacation to take them out of the envelope, as they seemed like the perfect hotel room activity. And the cards did not disappoint. The girls and I can't stop layering different cards on top of one another, then twisting and rearranging them to make thousands of pattern combinations. The cards are addictive, even for adults. I also think we'd enjoy using the cards as stencils (perhaps with watercolor crayons?) but I'm waiting on that activity for a later day. On the downside, T played a little rough with the cards (he tried to rip two of them to shreds) so we created during his nap time.



Story Cubes

We won a set of Rory's Story Cubesat F's school auction (seems odd to say that we "won" something we paid for) and they've quickly become a favorite activity for all three kids. This makes me happy, as we FINALLY have a game that the whole family can play together ("game" being loosely defined).

The story cubes' magic rests in the fact that kids really love to roll dice (sort of a no brainer), and after they roll the storytelling comes naturally. My kids especially seem to enjoy the element of interpreting random information in a way that creates order and unity (i.e. making something from nothing).

T tells bare bones stories, usually something along the lines of "a bad guy came" and then [point to a picture on a dye] and then [loud laugh] WAHHHHH [throw dice in the air]"; whereas F's stories have plots and characters. P's tales fall somewhere in between. A fun way to kill some time.

For other storytelling activities, click here to read about our story stick craft and here to read about story cards.
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What about everyone else? How do you keep your kids entertained during vacation "downtime"?

Things to Make - Travel Journals (and some more vacation pictures)

At kindergarten F really enjoys writing in her daily journal. So for vacation I decided to buy all the kids primary notebooks, with large lined paper and space to draw pictures, where they could record our adventures (I purchased this model, but I'm sure you could find or make something similar).

Not surprisingly, neither P nor T showed much interest in their journals, but F wrote every afternoon. And I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes. If only to learn that as long as we stay at a hotel with a pool nothing else really matters. Only once did she write anything indicating that we left the property. ONLY ONCE!! "Aren't you going to write about the science museum?" I asked. "Um, what would I say? besides I already wrote about trying laseena, what's that word again?" "Lasanga." Why do I even try?

And in case you're wondering. I know I'm sort of stretching the "things to make" category this week, as the journal was purchased. But some weeks are like that. Even in Cleveland.



Upon arrival, first things mentioned - the dog and the pool.



We spent the next two days at Holden Arboretum and the Science Museum. Apparently these weren't as interesting as corn on the cob and lasagna (the "something new" she tried).



The hotel pool. Yup, this is where the magic happened. Or so I've read.



FINALLY!! Our outside adventures make front page news. Finally!!