Things to Make - A Gingerbread House

So, I didn't come up with this idea. Rather, F saw the gingerbread house kit at A.C. Moore and begged me to buy it. And, of course, I caved, as I often do when they choose crafty stuff over plastic crap. We bought this kit, though I swear it was under $10 in the store. I figured that assembling a pre-baked gingerbread house would be easy, but, in reality, "gluing" the walls together brought back awful memories of making popsicle-stick bridges in junior high (I failed that one, thus ending my short-lived physicist career). But I persevered and after a day of drying we had a little house on our hands. After that everything went smoothly - I stood back and let the girls decorate however they wanted (well, I did help with windows, at F's request). And they had a ball.

The naive part of this whole story is that I didn't actually understand that the girls only wanted the house because it resembled a gigantic cookie (I assumed they wanted to make something pretty). So it didn't take long (two days) before I caved and let them eat/attack/destroy it. We enjoyed our first round of demolition with family friends and hot chocolate after Zoolights. For the next few days the pillage continued. The girls decided that the true value of the house resided in the candy decorations as the gingerbread was sort of "yuck." Watching P use all tools available to pick one little gumdrop off the roof was truly a sight to behold. I felt so proud.

Things to Make - Coffee Filter Snowflakes

Let's face it, cutting squares into circles is hard work. Why not just start with a circle? I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I owe all inspiration to the Artful Parent. The girls' snowflake cutting skills need improvement, but they loved painting everything. In the end, our snowflakes did not really resemble actual snowflakes, but we had a lot of fun and that's what matters.

HAPPY SOLSTICE EVERYONE!! I found a great article on historical solstice traditions (in several cultures) click here to check it out. And, of course, Wikipedia has a ton of great information on the solstice. Click here.

I don't know of any solstice celebrations in the DC area, but here are 4 fabulous light displays that you might want to check out:
1. Zoolights (National Zoo, Washington D.C.)- We went to this last week, it was crowded but the lights were quite lovely
2. The National Christmas Tree (Washington D.C.) - lots of "little" trees for all the states, plus a great model railroad exhibit
3. The Garden of Lights at Brookside Gardens (Wheaton, MD) - I've never been to their light display, but I've heard it's amazing
4. Bull Run Festival of Lights (Centreville, VA) - We visited this light display over the weekend. T's fever kept us homebound for the most part, so I was really thankful for a "drive through" Christmas activity. If you do want to leave the car, admission includes entry into a winter carnival.

Things to Make - A Miniature Christmas Tree

So remember the Xmas tree dilemma from this post? Well, in the end we opted to not put up a tree this year. Before you boo me as the worst mom ever, I must note (1) a few weeks ago the girls decorated my in-laws tree so they didn't miss out on the trimming experience and (2) we plan on spending Christmas morning with relatives, so the kids will still open gifts placed under a tree. And Santa's still coming.

Despite our lack of a huge evergreen, we couldn't go completely treeless, so the Shrinky Dinks Holiday Fun kit really came in handy (it's sold out at Amazon and B&N, but appears to be available here). The kit comes with all the materials needed to make a little silver tree (I did this part), plus little beads/ornaments that kids can thread onto the branches (P loved this part) and SEVERAL sheets of shrinky dinks to make into ornaments (as you might remember, F LOVES shrinky dinks). Due to the large number of sheets, this project lasted several days (as any good tree-decorating should). If you're looking for something fun to do with kids over the next few days, I highly recommend it.

On the topic of shrinky dink ornaments, a friend of mine had a great idea. She buys Grafix Ink Jet 8-1/2-Inch-by-11-Inch Shrink Film, 6-Sheet Pack, Clear and her daughter traces favorite Xmas characters and objects onto the film (using permanent marker). Then sandpaper, color (water acrylic paint or pencils), bake and voila - great homemade ornaments of any size. They're really cute.

Happy Monday Everyone! It's Xmas Craft Week on the blog (hence why I'm posting a Things to Make on a Monday) so check in Tuesday and Wednesday for more projects.

LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB:
*Isn't this playroom beautiful? I want to play in it myself. I love the desinger's felt map as well.

*I think these russian doll measuring cups would be perfect for cooking with kids (or with adults for that matter).

*I can't stop listening to this song by Toro Y Moi. So catchy.

*Um, WOW! You have to look here.

Things to Do - Magnatiles

As I've spent the last week blogging about highlights from our Thanksgiving road trip to Chicagoland, I thought I'd end the week with a post on the BEST TOY EVER (especially as Christmas approaches). Magnatiles are a magnetic building toy, nothing particularly special or fancy about them. Except that children love them. All children (well, probably ages 2.5 and up). Even our neighbor's 7 year old has spent hours playing with them. And, at social gatherings, we'll often find an adult in the corner looking both embarrassed and amused by the fact that she/he just made a cube. Plus, they work well for travel because all the pieces stick together (unlike legos, which we seem to loose at least 1/3 of every time we open the box). They can literally entertain my kids for hours and they've become a playdate wonder in our house. We have the Magna-Tiles Translucent Colors 100 pieces, but the Magna-Tiles Clear Colors 32 piece set also work well. They also sell a non-translucent version - Magna -Tiles 48 Piece Dx Set, which I find much more aesthetically pleasing, but, on the other hand, my children love to make boxes and look at what they have put inside.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!! If you're looking for something to do, we checked out zoolights last Saturday, which was really beautiful this year (but crowded). Admission is free, but you have to pay for parking (which fills up quickly, the majority of spaces were gone by 6:30). Also on Friday and Saturday night at 7:30 (and on Sunday at 1:30 and 3:00) the Arlington Planetarium has a holiday presentation on the solstice that looks really interesting. Click here for more info.

AROUND THE WEB - TWO GREAT ARTICLES ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREEFORM PLAY FOR CHILDREN:

*According to this NPR article, child's play used to be focused on activity rather on the toys (or objects) themselves. This change isn't good. "A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development. It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline."

*According to this Frog Design Article (link courtesy of Tinker Lab) children need unstructured play and flexible tools (to encourage creativity). As summarized in the article, "will more focus on standardized curriculum, testing, and memorization provide the skills an emergent workforce needs? Not likely. Play is our greatest natural resource. In the end, it comes down to playing with our capacity for human potential. Why would we ever want to limit it?"



In case you're wondering, yes, I would have loved to show pictures of all the magnificent objects my children have created with Magnatiles, but unfortunately I only took pictures on one night. And on that night P insisted on showing me where each and every princess resided in the castle. Every one. This took over thirty minutes as P knows a lot of princesses. And let's not even get started on the dragons or this post would be longer than anyone could ever read.

Things to Read - Long Roadtrips & 3 Great Toys for Learning to Read

As I mentioned on Monday, every other year we drive 700 some miles from Arlington, VA to the Chicago suburbs. For the first leg of the trip (to Cleveland) we break up the drive by stopping at the Pittsburgh Children's museum. But the next part (Cleveland to Chicago) is pretty boring (if anyone knows of any good stops along the way, please let me know). Plus, two full days in the car is tough on kids. To make the drive more bearable, we've hooked up two portable DVD players for the girls, which entertain them for the first few hours, but then they start to yell "I'm bored" from the back of the minivan. Until I became a parent I didn't comprehend the true pain caused by hearing "are we there yet?" Nor did I realize the timelessness of the phrase. The children's complaints lead my husband on a long rant on how, during his childhood, movies could not be watched in cars. My kids could care less.

Since F (our five year old) is learning to read, we also bring along some activities suited to this task. We found the following toys and games quite the lifesavers during the long drive through Indiana's farm country.

1.

Both the girls have Leapfrog Tag pens, along with several Leapfrog books, and they use them quite a bit (despite the fact that they're now "old" toys). I know they aren't a substitute to having an actual person read to them, but I can't read to them all the time. And for kids they're way better than TV. Leapfrog has several popular titles - LeapFrog Tag Activity Storybook Disney Princess Adventures Under the Sea, LeapFrog Tag Activity Storybook Disney Fairies, LeapFrog Tag Activity Storybook Cars Tractor Tipping, LeapFrog Tag Activity Storybook The Amazing Spider-Man: The Lizard's Tale, etc. F really seems to enjoy the LeapFrog Tag Learn to Read Phonics Book Series Short Vowels, several of the books have reading games she likes to play. If your child answers enough questions correctly, he/she can win a downloadable "reward" (basically a certificate you need to print). F adores her reward collection, P could care less about the rewards. On the downside, the pens have awful battery lives, we need to change them all the time.

2.

The Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary (I Can Read It All by Myself Beginner Books) matches THOUSANDS of pictures with thousands of words. So all afternoon, F kept yelling from the backseat, "I can spell cat", "I can spell mouse", "I can spell doll", etc.

3. Discovery Toys Wiz Kidz Card Game

F loves this simple game, so we play it as a family during roadtrips. If you don't feel like paying $12, the premise is quite simple and easily replicated. The game comes with two series of cards, one series contains the letters of the alphabet and the second series contains a several generic categorizations and places, such as "a foreign country" or "something you hate" or "a book or movie." The game involves randomly choosing two of the cards and trying to think of something that matches the description and starts with the appropriate letter (i.e. something in a grocery store that starts with V). F can play this for hours. Sometimes she's better at it than my husband or me. For example, a drink that begins with D (non-alcoholic, as they are children) stumped me, then all of a sudden I heard "diet coke" yelled from the backseat; F's more aware of my addictions than I am.
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Obviously, neither of my kids can actually read yet, so I'm not an expert on this topic. But I do find that these "toys" really entertain them and they also make long car rides more bearable. So what's not to love? What about everyone else? Any suggestions on teaching children to read and making it fun? We also have Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers and Dora The Explorer Phonics Box Set (Dora the Explorer (St. Martin's Press)), and while F loves the Dora books, it's not easy to read them to her in the car.

If you're interested in possible gift book suggestions (for adults and children) please check in next Thursday as I'll be posting on books for everyone on your Xmas list. Also, check in tomorrow for my post on the BEST TOY EVER!
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Oh, as a final shout out for Neat Repeats, my mom purchased ALL of the toys mentioned from the second-hand store where she works (with the exception of the Leapfrog system). I'm telling you, if you live in the south suburbs of Chicago, you need to shop and/or donate here. It's such an easy way to both save your own money and help victims of domestic violence. A total win-win. By the way, does anyone in the DC area know of a similar shop in this area?