4th of July Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Watermelon Shakers

At our local children's museum, they made Mexican music shakers and I thought they were so cute, I wanted to adapt them to the 4th of July holiday. This is what I came up with.
Materials:
paper plate red and green paint (or markers) black sharpie red yarn hole punch watermelon seeds (or dried beans)
Step One: Cut your paper plate in half. Fold one of the halves in half again, creating a slice of watermelon shape. Paint both sides red with a green rind.
Step Two: Punch holes around the open edges of your watermelon slice. You want them close enough to hold in your seeds or beans.
Step Three: Cut your yarn long enough to thread through the holes and make a necklace. Thread the yarn through the holes, pulling them tight as you go. When you finish one side, fill your watermelon slice with 10-15 watermelon seeds or 6-10 beans (really, however many you want). Finish threading the yarn through the holes and tie a knot. Leave enough yarn for the necklace and tie the other end of the yarn to the adjacent side of the watermelon slice.
I looked at three different stores for a watermelon with seeds and unfortunately couldn't find one! So we used beans. But it would be so fun to eat the watermelon first and have your kids save their seeds.


Now your kids have a little noise maker for the parade! (As if they don't make enough noise without it).
Any other fun 4th of July ideas?

4th of July Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Ah, the homemade American Flag. This is an activity I've looked forward to for a while and I'm pretty sure I'll have to save it. In preparation for this activity, we talked about the American Flag--its colors, the number of stars and stripes and what it represents. I explained to her that the stripes remind us of America's birthday when there were only thirteen "states" and the fifty stars show that we now have fifty states. I bought a mini American flag for us to look at while we did this activity.


Materials: 1 piece of red, white, and blue construction paper Elmer's glue scissors star-shaped hole punch wooden skewer tape
Step One: Show your preschooler how to cut out the stars with the hole punch. My two year old did well with this part too and it occupied her attention for awhile!




And Eloise thought the scraps were pretty entertaining.
Step Two: Count your stars and make sure you have fifty. This may seem daunting for younger ones, but I think it's good practice for them to hear every number from 1-50, spoken outloud.

Step Three: Cut out a blue rectangle and glue it in the top left corner of your white flag.
Step Four: Cut out seven 1" to 1 1/4 " red stripes and glue them to your flag, trimming where necessary.

Step Five:
Glue your fifty stars onto the blue rectangle and tape flag onto skewer.

More to come!

Expectations vs Reality

Well hello there. I have mighty aspirations for this blog and lately I have not been keeping up with my expectations. That, actually, is the topic of this "rage" tonight: expectations vs. reality. As I mentioned before, I recently became involved with a wonderful network of moms called The Power of Moms. I attended my first "Learning Circle" meeting last month (basically a book club where you discuss motherhood). In our meeting we talked about "Acting or Being Acted Upon."

The topic reminded me of a particularly difficult day a while back when I had two little ones under the age of two at home. It was nearing the 5 o'clock hour and there were no dinner plans, the house was a mess, and both girls were crying and needing my full attention. I gripped the phone tightly as I called my husband at the office and told him that I had accomplished NOTHING that entire day. I remember thinking, "How is it that I am a college grad who has lived abroad, learned a new language, delivered public speeches to hundreds of people and yet I can't seem to get through a day of motherhood without feeling overwhelmed and incapable?!"
My sweet, calm husband replied, "Are the kids alive?"
"Yes."
"Have they eaten anything today?"
"Yes."
"Have you spent any one-on-one time with them today?"
"Yep, maybe a bit too much."
"Well then, I think you've accomplished much more than you think."

He was so right. Just today, I was feeling frustrated with my kids as I tried desperately to paint some frames that I'm planning on selling at our local farmer's market. I'm so excited about this goal; I love hunting for old and ornate frames at flea markets and consignment shops and painting them with a fresh new coat of paint. I'm thrilled about the prospect of making some extra cash. I feel as if I'm developing a new talent and I enjoy it immensely. But today I had to be reminded that all good things have their proper place and this project is secondary to my role as mother. And that doesn't need to be frustrating or unfair. I don't need to feel as if I'm constantly being "acted upon" as my kids interrupt me for a drink of water, a diaper change, a kiss on an invisible wound, or to show me the coolest rollie pollie yet. I chose motherhood as my career and I'm happy I did.

Sometimes I wish I could multiply myself and have fourteen Janelle's bouncing around the house, conquering the world. One would be doing my dishes, the other folding and putting away clothes while another one goes to the grocery store and JoAnne's (alone!). One would be playing with my kids while another would be painting frames or writing or reading or taking a nap. But unfortunately there's just me and that has to be enough. And it is enough. Besides, even if I could divide myself into fourteen Janelle's, I know I'd always choose to be the one that gets to play with the kids. Everything else will fall into place.

At the end of our discussion, we were challenged to choose one thing we would do in the month that followed as well as one thing we would NOT do. This was more difficult that I thought it would be. I could easily choose several to do's for the month; there's always a looming list floating around in my head that's growing exponentially. But to choose something specific that I would like to do but choose NOT to do? That's a toughy.

I chose to wake up early every morning. I've been working on this one and I'm finding that I LOVE IT. It's my quiet time and I always have a better day.

I chose NOT to plant a garden this year. It's just not going to happen and I've accepted it, gratefully.

How we feel about our lives depends on the relationship between our expectations
and our realities.

That quote came from an article written by April Perry, co-founder of Power of Moms, and she went on to say, "When we choose to look at the value of what we are doing as
mothers and see motherhood as a serious career that we have chosen, we feel like we're
really getting things done, that we're really acting, not just reacting. We are all more
successful and happy when we take control of what we can control as long as we recognize
this important little fact: all we can really control are our thoughts and our actions.

I've also committed to be consistent with our activity time here at home now that vacation is over. We will continue with our letter of the week and start 4th of July crafts next week. Please stay tuned, and don't forget to let go of something this month. Just let it go.

Toddler Activities for Father's Day

Here's what we did this year for a Father's Day gift...

We made a painted paperweight with a love note to Dad (the ladybug was just an added touch by my four year old). Our neighbor is an 80 year old woman that we have adopted as our own grandma. One of her hobbies is painting rocks as animals and they're adorable! Here's some of the smaller ones she's done:





Here's the book she uses for her ideas:





We painted the face of the rock (multiple layers are best).





After we let it dry, we added the hand-written note.
You can spray the rocks with a polyurethane to give an added shine and seal the paint.
You could also put their hand print on the rock if it fits!


We're headed out to Lake Powell for a week and I think we'll bring some paints to try out some of the animals in that book. What a fun summer activity!

Happy Father's Day to all those awesome dad's out there. Thank goodness for the good ones.