Category : Children and Play
I want to share two sites/articles that really got my attention and I reference them almost every day of my parenting journey. Have you ever heard cell phones referred to as a ‘shut up toy’? It’s basically the idea the parents are quick to give children or toddlers their phones to keep them happy in moments of boredom. I read this article just before Christmas and I was actually contemplating buying my twins an ipad for Christmas because they were spending a lot of time at hockey rinks watching their older brothers and noticed a lot of younger kids had them. At this time my oldest son was also getting in the habit of asking to play on my iphone when he was bored. This article and just the reference of shut-up toy really made me think of the message I was sending by passing out electronics when my kids were bored. I really was telling them to shut up and stay quiet by doling out a phone. I explained this to my older son who then begged me to stop reading articles from the internet<grin>, but I looked him in the eye and told him “I don’t want to shut you up”. And I looked around the hockey rink and realized without the distraction of electronics, my kids would color, draw, play hide and seek, and engage in play with the other rink kids. The moment one of them cracked open an ipad, ipod, or phone, the kids just totally zone out. My thanks to the author Michele Whiteaker because she saved me from a bad purchase and brought a new term to my household that explains perfectly how I feel about handing kids electronics to shut them up. And it might take my 10 year old 20 years to admit it, but he stopped asking to play on my iphone almost immediately after I explained what the article stated and if he was to be given ‘honest juice’ I think he would tell you it made him feel good to have someone that would rather engage with him than shut him up. But it will be a long time before he would admit such a thing!
The other article that really brought me to my knees while reading is linked through a great Fan Page called The Hands Free Revolution and if you’re active on Facebook, this is a page to follow! The words from this site are encouraging parents to spend less time on cell phones and more time engaged with their children. Before you do an eye-roll, have a read at this article called How To Miss A Childhood. I don’t think it’s written to increase the guilt that we as parents already carry, simply to make us aware of how electronics have surrounded us and are distracting us from events we don’t want to miss. I needed a few reminders about making sure my children know my love for them deserves to be uninterrupted. I’ve already made a few changes since reading the article I was so inspired.
There was another article on the Hands Free Mama site called Six Words You Should Say Today. I really enjoyed this article too and have started trying to translate what always turns into long drawn-out confessions of love every time my children accomplish anything, and cutting it down to 6 simple words. “I love it when you sing.” “I love watching you do gymnastics.” “I love watching your beautiful smile.” I’m trying to build self esteem with my children and I think this is a great way to keep compliments simple and perhaps more meaningful to a child. I also took to heart not going into extensive detail with my children’s performance so that it’s misinterpreted – keeping it simple is a great way for me to ensure my message stays positive from start to finish.
These two writers are talking about unplugging from the norm and how we interact with children and electronics once we’re out of the house. Both caused me to take a moment and think – rather then just following what everyone else is doing and to look through my children’s eyes at how my actions might be interpreted.
I’ve been wanting to plan a scavenger hunt for years! It seems like the coolest way to keep kids entertained, spend time in nature, and host an outdoor themed party or activity. After hosting my son’s 10th birthday party and organizing a great scavenger hunt over the weekend, I realized that until you put your own special touch into the hunt, it becomes easier and fun to plan. I’m going to give you a cheat sheet so that you can organize a fun scavenger hunt quickly – even make it a fun weekend activity for the family. I discovered that scavenger hunts are a special way to unite older kids with nature and that is so important in this world where our kids seem too busy with sports and electronics to properly engage.
You first need to ask yourself, “what is your goal with the scavenger hunt?” I wanted my son’s friends to be able to run free, climb, make noise, engage and learn during the scavenger hunt. When kids are enjoying themselves and have the opportunity to learn something, especially facts about nature, I think it’s magical. So my first task was to find a place that met the criteria for this scavenger hunt. My entire family went and walked through a park with old growth trees, lots of ponds and streams, an easy trail, and not super busy so that the hunt would be relatively un-interrupted. While we were walking through the trail where the hunt would be setup, I tried to find subtle things in nature that you would only notice if you were searching. . . a field of baby ferns (snap – took a picture), a tree in the shape of a √ mark, a tree that looked like it had a face, a pipe sticking out of the earth, a distinctive toadstool, etc. Each mark along the forest I took pictures…more to remind myself of these clues once I got home. Later these pictures would be printed and were the bonus items for the kids to ‘seek’ in the scavenger hunt.
So now I had a place where kids could explore water, climb, and run free. . . but I also know my audience and knew that might not be enough. If there’s one thing I’ve learned raising boys, a physical challenge or activity is always a great idea. I only did three of these activities, but wish I had done a couple more. They were by far the highlight for me to watch and the kids to complete. I ripped up a sheet and a bolt of fabric and made fabric strips. These were used to mark the trees which look amazing in the forest! The fabric markers are great for the environment because they don’t cause damage to the trees and can easily be removed after the hunt is over. Each team was told to look for a different color of fabric so they didn’t mix-up their tasks. Here is how the fabric markers looked – I added a heart graphic because I love them.
When team 2 saw these green tree markers they knew a clue was nearby. At the base of three trees there were clues to:
1) Pickup a stack of burlap sacks under the clue, nominate 3 kids (there were 3 sacks) and these kids had to jump along the forest in the burlap sack until they reached the next clue. Watching the kids jump along the forest floor in their sacks was pretty awesome and a very popular activity!
2) At the next fabric marker, I left a tape measure under the clue card and the team had to measure the width of the tree and record the measurement in cm and inches.
3) The last marker was next to a creek with a fallen log. The team had to cross the log and if the person got even a drop of water on them…another team member had to complete the challenge. This was a big highlight too!
A few other ideas that would be great scavenger hunt activities are: have the team complete a leaf rubbing, measure an old growth tree with their bodies and count how many kids it takes to measure the tree, and/or remove the tree marker and select two kids to have a three-legged race to the next tree marker. Here is a picture of some burlap sack racing along the forest from my son’s party:
While each team was walking through the forest they had a book to record 4 sets of criteria: seek, find, listen, collect. It kept them busy and each team member kept passing around the check list of items to be searching for – great team work. Here are a few samples of my favorite from each category:
Seek! It’s important to tell kids that items to seek should not be touched or removed from the forest.
◊ animal tracks – what animal was it? ________________
◊ something faster than a snail
◊ poo – doesn’t matter what kind. (lots of laughter finding this one)
◊ item that begins with the first letter of the birthday child’s name
◊ a nurse log
◊ an old growth tree (takes at least three kids to wrap their arms around)
Find! These items were placed in a cloth bag and they are okay to be removed from the forest because they are no longer alive:
◊ fern
◊ bark
◊ a heart shaped rock
◊ a rock the size of the birthday boy’s hand
◊ feather
◊ a river rock (smooth)
Listen! At different intervals while we would stop and listen. When all the group members stopped talking we’d hear lots of noises that otherwise would have missed:
◊ a bird song
◊ running water
◊ people talking
◊ leaves crunching
◊ cards driving
◊ frogs
◊ crickets
Collecting! This was my favorite because each group was given a plastic bag and items that shouldn’t be in nature were to be placed inside. Basically these kids were cleaning up the litter from the forest during this portion of the hunt! Teams could list out each item they collected and then add why it didn’t belong in nature in their book, but we just discussed it every time something was found..rather than writing it down.
The last portion of the hunt I completed with my team at the 1/2 way mark. The planning of this Q&A portion of the scavenger hunt was so much fun for me because I called my local Parks Board and asked for their help. I wanted a ‘fun facts’ section of the scavenger hunt that would be interesting for the kids and also teach them awesome forest facts! I thought it was important to call my local parks board rather than just using Google so that the information would be related to the forest they were searching. Here are a sample of the questions and answers – aren’t they interesting?
1) What animal in the forest is known for their ‘super glue’? (Answer: if you run your finger along a slug, wave it in the air so the slime gets tacky, then put your finger against a rock, it will stick to the glue. Try it but be gentle to the slug!)
2) Name three tree types in the park.
3) How many mosquitoes can a bat eat in 1 hour a) 30 b) 200 or c) 600. The answer is 600.
4) Eagles use the same nest ever year – they just keep adding to it. At the end of their life, would the nest weight as much as a car? Circle Y or N. (The answer is Yes)
5) True or False. A strand of spider web is stronger than an equal thickness strand of steel. (Answer is True).
I remembered the first fact about the slug after a forest tour we did years ago. The rest came from a very stunned forest guide that had a crazed mother calling him on a Friday afternoon asking for help with her scavenger hunt. <grin> You gotta use facts that are interesting for kids and I thought these were great!
At the end of the scavenger hunt we probably could have tallied up the sheets, plastic collected, and questions answered but I didn’t. The boys had a great time, I loved watching them, and since we were at a park, the boys ate sandwiches and then played outdoor hockey and soccer before going home. Lots of fresh air, teamwork, and fun. The loot bags contained wooden decoders so the adventure inspired fun could continue after the party guests went home! I hope these steps give you a general guide of how to create a really fun scavenger hunt, but the most important part is to personalize it yourself!
There is one part to setting up Easter egg hunts on Easter morning that I always miss – the fact my kids can’t help me set up. When planning fairy walks or party activities my kids are always right by my side planning and then executing – they love it! So today while my kids where all home we came up with the idea to leave Easter eggs filled with sustainable goodie along the Inlet trail and park in our community. We used 8 plastic eggs we’ve been reusing for years and filled them with a felt pirate eye patch, finger puppets, basil seeds, felted jewelry, and a fairy leaf bed/pilllow set. We used plastic for the outside to hold the treasures because we hoped the eggs would be safe for a few days out in our rainy West Coast climate. I highly recommend this activity for kids with the excitement building up to Easter hunts, activities, etc. but strongly petition you to please not fill them with junk! Even a couple of pennies or treasures from the forest would be fun: acorns, gem stones, etc. Just the magic of finding an egg in a playground with a note and goodie inside would be amazing for kids. Funny enough we talked with two adults that found one of our eggs under a park bench and they were beaming. Not just little smiles, you could tell their day had been made! They turned out to be kindred spirits of the Peter Pan syndrome I have “never wanting to grow up and believing in fairies”.
Here is how we planned our random act of kindness egg hunt!
Egg setup. We selected plastic eggs to reduce moisture for the goodies inside. I let the kids select Eco-friendly presents to put inside based on their personalities. I didn’t want them to put candy inside because most parents would want their kids eating candy left by strangers…so we selected handcrafted, mostly felt or plantable treasures. I used new items from Green Planet Parties and included the logo in the note we left, not for marketing purposes, but so that parents would know that these items are new and safe to play with. The note simply read: “You are receiving a random gift of kindness. Enjoy your Easter treat and consider leaving one for someone else to find!”
Egg planting. We decided to walk through the forest in our local inlet that leads to a park and pier. The kids were very exited to leave the eggs in tricky spots for other children to find in the perimeter of the park. The boys watched a pair of kids find one of their eggs and loved listening to the shriek of finding a treasure and having them rush off to show their mom.
Here is a picture of the first egg we planted in the forest. The rest of the eggs that were planted along the trail looked beautiful too!
We don’t know who found those eggs we left in the forest (walking back along the trail we noticed most of the eggs had been picked up already). But the best reaction of the day was from hiding this egg under a bench along the pier:
We had tied the egg under bench and then ambled down the pier. We took our time looking in the water, checking out a boat anchored and when we got to the end of the pier there were two lovely ladies and they looked tickled…but I didn’t assume they found the egg because we had just left it under the bench. They watched my kids play and showed them the felt eye patch they had found in the egg..my kids smiled and said they were the ones that put it there! These two adults just loved the experience and they had already paid it forward and left some change in the egg and re-hidden it. So much fun! I think it’s adults that need a bit of magic in their lives. We are always knocking ourselves out to insert magic whenever we can for our kids…but adults need to see magic too. The adults seemed to have the best reaction to this idea and it’s something that is really fun. This time of year is a great time to leave random acts of kindness and the best part is you can use eggs!
An important point here is that egg fillers do not have to be a plastic, crappy, toxic affair. Here are some earth friendly ideas that actually fit inside standard eggs!
Felt Finger Puppets
Pirate Eye Patches
Felted Rings
Felted Ponytail Holders
Seeds – we left basil seeds
Wooden eggs
Felt Moustache
Pocket Doll
Fairy Leaf Bed and Pillow
Fair Trade Worry Dolls
Wooden Decoder
Felted Toadstool
Bird Call
Felt Dressup Watch
Remember to have fun and tailor the act of kindness to something close to your family’s heart! Let us know about the stories you discover with leaving random acts of kindness on the Mommy Footprin fan page!
Have you visited your local raptor recovery center? It would be a great outing over Spring Break and with our recent visit to O.W.L. with my son’s Grade 4 class, I discovered a new respect for an animal I already adore – owls. They have multiple superpowers (hearing in particular) and produce owl pellets – which are honestly one of the coolest science projects for children. They are like a dinosaur dig that you’d purchase at the toy store – you know where your child spends hours looking for the bones to complete a skeleton? Only an owl pellet is made from all compostable materials and the different learning options for children are endless. What is an owl pellet? It’s a popular belief that they are owl poo (that’s what I thought). But they are actually regurgitated parts of non-digestible prey from an owl. An owl has the ability to unhinge it’s jaw (like a snake) when it wants to eat quickly. It is able to eat larger prey this way like a small crow, rat, mouse, rabbit, etc. Because owls have two stomachs, they take the nourishment of what they’ve just eaten, but then use the 2nd stomach to separate the fur, bones, and tail. Then they cough up an owl pellet (like a cat with a fur ball) in the form of a pellet. The largest pellets are roughly the size of a child’s fist, but they can be much smaller too – depends on the size of the owl. The pellet looks like a lump of mud or poo, but really it’s a ball of mostly fur and skeleton matter.
My son’s class dissected owl pellets last week and it was amazing! With 30 kids in the classroom, you would expect a few children to be whining or complaining about how ‘gross’ this project was. Especially since after some pellets were dissected, there was a fluff of fur on desks that really resembled the prey. BUT – every single child in that classroom was totally excited and I only heard the words “COOL!” and “Look what I found” coming from desks. My son was lucky enough to find two skulls in his pellet which was amazing because you can actually make out the eye sockets and the curved nose and front two teeth of the field mouse inside:
Each child in the classroom put newspaper on their desk with a brown paper towel for bone collection. If you are doing this project at home, also have tweezers and a ziplock back to collect the bones. A few of the children could identify the bones they dug out of the pellet – the skulls, vertebrae, and pelvis were exciting to find.
When each child was finished their dissection and collection, we simply rolled up the newspaper and pellet matter and emptied into the compost. It was just like playing with a dinosaur dig toy like you’d purchase at the store, except this one is actual bones and there is no plastic or packaging to worry about. Bones went into a ziplock bag with the child’s name so the next day they’d be able to try and piece together the skeleton. There are many printables online to help with this – here is an example of this exercise from a pellet dissection in my son’s class!
I can’t wait to find or purchase more owl pellets for all my children to experience this amazing activity! Learning more about owls was very interesting and dissecting the pellets would be a memorable Spring Break activity.
A few weeks ago my twins celebrated their 6th birthday. We incorporated a really special party craft that I wanted to share for a few reasons: it is basically compostable, so party guests can return it to the earth when it gets ratty looking, the amount of imagination it inspired with the kids was amazing, and the supplies required where found for the most part in the forest. I am always totally inspired every time I walk into a West Coast forest – the amount of moss, ferns, and toadstools right now is breathtaking. I wanted a way to bring some of this beauty into the party give aways at the twins party. I mean really, it would just be too easy to go into the Green Planet Parties warehouse and start pulling out magical items. I wanted to challenge myself and incorporate a few of the fairy items from this popular category on the site, but also input some creativity. So voila – the concept of creating compostable fairy houses and wooden dolls was born and the effect was quite magical. So here is how you can construct the ultimate craft with a fairy themed soiree!
Collecting Supplies For Compostable Fairy Houses:
This was my favorite part of the craft. I got the opportunity to walk into our local Mall and rather than walking out with purchased goods, I went to all of the shoe stores and asked them for empty shoe boxes. Shoe stores collect many empty boxes during the day from customers that opt out of taking them home. They are just broken down and recycled, but I managed to collect close to 20 over a 2-day period. I would advise getting regular sized shoe boxes…not big ones from boots. Here is what the stack of boxes looked like pre-party.
After we had boxes collected (1 box per party guest), we headed into the forest and started collecting our nature. The bottom of each shoe box was going to be lined with moss. It’s easy to find thick, wet, beautiful moss in our local forest so we collected our moss and fallen twigs. Moss to line the bottom of the box and twigs to create rugs and ladders for inside the fairy house and fallen ferns to create a pretty design inside the house. I thought the ferns might look nice in small section in the fairy house glued to the side of the walls to give a shutter or the allusion of window blinds.
Making Wooden Fairies for Fairy Garden:
We then decided to include a wooden clothespin fairy for the girls to decorate inside their fairy house. We used all upcycled materials for these that included: wooden clothespins, tissue paper for wings, sharpie to draw faces and hair, fabric scraps to make clothing. We pre-painted faces (I did the faces and my girls did the hair) onto the clothespin dolls and we loved how they turned out. The ladies are whispering below how excited they are to get dressed and have a rest on their leaf bed.
The ladies continued to chat to each other about how they wanted to be dressed. Also included in the below picture is some inspiration to avoiding glitter to decorate the fairy wands. We found glass beads and glued them to the middle of the wooden wands (same beads we used for the pond) – loved the effect!
In order to ‘dress’ the fairies, we cut out rectangular strips of tissue paper. We slid the tissue paper up the clothespin opening, then fanned out wings. Then the girls used Green Glue and glued on the little bits of clothing I had pre-cut. The effect was lovely and I wanted the party guests to have a doll and some quality pieces from inside the house that they could play with for a long time. Here is a dressed doll after one of our guests finished gluing on clothes.
Putting Together Fairy Houses:
After the party guests finished making a doll, they painted a few quality pieces that would be reused from the fairy house (the shoebox, moss and twig pieces could later be composted) and they included, fairy doors and beds from Green Planet Parties. The beds had huge impact with the girls because they were able to lay their newly acquired fairy dolls and put them to sleep inside the box. Here are the fairy doors that each party guests painted.
A great idea if using a fairy door for your fairy house is to cut out an opening in the shoe box where the fairy door can be placed. It’s the entry point for all the magic inside the house to be contained! I did this for a few of the guests and they loved the effect!
While the guests were painting fairy doors and wooden wands, I was getting another table ready for the completion of the houses. The guest had their shoebox ready with moss inside, a leaf bed w/ pillow and twig ladder next to it to put inside the box, the fairy they had decorated, I put the guest’s name on the box, then they walked over with their fairy door and wand that was put into the box to dry. They started looking like this:
Another extra I had waiting to put into the box were blue glass rocks. Once a few were added to the corner of a fairy house it looked like a pond where the fairy could have a swim later.
Voila! Close the lid and the fairy garden/house/doll is ready to go home when your party guests. I wrote names on the outside of each box so it was easy when guests were picked up to find their box. With the shoe box lids closed, I loved watching the reaction of parents (probably thinking why is she giving me this?) but then I looked them in the eye and said “compostable fairy house” and the adult’s eyes lit up because they knew these take home gifts were something different and unique.
Prep time for these fairy boxes should be about two weeks before the actual party. You want to enjoy the process of going into the forest and searching for treasures. Try to find sticks, leaves, acorns that have already fallen onto the forest floor. One idea we had was to collect acorns and glue them to the head of each fairy doll but there weren’t any in our area this time of year. It would have been a cute accent but I love how the faces on the dolls turned out. A glue gun really came in handy with making the twig ladders – I would have loved to make and hang some windows with twigs in each box too. Using the glue gun also allowed me to not have to use glitter with decorating the wands. By adding a glass bead to the centre of the wooden wands, the girls just added some paint to them and we by-passed using glitter. I try to stay away from it because it’s plastic. I didn’t want this getting into the compostable materials inside the box.
We had a little over 15 party guests and it’s doable, but a smaller number of children is probably recommended for this craft. I divided the kids up into 2 groups otherwise it would have been overwhelming to orchestrate all of the little steps. It’s fun when you can take the time to listen to the kids and have them decide what all of the materials will be in their house: carpets from sticks, windows, ponds – very fun!
I write this article not as the owner of Green Planet Parties, but as a mom of two adorable little girls and a person with a serious Peter Pan complex; never want to grow up and someone that believes that fairies are real!
