Swimming with the Fishes

Okay, I know I said this blog was supposed to be about cheap or free things to do with kids.  But sometimes it's worth it to spend a few dollars to do something really big.

For Mother's/Father's Day this year, we decided to plan a trip to the Georgia Aquarium for us, the kids, and both sets of Grandparents.  It turned out to be a great gift because we all got to spend time together plus everyone got see the Aquarium and it's really something to see. 

The Georgia Aquarium has a variety of exhibits featuring any number of fish and other animals, large and small.

We took in the stroller, but are probably about to the point where we'd be better to just let the kids walk.  That's what they want to do anyway.

Max sees the beluga whales above.  This was a real highlight of the trip.  The Aquarium had one of its ballrooms open today where you could get another view of the whales without all of the people around.  We were able to get the kids out of the stroller and they could get right up to the window.  The whales would come right up to them.  It was really cool!

It's really a bit of a paradise for both adults and kids.

Susannah liked looking at the fish, but she also liked the freedom to run/walk outside her stroller. 

Max walked some, but he also liked riding around with my Dad in his wheelchair.

Every once and a while, it's worth it to do something special, even if it is a bit costly.  Pick your activity carefully and make it a fun time for all.  This trip was also a gift and turned out to be a great one.

Meeting Owl Capone

This morning was the next installment in our fun at the library this summer.  A local state park brought a part of their Birds of Prey show to a packed room of kids and their parents at the public library.  The portion of the show they were featuring was about owls.  The cool part?  They brought live owls with them as a major part of the show.

We had to wait a bit for the show to start and I wasn't sure if the kids were even going to make it, but once they saw their first owl they calmed down a bit.

So remember the part about meeting Owl Capone?  That's him above.  All the owls in this show were hit by cars.  Their injuries were substantial enough that they couldn't be released back into the wild, so they became part of this education show.  None of them freaked out despite the large number of toddlers in the room.  (We were told to "be quiet" and "not make any noise".  Right.)

The next owl's name is Zeus.  We learned all about owls in the program including their biology, how they capture their prey, their calls, etc.  It was pretty over the head of my two but informative nonetheless.

After we saw the next two owls (the smallest owls I've ever seen - one was named Gizmo), someone opened the door and Max took off.  I decided at that point that we were done.  The kids made it about 25 minutes.  I think that's pretty impressive for 16-month-olds considering it was a lot of listening. 

From there, we headed into the children's section of the library and picked out a ton of books which we began reading this afternoon after a nap.  A nap was necessary because going to the library is tiring.

She picked that book out herself.  We found lots of cool others!  We love the library!

Ribbon and Pom Poms

No, not that kind.  I mean the kind you get from craft stores.

After the kids were ANGELS during our one hour wait at the doctor's office this morning, we decided to stop by Michael's in search of inexpensive fun.  We succeeded with a number of super cheap items I used to make a few toddler games.

Here were the supplies:

I used two empty snack containers (you'll need the kind with a thin plastic lid that I can be cut through with scissors), a package of poms poms ($2.49 at Michael's for 80), and two spools of ribbon from the $1 bin.

I cut the shorter, fatter container's plastic top into an X shape.  Then, I put about half the bag of pom poms inside.

I put a similar cut in the plastic top of the taller container and removed the plastic wrapping from the container (I couldn't do that with the other one.)  Initially I cut four shorter pieces of ribbon (12 inches or so) and placed them in the taller container. 

It quickly became clear that longer pieces would be more fun, so I recut another piece that was maybe three feet long.  That was more fun for the kids pull out of the container.

You wouldn't think that putting pom poms into a container would be fun, but both kids loved it.  It occupied Susannah a bit longer and after a few minutes Max started taking a few of the poms and dropping them on the floor.  He was having fun, so it was fine.  Just make sure you watch little ones, there were definitely a couple of attempts to put a pom in a mouth.

Max loved the ribbon pulling.  He did it maybe ten times in a row.  I tried to knot together the shorter pieces of ribbon, but the knots got stuck the corners of the top.  One long piece definately worked best.  I may cut an even longer one tomorrow with the remaining ribbon (there's a ton left). 

There were lots of other uses for this activity besides ribbon pulling.  This included ribbon tug of war.

After she grew bored of pulling out the ribbon, Susannah began working on placing the top on and off the container.  She also had to work on balancing the container while she did this.  She put her arm inside the container to pull out the ribbon.

These activities were cheap and easy to put together and were great for the kids' fine motor skills.  I'll be on the lookout for similar ideas. 

Diaper Sledding

Yep, it's still raining.

After this morning's trip to Target yielded two more packages of clearance diapers, an activity presented itself through the creativity of my children (they're geniuses, obviously). 

Have you ever wanted to go sledding in June?

Have you ever wanted to go sledding without all the silly layers of clothes?

Have you ever wanted to go sledding without freezing your rear off?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then diaper sledding may be for you!

It started like this:

Comfy place to sit, right?  From there, the kids moved on to pushing the diapers around.  We have a long hallway at the front of the house and this was the perfect place to do this.

Next, the invention of diaper sledding.  Sit on the package of diapers as if it is a rocking horse.  Then, simply push yourself around the room.  No cold, no boots, no chattering teeth, no red noses.  Just a fun time for all.  Sledding in the summer!

When my husband got home and I told him about diaper sledding, he asked if they sledded down the stairs.  They did not, but doesn't it make you want to Home Alone style? 

When the sledding was done, it was time for a break.  At the end of this sledding, everyone had water instead of hot cocoa.  A perk (or a downside depending on your view) of diaper sledding.

This kept the kids busy for over a half an hour.  I love the power of 16-month-old ingenuity with found objects.

Pudding Painting

It's raining again.  I'm pretty sure it hasn't rained this much the last two summers in Georgia.  But here we are, a pretty steady rain all day long.  This means we couldn't utilize any of our cool outdoor activities and instead had to utilize one of our indoor activities. 

Rain, rain go away.

So today I decided to try out pudding finger painting.  A couple of weeks back, I bought some pudding mix.  It took no time to mix it up and stick it in the refrigerator this afternoon.  After nap, we put the kids in their high chairs, put good plastic coated bibs on them, and put some chocolate pudding on their trays.

Susannah really didn't get AT ALL what we were attempting to do.  She sat there and sort of looked at it.  She touched it slightly, even when I tried to play with it to give her the idea.

Max saw it as an opportunity to munch on pudding.  You can't blame him for that.  Once he started playing in it, he made a massive mess.  That's okay because I did offer him the opportunity to play in chocolate pudding.  As far as actually painting with it, I don't think that really happened. 

I think the kids were slightly too young for this activity.  It lasted about 15 minutes.  Susannah did nothing.  Max made a mess.  Then we were done.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  I'll try again in a few months. 

More rain tomorrow.  I need to put on my thinking cap.

Cloud Dough

After a doctor checkup, a nap, and a snack, today's activity was playing with cloud dough.  Just in case you've never heard of cloud dough, it's basically a mixture of flour and baby oil.

Here's what you need:

The recipe:
Put 8 cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil in a large bowl.  I used my largest mixing bowl. Mix it together by hand in the bowl until it reaches a consistency similar to dry sand.  All the baby oil should be mixed in and it shouldn't be wet.  The beauty of cloud dough is that you can mold and shape it without it falling apart, setting it apart from sand.

It was obvious to me that this could get a bit messy, so we took it outside.  It did get everywhere, but it was like getting flour on your clothes.  Not something that could stain clothes but also not an activity you want to conduct just after you'd gotten your kids dressed up to go somewhere.  I used the empty water table so the bowl was at a one-year-old's level and let them use the cups that we use with the water table.

I thought they'd do more sticking their hands in the cloud dough, but they were mostly interested in scooping it in and out of the cups.  Susannah liked putting cloud dough in her cup and then dumping it places, usually on the patio or over the side of the patio.  Max enjoyed tossing the cough dough up.  This meant it usually landed on him in some way, but he was having fun and we were home for the day, so I didn't mind.

Once again, the attention span was short, but everyone had fun.  Most especially our dog (see the background above), who made it her mission to lick every bit of cloud dough up off the patio and the water table.  Hopefully baby oil doesn't harm a doggy's insides.

Cloud dough also seems to keep.  I made our batch on Sunday afternoon (the rain stopped us from using it earlier) and it was perfectly fine today (Friday).  I kept it covered with Glad Press N Seal in the big bowl.

Digging in the Dirt

I'm not much of a gardener, but my friend, Katie, and my Grandmother are, so I attempted to channel them today as we planted a couple of annuals into a pot.  (Katie's idea.)

This activity actually started on Tuesday afternoon when the three of us went to Lowe's.  The real reason we were there was to purchase a water filter for the refrigerator, but that's boring, so we made it a little more interesting by seeing the ceiling fans (ceiling fans are like baby crack) and picking out flowers.

Our supplies:  We chose a six-pack of white begonias and one slightly larger light purple impatiens.  That's about $3 worth of flowers, so even if they don't grow or die quickly in the Georgia heat, it's no big deal.  We had a green pot out in the garage that hadn't had anything planted in it this year and some leftover potting soil from my husband's tomato plants (he's the real aspiring gardener in our family).  I bought the two little watering cans from Target for $1.99 each.  The kids have also played with them on the water table.

And so this morning I began filling the green pot with soil.  My daughter, Susannah, took interest in this.  Max remembered rolling around in the yard yesterday afternoon and quickly plotted how he was going to get off the patio and into the grass (there's a pretty big step down). 

Keep an eye on your little ones at this stage because it was as I was putting the camera down from this shot that Susannah picked up a little of that soil  and put it in her mouth.  Yucky.

Max was interested again when I began putting the flowers in the pot.  I'd thought they might want to put their hands in the dirt (thus the play clothes), but neither of them really did.  Max wanted to touch the dirt once all the flowers were planted.  He picked it up and was putting it on top of the newly planted flowers.  He was trying to help.  :)

Lastly, the kids "watered" our newly planted flowers.  I don't think they quite understood that concept.  Susannah poured most of the water out next to her and I think most of Max's water ended up on him.  For better or for worse, they both view water as playtime.  We accomplished all of this in about 20 minutes and then loaded the double stroller up and went for a walk.  I'm trying to take advantage of the cool (for June) weather before it gets blazing hot!

Here's the finished product on our front porch.