Spring Break Kiddo Activities

I am not a mother but after being a nanny for 6 years and babysitting since I was 12, I know a thing or two about kiddos.  Spring break is about here for most grade schools and that means keeping them occupied for a week without breaking the budget, that is if you aren't heading somewhere warm!  So here are some of my tricks that I use to keep the kids entertained and you sane.

1.  Create a tentative schedule of special activities around town:

Most towns have some sort of website with a list of fun things to do around your neighborhood.   Do some research on google to see what special events are going on during that week, things like a book reading at your local library, a discounted day at your local museum, etc.  Pick some of those things, maybe one a day or every other day.  Try this website at Sprout.

2.  Get together supplies for random crafts:

Of course keep the staples near by, things like colorful paper, glue, foam paper, markers, crayons, paint, and ribbon.  I loved to pick up 'random crafts' at local thrift or dollar stores.  Things like plates, bud vases, picture frames, etc.  They end up being fun things to decorate.  Let them paint, add stickers, glitter, anything fun.  You can have them create the projects for a special person, let them help wrap it and make a day trip to give the gift.  Grandmas love it!

 3.  Cooking classes are always a blast

Make creating dinner fun.  Let your kids help with every step of the process, giving them kid friendly duties of course.  Baking and decorating is always a hit, it doesn't have to be Christmas to make fun shaped sugar cookies and douse them with frosting and sprinkles

4.  Fort sleepovers

Building forts was one of my favorite things to do as a kid.  Some of my best memories about it was when my mom was cool enough to have 'Fort Sleepovers' with me.  We would build the biggest, coolest fort we could of course leaving access to the t.v. so we could snuggle up in our sleeping bags, watch a cool new kiddo movie and eat loads of popcorn.  Following the movie we got to read stories and sleep in our fort for the night.  Its like camping inside!

Do you have any other fun and cool spring break kiddo activities?? Good luck to all of you mommas, nannies, and babysitters and enjoy your break blogland!

Bored Jars - For All You Mommas!

HAPPY FAT TUESDAY EVERYONE!! I am so sorry readers, it has been a while.  School has been a bit INSANE, but I am now finally on a break and can get back to blogging away! So here is my latest little project...

Whoa does this bring me back to my childhood!  All growing up I remember having this "terribly-great" thing called a bored jar.  It was an old canning jar my mom had filled with little scraps of paper.  On each scrap there was something to do, according to my brother and I some were terrible and some were great!  They said thing like, 'clean your room', 'play with chalk', 'go for ice cream', 'vacuum your room', or 'ride bikes for an hour'.  The catch to the bored jar is whenever someone says that infamous phrase "IM BORED" you were now forced to pick a scrap out of the bored jar, and whatever you picked you HAD to do.  No whining, no ifs ands or buts about it!

 

My mom didn't put a whole lot of the 'terribles' but there were a few.  She says this was to discourage us from saying it at all, saying it means you take your chances!  It was such a fun game sometimes, especially if I picked something cool and my brother had to go do something like vacuum his room...tehehe :)

I have a close girlfriend who is having her third child in a few months and I thought this would be a cute idea as a gift for her two older girls, now that she will need to keep them occupied doing things that allow her to take care of the baby more often.  All you need is some sort of jar, preferably with a lid, scrap paper, glue, and anything else you want to decorate your jar.  You can just keep it simple or go crazy with all that glue, mod podge, paper, ribbon and/or glitter!  You decide but make it totally your own.  I used some scrap fabric and mod podged it to the jar then added the little label out of sticker letters and computer paper.  I got the jar for only 1.99, which was my only cost.  So easy, cheap and fun!  This is how it turned out:

 I am thinking about doing a GIVEAWAY pretty soon...I don't want to spoil the details but its going to be pretty awesome so keep checking back over the next week or so!

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