Rain, Shmain.......

Okay- so I live in a part of the world where its always warm and I can safely say that the sky is blue and the sun shines 90% of the year- and on days that its not shining, its cloudy but we can still play outside. And when it rains, its usually just for a little bit and then the sun comes back out again.

Well, for the past 2 days, its been raining. And raining. And raining. The first day of rain was actually quite refreshing. A nice change. It was nice and cozy. We made hot cocoa, read books, baked hamantashen. It was nice.

But today, the coziness slowly started turning into cabin fever. And when your kids are used to playing outside EVERYDAY, being cooped up for one day is manageable. Two days- things start to get a little loony (note to self- NEVER and I mean NEVER let your 3 and 4 year old play Candyland by themselves- things go flying, cards get crumpled, little game pieces will be thrown across the room as well as the game board by the unfortunate player who comes in second while the one who comes in first dances around the room singing, "I won! ha ha, I won!!!").

Living in a warm place where people are outdoors most of the time is great, except for the times that we cant be outdoors. It really limits us. The only places to go with kids here on a rainy day is the mall (thanks, but no thanks) or the Aquarium, which may very well be on tomorrows list of things to do depending on how hard it is raining.

So aside for out trip to the Aquarium, here are a few things I think we will do tomorrow- just to keep things exciting and avoid any further looniness (if that's even a word)...

• Make Playdo- (click here for an AWESOME recipe) and use Purim cookie cutters to make shapes
• Make more Hamantashen- click here for a super easy and yummy recipe (very kid friendly, easy to roll, cut and shape)
• Finger painting with half a cup of water mixed with half a cup of corn starch with a drop of food coloring. The "paint" hardens as it is put on the paper, making it have a sandy texture afterward. Paint on black paper, the paint shows up more then on white
• Found this Rainy Day Umbrella Craft, looks super cute
• Make a Lava Lamp
• This fun DIY Table Top Soccer Game (we'll make ours into air hockey)
• Magnetic TIC TAC TOE (using a cookie sheet, a piece of paper with the tic tac to lines, and magnets to play)
• A Scavenger Hunt in the house (they LOVE Scavenger hunts)

Will we end up doing all of the above- um, most probably not, but I would rather have and not need, then need and not have:)

Wish me luck!

Some Pretty Cool Activities

We have a huge tub of crayons in the kitchen that the kids use to color and draw... inside that tub are tons of broken crayons that the kids just don't use and so thanks to the many awesome ideas out there in the blogosphere, this is what we did:

First, place them in a cupcake tin, I divided them into like colors, but you can mix them, either way is fine...

Put them in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes... only after I put them in the oven did I wonder if this would be a problem in the Kosher department- but I found out that since crayons are not food and these are non-toxic, that it is fine. Feel free to ask your own Rabbi if its okay to put wax crayons in your oven.

After 10 minutes, I took them out- they were completely liquid and marbled so I carefully put the tray of crayons in the fridge to harden. After about 15-20 minutes, they were hard and I pushed them out of the molds... and VOILA!

My 4 year old daughter has claimed them as her own, she piles them on top of each other, colors with them, traces around them- yes, it was a hit and I am looking for Alef Bet molds to make our next batch of crayons with. If anyone know where I can get them, let me know!

Okay, now this next little Science project we did was absolutely awesome.

It is all about Density in Liquids.

We took 4 liquids:

Honey

Dish Soap

Water with red food coloring

Oil

We poured the honey, then the dish soap, the water then the oil and this is what we got:

Note: we did it very carefully so not to mix the dish soap and the water. After a day the water started seeping into the dish soap. Someone suggested we try rubbing alcohol on top of the oil as it is less dense then oil and would rise above it. If anyone tries it, let me know, we didn't have any in the house.

Have a good one,

Some fun activites

Some fun activites that have been keeping the kiddos busy...

Alef Bet wheel, you can add different vowels as well as use pegs to match up the letters. Great for beginners in letter recognition.

Same idea, just with colors:
Used an ice tray and rubber erasers, color sorting. I had tongs but my munchkin got impatient and just used her fingers to place the erasers in each correct hole:)
Beading with pipe cleaners- they can match the beads to the same colored pipe cleaner or make their own design...

Now this was a HUGE hit: Made 2 felt boards using a picture frame and felt (got this amazing idea here), then cut out different shaped eyes, noses, mouths, hair and hair accessories and the little ones created all types of faces, over and over again-
The felt boards:

Self portrait of the little guy:)

Classic Cheerios book with Cheerios... we didn't do this in a long time, so it was fun.

Movable Hebrew Alphabet with board- another great hit, the little guy made tons of words, it was fantastic...
and lastly, Counting Chocolate Chips- you can use anything, really. This is more for number recognition and counting for little ones- you can make lady bugs with spots, bees with stripes, get creative:)
And thats what we were up to today...

Hope to create and post more soon, wishing all a wonderful week,

Puddle Jumping!

Ok, I am officially the COOLEST mom EVER:)

It rained all day today, until about 3pm when it suddenly cleared up completely. The kids were going a bit stir crazy from being in the house all day so we decided to take a little trip to the park down the street since it was now warm and sunny outside (we live in the tropics).

As we pile out of the car, my big guy takes a running leap and goes flying into a huge puddle, splashing everyone! My first instinct was to reprimand him, but the next thing I knew, the words, "ok guys, lets go puddle jumping!" came out of my mouth!

My goodness, the giggles, the squeals of delight as they jumped from puddle to puddle- I dont think there is any amusement park or anything out there that could have gotten the absolute and utter fun and enjoyment these kids were having:)

After about 30 minutes, I decided we need to close it up so everyone marched back to the car, soaked and covered with mud. I am just so sorry I didn't have my camera with me:(

As we arrived home, my husband pulled in only to see a bunch of wet muddy kids... with the biggest smiles on their faces:)

"I guess its bath time!" he smiled.

So once in a while, its pretty awesome to let kids REALLY be kids~

Have a good one!