I’m writing this after a weekend of being “snowed in” with my family at home. Believe it or not, I loved it, although at one time in my life this probably would have made me “stir crazy”! I think part of it is partly due to the habit we have been in lately of spending quantity time together every weekend by having a “theme night.”
No doubt, most of you have a special movie night or game night as well. We started out with movie night a couple of months ago. In the last few weeks, though, we’ve had a game night (which is interesting when the oldest child is 4 years old) and an arts and crafts night. No other agendas. No looking deeply for “teachable moments” (although if they clearly presented themselves we wouldn’t neglect them). No “goals” for teaching something new or important. Just enjoying each others presence, personalities, and silliness. My 4 year old begins to look forward to our special Friday or Saturday night at the beginning of each week, when we’ve discussed what we might do.
So, here are some activities from our last “arts & crafts” night (which was more of a day, night, and into the weekend!) that you might enjoy. First, we put paint into small containers and then placed marbles (and I think a die ended up in there) and swirled them around to cover them. Then, we placed paper (cut to size) in cylinders (potato chips, oatmeal, and grits), dropped in the paint covered marbles, and sealed them back. The boys then had fun pushing, rolling, and shaking the cylinders. Finally, voila, a masterpiece!
Another bit of silliness I rediscovered was a fun food called “squid dogs”. I honestly can’t remember the blog where I first saw them, but familyfun.com showcased them this month. Basically, it is hotdog segments with dry noodles shoved through them. Then, the whole creation is boiled until cooked. Both of the boys enjoyed making these...”creatures”. What an appropriate dinner for an “art day”!
As I mentioned, it was a cold weekend for us, and fortunately, I saw this great idea for such weather on Nikki Mans' Whimsy-Love site - a nature sun catcher. Super easy to make, fun, and pretty! The weather allowed it to last for a couple of days, too!
We also did other simple projects like playing with stamps, doodling, taking pics of their doodles for future projects, and gluing magazine cutouts to construction paper.
Like I said, nights like these have helped us each to love our scheduled time together...which in turn helped us to enjoy our unplanned time together.
What type of things do you do enjoy quantity time with your family? Do you have any favorite “theme nights”?
Much love & have much fun,
Ashlie
1 comment:
What a great resource!
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