Pinteresting my way through summer vacation

by Lara I'm not always the most creative when it comes to finding activities for the kids.  With them home with me full time this past week I have leaned heavily on Pinterest for indoor activities.

What I love about so many of the pins is that just a photo of an activity idea is often enough for me to run with it (psa: when pinning, remember to pin to the URL to the exact post you're referring too.  Too often I click through to a front page of a site and can't find anything about what I thought I was clicking through to see).

Here a couple of the crafts we tackled this week:

Ours may or may not have turned out as nicely as those photos ;)

This particular pin has me inspired to maybe tackle a bigger project next week:

And in case you didn't know, Kids in the Capital has it's own Pinterest account where we try to share all things kids.  Come on over and join us!

Leave a comment sharing what some of your favourite kid activity pins have been lately!

Messy Science Fun

by Amy In this house we have been suffering from a spate of "I want to do something else" syndrome. Nothing seems to keep the toddler entertained for more than a few minutes at a time, and it doesn't take long before this Mommy runs out of energy to think of new things. We go swimming, we bake together, she takes gymnastics, but her energy is constant so when we're just home I have to keep trying to entertain her.

Today, after going through a few of our normal activities it was "something else, Mommy!" again, so I logged on to Pinterest to see what else we could try. I came upon this on my Crafts board.

Fun! Messy! Science!

So I got out my corn starch and the food colouring and we mixed it all together and keep the kid occupied for a good little while.

The truth is, it looks messy but it actually washes off hands quite easily. I haven't tried to clean the pan yet.

We'll probably be doing this again.

Amy is mom to two year old Maggie and a 6 year old schnauzer named Henry. You can read her blog at amyboughner.ca where she writes about motherhood and anything else that’s on her mind. She also shares a blog with her husband at boughner.ca where they talk together about parenting a daughter.

GIVEAWAY: Crafts at Tag Along Toys

by Alicia E and I had the great privilege this Spring to visit Tag Along Toys and choose a craft to test out. In Karen's post in March welcoming Tag Along Toys as a Kids in the Capital sponsor, she took some great pictures of the many sections in the store. I was really excited to see the craft section in person and for E to get a chance to choose a craft of his choice.

We decided on a paper bag puppet craft kit that was age appropriate for a 3 year old.

E was super excited to take it home and get started! With a little direction, E went through the steps of gathering the stickers and cut-outs, gluing them on to the paper bag and the best part - creating his very own puppet show!

I highly recommend checking out all the amazing craft kits Tag Along Toys has in stock for children of all ages.  Thank you, Patti, for welcoming us in to your store and offering us this fun opportunity. We will be back soon for some more crafts!

Alicia is a mother of two and blogs at I Found My Feet.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Patti from Tag Along Toys has generously given us two Alex Craft kits (ideal for preschool age kids) to give away to our readers!

To enter leave a comment telling us what kind of crafts your kids like to do.  Contest closes on Friday June 15 at 5pm and winners must be able to go to Tag Along Toys (499 Terry Fox Drive, Kanata) to pick up the prize.

Good luck!

Flashback : paint pucks

This is one of the first posts I ever wrote for kids in the capital.  Those exact paint pucks from two years ago are still the ones we use!  :) by Lara

Do you remember these from elementary school?

I'm always looking for new crafts to do with Kiernan and when I saw these at Wallacks (I know you can also get them at Scholar's Choice) a wave of nostalgia came over me from elementary school art class and I couldn't help but pick them up. They cost about $13 for the starter pack and then you can get replacement pucks as well as other colours for when you want to mix things up.

They are awesome. We use them all the time. The colours are vibrant, there's no wasting, and best of all when this happens to your paint (and if you have a 3 year old too, the chances of this are quite high ;)....

... all you need it a little water to get the paint looking good again.

And the best part of all is the artwork you end up with at the end.

Lara is the mom to 5 year old Kiernan and 3 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can find her at her blog Gliding Through Motherhood.

Hotel Home

by Alanna My children are very creative.  It is easy to do imaginative things with them.  They wanted to go on a vacation far away like their friends, and stay in a hotel.  This was not feasable for us so I suggested we turn our house into a hotel.  At first they were shocked and maybe a little bit confused, but then they thought it was a great idea.

First off, I had them go and pack their bags.  While they were doing that, I printed out some signs that I found online here.  I put them up all over the house and got to work on a room service menu.

Once the kids bags were packed we put all our bags in the car and went for a little drive (I actually had errands to do).  When we returned home, I got into character.  I jumped out of the car and helped them with their bags.  I had a book ready inside and asked them if they had reservations, handed them their keys and escorted them to their rooms.  They really got a kick out of it.

The activity was seriously successful.  They really want to do it again this year.  I am not sure.  Since then we have actually been to a hotel.  They might be more demanding this time. LOL.

I'd love to hear if it worked for you.

Alanna is a mother of two beauties, Nora age 3 (aka coconut) and Avery 5 (aka polka dot). Former ECE turned mother, party planner and blogger.  Never a dull moment around this house.