Painted Snowballs

It's hard to believe it's the end of March and that as I write this we are getting another batch of fresh snow. As much as I love winter fun, I'm ready for winter to be over. However, the outside world currently looks like a Christmas card. So while I may be tired of the snow, it's what we have outside to play with so we're getting creative.

One day after school we decided to try painting snowballs. The boys loved this colorful, messy project. And, it is actually perfect for spring snow as it's warm enough out to take off gloves and mittens.

Wet Chalk Exploration

Sometimes we create art because we want a finished product, and sometimes we explore it for the process. This art exploration was one we stumbled across, but we loved enough that we'll do it again.

I loved that not only was it colorful, creative, and hands on in many different ways, but it also became collaborative.

Shape Search in a Fall Backyard

The weather this week has been amazing, and we were really pleased to be able to get out and enjoy the nice temperatures again. Little Brother and I had a ton if fun playing with shapes outside in the fall sunshine and leaves.

We had a blast bringing our large, foam pattern blocks outside and involving them in some great backyard autumn play. 

An ABC Treasure Hunt

It's no secret we love pirates around here. In the past we had so much fun with our Pirates' Gold Number Play we knew that we wanted to extend it into some letter play. That lead me to create an ABC Treasure Hunt.

It's great to do these types of activities during the summer, so we can be outside. But, the materials are simple enough it could be recreated inside as well. 

Watercolor in the Rain

Even though we like to mostly think about the better weather ahead of us, we've still had several rainy days these past few weeks. Now that the summer weather is here at least those rainy days can be warm.

After several rainy days last week, the boys were feeling a little cooped up and in need of something different. This lead us to watercoloring in the rain!

20+ Ways to Play and Explore MUD!

We've been excited about the warmer temps lately because it means spring is on the way. And as the snow melts and the ground thaws, the MUD arrives. Now on one hand mud can drive a mama crazy; living on a dirt road means it tracks its way into the house no matter what we do. But on the other hand, it's only here for a short while, although long enough in New England to be considered the fifth season, so why not embrace it?

Here are 20+ ways to play and explore with mud, including creating your own mud sensory play even when there isn't any mud.

ABCs of Nature: M is for Meadow

We're excited to be participating in the ABC's of Nature which is hosted by School Time Snippets. 26 bloggers are sharing a nature themed post for each different letter of the alphabet. Already so many amazing nature activities and resources have been shared.

We were lucky to have the letter M, as there were so many different nature themed ideas (mountain, moon, morning, mist . . .) But in the end we settled on "M is for Meadow."

I've mentioned before that we're pretty blessed to live in an area where opportunities to engage with nature are just a step outside our door. For this exploration, we walked a little farther down the road to a large meadow. We talked a little about what a meadow is and what we might find there before we left the house.

Soap Foam Car Wash Bins

If you've been reading our posts for a while you know we love transportation play. The other day we were looking for a new way to play with our matchbox cars. Lately many of them have been spending some time in our sand and water table and getting a little dirty. This has been inspiring Big Brother to pretend to wash them. I decided it would be fun to set up some car wash sensory play.

In the earlier stages of spring we discovered soap foam play from Fun at Home With Kids. We turned it into some really fun clean mud. It's such a cool, easy way to create a different sensory experience for kids.

Kid Created Obstacle Course

We were really excited to be able to join Emma at P is for Preschooler for the Backyard Games Week series. While Little Brother being under the weather and the actual rainy weather deterred us from doing this earlier in the week, we had a lot of fun with it this weekend.

As a kid I always enjoyed doing obstacle courses, and have set some up for Big Brother in the past. I thought it would be fun to let him create the courses this time.

We love to spend as much time as possible in our large, grassy yard during the summer months and there are several flat spaces perfect for obstacle courses.