Skip to main content

After school

I recently wrote a post about after school activities for my elementary aged kids. I wasn't sure what would work best for the kids or myself. 
It has been almost a month now since the kids started school. 
A month of after school bags all over the floor.
A month of loud stir crazy kiddos. 
A month of everyone wanting it their way. 
A month of chaos. 

I need change and I think the kids need change. 

Before I start planning activities I tested the waters with the kids. 
I pulled out some coloring books and crayons, colored pencils. Alice in wonderland and Harry Potter for the older kids and a race car book for the younger. 
I sat down on the floor with the supplies and asked the kids to come and color with me. 

They all came running. They were all excited to color together. We listened to some soft music and chatted while coloring. We admired each other's work. It was quiet relaxing. 

The next day I asked if they would like it if we did activities together after school. They all agreed they would like to do this.  
I figured we could do an activity maybe once or twice a week.

 We brainstormed a few ideas. 
One being a tea party.  
All the kids were tickled at this idea.  Let the tea party planning begin! 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Painting With Squirt Guns

We did this as a Fathers Day project, but it fits in outside play perfectly.   I liked this for Fathers because it was an interactive activity for the kids to do with Jerry to celebrate him and the time they enjoy spending with him. I filled 1 gun with yellow paint and 2 guns with black paint.  The squirt guns we used were from the dollar store and had a decently big hole to pour the paint into.  Some squirt guns have itty bitty holes that make squirting paint into the gun very difficult. Taped off the canvas...and made the kids pose Then the guns were handed to the kids and dad.  Instructions were to shoot the canvas not each other. Very simple. Start squirting!   The squirting went on and on.  I refilled the guns a couple times so the activity could continue.     Jerry also took time with each Dragon to squirt with them.  With a Star Wars theme we were looking at having blac...
135 comments
Read more

Teeth Craft

This craft went with our meat eater unit you can see here I was having a difficult time thinking of activities for meat eaters.  I didn't want the sole focus to be on dinosaurs because carnivores and herbivores is a way to categorize many animals today. But everything I was running into was dinosaur related.  Finally I found this craft!  Materials:    paper template of a carnivore and herbivore (I drew a hippo and t-rex head outline) page of teeth scissors glue markers Little Dragon cut out the heads and then the mouth pieces.  Then he cut out the teeth and glued them inside the mouth To finish it he drew eyes on the head and a tongue on the inside of the mouth.  Little Dragon was very excited to see the finished animals and open their mouths to look at their teeth. We wrote what the animal was on the inside This was a fun easy craft that helps identify the difference in ...
11 comments
Read more

Paint Squirt Gun Fight

I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to do this activity ever since I saw a post about painting with squirt guns. Paint squirt gun fight!  And it was AMAZING!  I first bought an 8 pack of large boys white t-shirts.  I wanted the shirts to fit all of the kids and I wanted them to be able to save the shirts for the future. The 8 pack was perfect. I filled the water guns up with paint and a pinch of water.  Each gun had a different color so we could determine a 'winner'.  I squirted each 'player' with their color first.  So they knew their color and to demonstrate where to aim.  Talking about the aim was very important.  All of the kids involved were 4 and above.  Aim had to be in the tummy or the back.  No faces, bottoms, heads/hair, or legs. We didn't want paint in eyes, noses, or mouths. The other places would be more difficult to clean and giving two aiming places was simple.        ...
11 comments
Read more