Big Energy-Little Learners...Can I do it all?

Summer evenings are the perfect time for a fire.  When the night cools off and the air is fresh you surround a fire pit with chairs and enjoy the view. Fires tend to bring on good conversation...because we unplug a little while we are entranced by the flames.  This is a great bonding opportunity for the family. So stack up your fire wood grab some tinder and lite it up!    When we have a fire we like to, first of all, take seflies!   We usually do this while daddy makes the fire and the wood gets heated.  Soon after it's time to eat.  We like to have food cooked by the fire.  So we usually do hot dogs and sometimes some roasted veggies.  After food is done the kids are usually ready to be up and moving (before finishing their food) so we administer some games for them.   Such as catch and racing This builds up their appetites again just in time for some s'mores!  The sun is down and the fire is now our light ...

 Dart Knockdown! This activity is great for summer or winter.  It can be played out doors or indoors. We did both. I honestly wasn't expecting to play indoors at any point but Little Dragon loved this set up so much he asked me to set it up all week.  That meant during rain or during moments when he was the only boy outside, and I don't let the dragons play outside alone. The set up was easy and best of all cheap! I had all of the supplies needed on hand. Materials:  nerf gun darts cups table/desk To set up you just put the cups in a pyramid and designate a place to stand to shoot, point blank would be cheating and not as fun.  Then pull the trigger.  It took a couple tries but Little Dragon got the hang of this game quickly.  Doll Dragon tried a few times but didn't enjoy this activity as much.   Little Dragon practiced hand eye coordination and by the end of the 1st day he was...

This is a fun easy game to play with the kids.   I love this version because it is so big, it doesn't waste paper, it's quick, it's easy to store, and easy to clean up.  The rules are standard tic-tac-toe rules no changes there.   All you need is a flat surface and some holiday themed manipulatives for your 'x's and o's'.   This year we made a board out of 1 piece of paper or a cardboard box.  In the past we have used ribbon or yarn.  I cut out my own holiday shapes from some foam I already had in the house.   The kids love playing this game with daddy!  Our Elf on the Shelf also played this game with some stuffed friends :) Merry Christmas!  Thank you for reading liking, and sharing! 

Dinosaur Tag This is a game we created for Little Dragons Dino Party.  We used this game as a kind of ice breaker/opener. I bought these awesome masks at Wal-Mart for $.97.  There were two of each face, which was perfect for this game. We had about 15 kids at the party which is a great amount for Dinosaur tag. To start the game you have to round up the kids. Next we picked 2 dinosaurs and they got to put on their cool dinosaur masks! The Dinosaurs had to chase around the other kids and tag them. When someone got tagged they had to stand in the cage (we used the climbing dome for our cage but you could use any area you designate as 'cage' or 'jail') Now the tricky part is tagging all of the kids quickly because the kids that have not been tagged can free the other kids from the cage by tagging them. This is a fast paced game and we played multiple rounds rotating who got to be a dinosaur.  I do have to say I had never played game of tag where so many peo...

This was a game we found on pintrest that Little Dragon was intent on playing. Although it is supposed to be feed the T-Rex but Little Dragons favorite dinosaur is a raptor so he requested we have a raptor instead. This is a simple bean bag toss game. To make this game you will need  bean bags foam board sharpie I didn't use a poster board because they are kinda flimsy and when you have kids throwing bean bags at something you need it to be sturdy.  I made the bean bags myself using some extra fabric I had in the house and some rice I had used for a sensory bin previously.  They took a total of 20 minutes to put together.  I found the foam board at Wal-mart for less then a $1.  My husband is the artist in the house so he drew the raptor face for Little Dragon.  As a mom this part was fun for me to watch.  Little Dragon watching with such anticipation for the finished project as daddy drew the dinosaur for him.  To pl...

I will be trying to plan a group activity for the elementary school kids once a week.   I am doing this to give them something to look forward to each week and to help with some of the after school chaos.  It also helps the kids relax and let go of the stressful school week.  This week we had a Nerf War!  We planned the activity on Monday and talked about it all week. This reminds them a fun activity is coming.  I also needed some extra guns and the notice gave the kids an opportunity to ask to bring some extra guns.  Friday before the kids got home I had all of the guns out and loaded.  For this activity I had my two dragons and the two that I babysit after school.  Including me and my husband we had 3 girls and 3 boys.  The dragons all agreed boys vs. girls for teams.  We played a version of steal the bacon.  We had some extra nerf guns that we used for 'bacon'. Before we could start playing we had a ...

We did this activity during our Shape theme week This was a game I made up on the fly that Little Dragon really enjoyed.  I  have shape buttons and I wasn't sure what I was going to use them for aside from standard sorting.   We started there.  After all the shapes were sorted by shape I asked Little Dragon to name all of the shapes.  There were a couple of more complex shapes such as hexagons and octagons.  These needed a bit of practice.  To get the practice in I made up this game.   I told Little Dragon that he was a shop owner.  I asked what kind of shop he wanted to run.  He picked car shop.  I said all of the shapes were different car parts and I was going to come in as different customers to buy the parts I needed to fix my car.  He agreed, of course.  I would use a different voice for each costumer and ask for mix matched things like 3 octagons and 5 yellow triangles.  This incorporated co...

To give a different spin on stacking games we played this version which used dice.  We stacked eggs on the same stack using the dice to determine how many pieces we would stack on our turn.  When the stack fell it ended the game.  Having to stac k three or more pieces in a row was nerve racking and made it seem like your turn was  never going to end! The pressure was on trying to keep the stack from falling on your turn from one of the many pieces you have to stack on.  We played this game multiple times my dragons love to play games with dice. 

We did this game with our egg unit which you can see here  This is a fun game of competition that quickly gets everybody fired up and ready to win.  Rules: Everyone sits by the bin so it is easily accessible  Set a timer for 1 minute Each player stacks as many egg pieces as they can  When the timer goes off the person with the tallest stack or most egg pieces in a stack wins  That's all! 

This was the first game we played for our Easter theme which you can see here Materials:   plastic eggs 4 plastic cups masking tape Rules:   tape the four cups together.  I put number stickers inside the cups for point value place tape on the floor for a starting line place the cups desired distance from the starting line Each dragon had 3 tries to get an egg into a cup.  They had to stand behind the line and toss the egg into a cup winner is the person with the most points.  We did not play for x amount of rounds or time, we played until the dragons were finished playing.  Little Dragon and Summer Dragon were fairly good at this game.  All 3 dragons impressed me with their math skills.  Adding 3 and 4 points to their current score was very easy for them.  I thought they would use their fingers for counting but they would collect their eggs and give me their new score with out missing a beat.   They didn'...

This is a fun game to play with multiple people! We played this game during our Easter theme week.  You can see our other activities here . We played this game a few times because the dragons loved it!   Rules:  Have 1 person pick an egg piece and place it on the ground then continue around the circle giving everyone a chance to lay down an egg piece.  Continue taking turns adding a piece at a time to your stack. You may only use 1 hand to stack a piece. If your stack falls you are out.  Continue going around until there is 1 stack left, that person is the winner.  Taking turns placing egg pieces made the anticipation grow and grow.   Doll Dragon was bouncing waiting for her turn and Little Dragon was watching closely to e ach person place their egg hoping their stack would fall.  Testing if it will stay.... CRASH! Little Dragons stack falls It was a quick game that can also be used for multiple ...

I know I know a typical Easter letter choice and theme.  But Little Dragon hadn't quiet mastered letter E yet and Easter was the perfect time to reiterate this letter, plus I thought it would help him remember.   We started the week of with our bin of eggs You can call it a sensory bin because there are some sensory experiences here, but none my dragons hadn't experienced before. This week We played some egg games  Stack 'Em Don't Crack 'Em Egg Toss Minute to Win It Roll and Stack We practiced handwriting and reading on the white board The older dragons unscrambled the words and Little Dragon had to read the unscrambled word. And fixed sentences Little Dragon had to find all of the letter e's in the sentence He also did some standard letter E handwriting Little Dragon worked in his red binder In the red binder we go over what day it is the number of the day (the date) before and after  cl...