Cool Cootie Catchers

 Have your kids ever made a cootie catcher?  

Get them outside today with a fun cootie catcher nature game from 5 Orange Potatoes!

Friday night sleepover?   Print a spooky truth or dare cootie catcher from Family Fun!

End of summer road trip?  Print a cootie catcher with fortunes from MomsMinivan!

Klutz has The Cootie Catcher Book with 25 preprinted punch-out-and-fold catchers!

Hooray for Hopscotch!

I have fond memories of playing hopscotch in elementary school and loved having my own hopscotch marker.  Last year in my daughter's bunny basket there was chalk and a Hoppy Taw and she had no idea what it was for!  Now she regularly draws her own hopscotch and gets jumpin'-- I even join in the fun now and then!

Spring weather in Utah is unpredictable and crazy!  The time we spend outside is usually minimal so indoor activities to get some energy out are necessary!  That's why I really like this creative Hopscotch Play Mat by A Girl and a Glue Gun (guest post on The Idea Room). *image from A Girl and a Glue Gun

Playing outdoors requires drawing the pattern first but that's part of the fun!  Check out some great and different hopscotch pattern ideas and rules on Squidoo (scroll down a little to see the 6 pattern images) for making outdoor hopscotch just a little more exciting! *Dizzy Dragonfly Hopscotch image from Squidoo




*post contains an affiliate link

Make a Boat and Watch it Float!

In July we made craft stick boats after I saw a cool bamboo boat on Childhood Magic (blog is no longer public).  I used hot glue and they fell apart shortly after getting wet.  I think I should tie the sticks together with twine.  This is a fun craft for anytime of year since you can float them in the tub or sink just for fun!

Easy boats that float:

Made by Joel Walnut Boats

Wabi-Sabi Wanderings Driftwood Sailboats

Ziggity Zoom Milk Carton Boats

Made by Joel (a cool and creative dad)

Did you miss the first fantastic find I posted about from Made by Joel-- Printable Paper City??  This guy's creativity and simplistic approach to playing amazes me!  His kids are lucky to have such a cool and fun dad!  I basically browsed every post on Made by Joel and found many great things to add to my kid list.  It's so nice of him to take the time to share these creative ideas with us!!  You need to check out the site for yourself but here's some posts I really like:

► Match Game (you could make it a toddler memory game)

► Zip Line Toy (soooo creative)

► Toddler Stilts (definitely a safer option over Classic Can Stilts)

► Cereal Box Marble Run (my kind of fun-- reuse and then recycle)

► Wall Hanging Box Aquarium (seriously, we're making one or two so the kids will stop asking for a real pet)

► Tin Can Telephones (hooray for old fashioned communication)

Play Tic-Tac-Toe Outside

Are you creating summer memories with Education.com's Summer Challenge?  A great and simple activity for many ages is Rock Out with Tic-Tac-Toe.  My kids had just as much fun painting the rocks as they did playing the game outside over and over!  Keep the rocks with a piece of chalk in a reuse container and take the game anywhere!

10 Black-and-White Printable Paper Dolls

These links to FREE black-and-white printable paper dolls will be enjoyed by moms who don't like to 'waste' color ink and kids that like to make use of their crayons! See 10 Cute Printable Paper Dolls for links to color paper dolls.  Non-commercial use only.

Cabbage Patch Kids has 3 print-and-play paper dolls: shopping, beach, back to school! (found via Doll Diaries)

This Mama Makes Stuff on Skip to My Lou's Craft Camp has printable scrap paper dolls that you clothe with fabric!

PBS Kids Sprout Online has a Chica paper doll with 5 fun costumes!

Shirley Temple Dolls has 2 Shirley dolls/clothes that you can choose to print in b&w or color.

Nick Jr. has Pinky Dinky Doo Paper Dolls: Pinky, Tyler, and Mr. Guinea Pig!

About.com: Latter-day Saints has dolls/clothes clipart that you can choose to print in b&w or color.

PBS Kids has Caillou and Rosie paper dolls each with 6 outfits! (found via Bukisa.com)

Jan Brett has Hedga/Hedgie with costumes plus lots of free activities, games, and coloring pages! (Thanks Marlene!)

BillyBear4Kids.com has Paper Dolls with lots of outfit choices and Halloween Paper Dolls too!

Kiddley has DIY paper doll templates printed in red and white.  Close enough! ☺

• This top ten black-and-white paper doll list is linked to Top Ten {Tuesday} on Oh Amanda.  The dolls listed are in no particular order!

Make Classic Can Stilts

Classic tin can stilts have been around for a long time.  Make some with the kids on a summer afternoon! They're fun to decorate and even more fun to stomp around with outside!

A few tips:

• I wouldn't recommend using a small can like I did for my son's.  A 29.5 oz. can is perfect for smaller kids but a #10 can is even better, especially for bigger kids (like mom ☺) and for safety reasons.

• I opened the cans with a no sharp edges can opener.

• I had my husband drill holes and then I glued foam circles around them.(answering the comment)

• We decorated with paper, Mod Podge, and paint.  The paper had a slippery/messy time and patterned paper was easier to work with than card stock.

• For the handles I used vinyl rope from Dollar Tree and hot glued ends after knotting.

-Picture of my can stilt supplies on Flickr.

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 * Family Fun's Can-do Stilts are decorated patriotic! (pictured above)

* Education.com's safety advice on their Coffee Can Stilts activity: "...have your child don protective gear and practice walking before hitting the open road." 

* You can buy some fun Monster Clompers from ALEX Toys.

Homemade Bubbles and Wands

○ Steve Spangler Science shows on video the secret to making the perfect bubble solution.  Get the Bouncing Bubble Solution recipe and start having fun!

 ○ Design Dazzle gives the how-to for giant bubbles and a wand!

○ Lakeshore Learning has two wand ideas and a bubble solution recipe too.

10 Cute Printable Paper Dolls

These cute paper dolls would be fun for lots of things: a SUMMER car trip, *fridge magnets, boredom activity for a rainy or snowy day, little girl birthday gift, party activity or favor, stocking stuffer (*in a little magnetic tin), etc..  All of the free printable paper dolls are for non-commercial use.  *One Pearl Button has a Magnetic Paper Doll tutorial.

Wee Wonderfuls has download freebies (mostly patterns)!

paper doll (1)

Patty Reed Designs has 6 printable dolls! (2)

 

Babalisme has many free printables (*memory game made with her reindeer tags).  If you place your cursor over a download link on her blog and the link shows in the bottom left of the computer screen as going to ziddu I would caution you to not go there.  Babalisme has changed her hosting site to Scribd (only a few links are still ziddu) and it's a much nicer site.  You will have to sign up and skip past a couple of 'offers' before the download will happen.  It's worth the trouble though!  Her paper dolls are really sweet!

fairy tale paper doll (3)

Halloweenie dress-up boy and girl (4)

Santas's little helpers and decorate a tree (5)

Kireei has free printable stickers and paper dolls.  The site is in spanish but all you need to do is click on 'english' under the image and then 'download'. (found via How About Orange)

Clementina (6)

Terri Pettit has a whole page of paper doll links that she's scanned; she created the Vector Strawberry Shortcake. (found via How About Orange)

Little Kiddles (7)

Vector Strawberry Shortcake (8)

The Graphics Fairy has many vintage paper dolls. (9)

Wee Life has paper dolls with clothes and Halloween costumes to color! (10)

This Mama Makes Stuff made a cute Fabric Scrap Paper Doll Kit.  (I had to include this, even though it's (11) and there's no printable for her sweet and simple doll, because it's such a fantastic idea.)  A little metal box would be perfect for storing regular and magnetic paper dolls.

• This top ten eleven paper doll list is linked to Top Ten {Tuesday} on Oh Amanda.  The dolls listed are in no particular order!  **part 2: black-and-white printable paper dolls

Indoor Olympics- Beanbag Toss and Bowling

Watching parts of the Olympics has been fun for my kids.  Their favorite events are figure skating and bobsled.  We created our own easy indoor Olympic fun yesterday and kept track of scores so we could 'medal' too!

Beanbag Toss 

REUSE an ice cream bucket for your beanbag target.

beanbags- Make and Takes shows an easy way to make little felt bean bags and I have beanbag links on my Let the Games Begin! post.

Mini Bottle Bowling

 REUSE water bottles or fruit juice bottles to have mini bowling fun!