CreatifulKids | Creative Activities for Kids and Positive Parenting Tips for Growing Creative and Beautiful Kids

Indoor snow play- make a colorfull birthday cake from snow

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Angela

If you’re looking for some indoor snow play ideas, then you’re in the right place!

We took some snow inside and did some indoor snow play, and after an intensive hour of snow play, Victoria still wanted to continue, but her hands were a little too cold. So I got our crafts box out and suggested she tries painting on the snow. And since we had the cooking and baking utensils out anyway, she decided to make me a birthday cake!

Victoria got to work and stuffed a pack of snow in a bowl and put some interesting shapes in it. She added toothpicks as candles and then it was time to give the cake some color.

After the cake was done, she still continued for a while, trying to paint all kind of different shapes into the snow. And so she created her own collection of temporary art 🙂

We had to stop because it got close to bedtime, if not she would have probably continued for the whole night …
How did you enjoy the snowy winter/spring? 🙂

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, colorful play, coloring and drawing, Creative play, kids game, painting, positive parenting tips | Comments Off

Too cold outside? Get the snow inside your house!

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Angela

It might seem a bit odd to talk about snow play for kids when the spring has just started, but here in Belgium the weather keeps surprising us, so who knows what’s to come next.

Beginning of last week we had once again a good amount of snow so I was determined to have some snow play with my kids before the snow was gone. As it was late, dark and cold I wasn’t ready to send the kids out, so I decided to get the snow inside. Below I’ll give you a summary of what happened over the next hour.

First we got in the snow inside in a big plastic box.

Next I threw in some toys from a role-play cooking & baking set and the kids got immediately started!

After about half an hour the snow was getting quite wet and sticky, so I removed the tools and went out to get a second round of snow. Coming back I thought to change the scene and get in a couple of Duplo cars and trucks. As you can imagine, Lukas was very excited about this and the two girls joined in as well.

Tough after while Victoria had enough of the cars and wanted to do some more cooking, and that quickly turned into a fight, so I had to split up the box and give each a side to play. Luckily Elena had left the game by then, so I didn’t need to split it in 3!

And after an hour or so of play, they spend a while with their hands over the heater to get them back to normal temperature …

Inviting the snow inside your house might seem like a very messy thing to do, but I was surprised that it ended up very ok. I think the trick was that:

I used a very big box so they had sufficient playing space and with a floor of tiles the drops of melted snow were easily cleaned. At the end of the day it’s only water!
On top, with so many tools and toys in the snow, they didn’t feel the need to throw snowballs through my living room 🙂

And the cool thing is that besides the big box, you don’t need any special stuff. Just throw in whatever toys you have laying around and which can stand some snow and water. It something different than the typical snowman or snowball fight, but equally fun!

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged kids game | 1 Comment

Small Duplo world play in a rice sensory box

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Angela

Do you remember the fun Elena (1) had when I put in front of her a box with rice? Well, I re-used the rice later on for another activity for Victoria (4,5) and Lukas (3) .

In the evening, after the kids went to sleep I turned the rice box into another kids activity: a Duplo construction site. I then put the box on a table Elena couldn’t reach and waited for it to be discovered in the morning. And I did get a “WOW” from the kids.

This is what they found out when they woke up: a Duplo construction site ready to be played with!

The kids played quite a long time with it and as long as the box stayed on the high table, there was no mess – just some rice here and there, nothing major.

But then I felt (too) safe with this kids activity and had the brilliant idea to put the box with rice on the floor and lose sight of it. Then all of a sudden I heard Elena and Lukas getting into a fight and I remembered about the rice box. When I went to look, I found Elena sitting on the floor on a pile of rice, and Lukas carrying rice out of the box on to the floor with some hair clips. Luckily there was still more rice in the box than on the floor.

According to Lukas his hair-clip-monster was hungry and was busy eating all the rice from the box! And Elena was just in the way of this important task!

In the end it was quite funny and rice is very easy to clean, so 2 min after the incident all rice traces were gone.

Would I do this again? Definitely!…Just that I wouldn’t put the box on the floor and leave it alone with 3 active kids.

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, craft ideas, crafts for kids, Creative play, sensory play | 1 Comment

How to turn rice into a sensory activity for babies and toddlers

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Angela

It’s been a while since we did our last sensory activity with the colored pasta. The kids loved it and it proved to be a great baby activity too, so I felt some urge to do a new one.

No pasta this time, I got myself a cheap bag of rice instead. I dumped the rice in a transparent box and then mixed in some decorative stuff to discover. I used some glitter, shiny stars, pompoms, a small bell and other winter ornaments I found in the house (leftovers from the Xmas times …). I first intended this as a sensory activity for my two toddlers, but at the end decided to let my youngest check it out first. And boy did she love it!

Elena (1 year) got immediately interested and came to investigate.

First she found the small bell I hid inside and started shaking it. When she lost interest in the bell, she started to investigate the rice. She tried to hold it in her little hands and watched it fall like rain drops between her fingers and back into the box. That was so exciting that she had to try that over and over again!

Next on the activity list, she started grabbing the small decorative objects and tossing them from one hand to the other and back. (Side note: I do recommend you stay aside your baby if you try this at home and make sure she does not put the small objects in her mouth!).

It took her about an hour to investigate and approve the box, before I was allowed to pass it on to her older brother & sister 🙂

Now I hear you wonder: “Didn’t that turn into a messy situation?” That’s what I expected. I was prepared to find rice all over the floor. But I was worried for no reason. The couple of grains that fell out of the box were vacuum cleaned in a matter of seconds.

The educational side of this baby activity:

Baby fine motor skills: Babies get to exercise gripping and holding stuff and coordinating both hands to handle small objects.
Sensory development: This sensory activity provides babies with a rich tactile experience which is great for developing their senses.
Support baby curiosity and desire for investigation due to the different objects mixed and hidden in the rice treasure box.

And you don’t need much tools. Besides the box and the rice, you just add whatever objects you find in your house.

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, babies, Creative play, sensory play | 2 Comments

Make a fun tunnel for kids out of cardboard boxes

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Angela

In one of my last posts I wrote about the cardboard houses we had made. That was a fun activity for the kids! Some days later I recycled the cardboard houses into a bigger cardboard construction for kids: we made a long tunnel.

First I cut a second opening out from Victoria’s and Lukas’s houses to turn them into tunnels. However Victoria insisted to have a door to her tunnel, so we connected back the door-piece with Makedo(great for connecting cardboard). This was easy and fun. I did the punching, and Victoria was busy connecting everything together.

Since a tunnel out of two boxes was not long enough, we added a third box in the middle. And to make it more fun for the kids I stuck 6 stocking pants through the roof of the middle box. The kids love it that they have to make their way through the socks jungle!

That was so fun that Elena also came to investigate our crafts work and to be part of the fun!

For this crafts activity we used:

3 cardboard boxes
6 pairs of stocking pants (you can also use ribbons or scarfs if you don’t have long stockings)
Makedo, a great toy that let’s you connect cardboard box and pieces to each other

If you love doing crafts with cardboard boxes as much as I do, be sure to check out our creative section!

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged Cardboard boxes, crafts for kids, crafts with cardboard, Creative play | Comments Off

Daddy’s big princess is still a cute little girl

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Angela

She is two and a half times as tall and almost 6 times as heavy compared to the day when she pushed herself into this big world. She’s also the oldest of 3, which surely adds to my impression that she’s a big girl.

I have never lived in the same house with a 5-year old before. I have no reference point whatsoever. So when this little princess counts to 10 in 3 languages or she reasons her way out of tough situations, I can only believe she has grown to be a big girl.

Let me explain what I mean. Earlier today she came to me, looked me in the eyes and asked “Daddy, when do babies die?” “Babies normally don’t die,” I answered. “But why not?” (Yes, the famous why question…) “Babies grow bigger, they become parents and then later on grandparents,” I said. “Yes daddy, but the babies, when they are grandparents, when do they die?”

Seriously, heavy questions like this, this must mean that 5-year old princesses are big girls, right?

I even get corrected by my own daughter. Last week they went on a school trip and I happened to know from the teacher that she slept on the way back. Yet surprisingly when I asked her “You slept on the bus?” She answered me “No!” Before I had the chance to react, she continued “I did not sleep ON the bus, I slept IN the bus daddy!!” Showing me a face as ‘you should know better’ …

So what is happening? I always thought raising kids is a journey that lasted 18, 20 years or more. Yet after 5 years I seemed to have travelled much further on this raising kids journey then I could have ever believed before. The knowledge that it might, and probably will, continue at this speed for another 15 years or so is at the same time exciting and very frightening.

But then again, when she is crying tears of joy on the floor as I tickle her or when she cuddles up to me on the couch for a long hug, I can only think of how this princess in my arms is still a little girl. A little girl that still enjoys a fatherly hug or a story read to her at bedtime or who accepts a kiss as the best medicine in the world.

Sighh, she such a big girl, yet so small …

Posted in Parenting | Tagged positive parenting tips | 1 Comment

Create your own playhouse from a cardboard box

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Angela

This is still one of the crafts activities for kids that I have done in 2012, but hadn’t found the time yet to share. I simply took two big cardboard boxes (one for Lukas and one for Victoria), cut out a door and some windows and let the kids decorate it by themselves. Below the result of the house Victoria made from her cardboard box!

She spend most of her time decorating the inside, well I guess that’s what we do in real life also …

Then Elena came for an inspection round and approved the cardboard house 🙂

And so we were ready for play. The house has since served numerous times for pretend play. Most of the times they play cats and the house is their cat house!

For this crafts activity you don’t need much tools:

A large cardboard box
Scissors or a knife
Pencils, paint, markers, … or whatever you’d like to use to decorate the house

What have we learned from this activity:

The crafts part is great to have them exercise their fine motor skills. The decorating part can be done at once or in several intervals
The pretend play part is great to stimulate their imagination
For the parents it’s great that both the crafts as the play parts keep the kids busy for quite a while 🙂

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged Cardboard boxes, coloring and drawing, crafts for kids, crafts with cardboard | 1 Comment

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Angela

We wish you all the best for a creative, playful 2013!

We are still getting accommodated to taking pictures with the new camera we got ourselves for Christmas. Luckily we can count on our kids to fill in the gap with some nice drawings. Below a family portrait from the hands of Victoria (4,5 years) …

Happy New Year from “the Outnumbered Family”!

Posted in Parenting | Tagged positive parenting tips | Comments Off

DIY Felt Christmas Tree for Kids

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Angela

A felt Christmas tree is the perfect answer when you have small kids and few space in the house. This is how I did our felt Christmas tree for kids which was also a great Christmas craft activity for the kids.

Before I get into the details on how to make a felt Christmas tree for kids, allow me to confess: we haven’t had a Christmas tree for years. Up to the point where Victoria’s school teacher asked me curiously whether in my country we don’t celebrate Christmas, because apparently Victoria had shared with the class that we don’t have a Christmas tree at home.

Not having a Christmas Tree seems to be not done, but I am not yet quite ready to invite a piece of forest in my living room. It takes a lot of space, it’s messy and you have to repeat to your kids “Stay away from the tree” a hundred times a day. Luckily lot’s of alternatives circulate out there so i decided that a felt Christmas tree for kids to decorate will be perfect for our family.

What you’ll need to make this felt Christmas tree for kids:

Lots of felt: A large piece of green for the tree and lots of small pieces in different colors for the balls and the star.
Scissors, perforator, tape and chalk.
Different decorating materials such as pearls, threads, glittery paint, glue for fabric …
Some ready cut felt (for the small balls and hearts).

To make the felt Christmas tree for kids, start with a big piece of green felt. To have it symmetrical, I folded it in two, drew the shape of a Christmas tree and cut it out.

Next connect tape to all the corners to fix it to the wall. You can use double sided tape, or improvise the way I did 🙂

Some days before I had already prepared with Victoria loads of felt Christmas balls for our felt Christmas tree for kids.

Now that your felt Christmas tree for kids is standing, invite the kids to help you decorate it. All three of my kids were very enthusiastic about this part!

You don’t need any glue for putting the felt balls on the felt Christmas tree for kids- they stick because of static electricity. So even my smallest, Elena (1 year) was busy putting the balls on the lower part of the felt Christmas tree. As you can see she did a great job!

And so from now on, we will have our own felt Christmas tree for kids in the house.
On top this felt Christmas tree does not take too much space, makes no mess and can be used over and over again!

What have we learned from this activity:

All kids practices their fine motor skills: Victoria(4,5) while decorating the balls, and Lukas(3) and Elena(1) while putting the balls on the felt Christmas tree.
Cooperation and playing together: This is one of the few times so far that Elena could join her older brother an sister in the play.

For alternative easy Christmas crafts for kids, check our toilet rolls Christmas tree and this simple Christmas tree from paper.

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, christmas crafts, craft ideas, crafts for kids, Creative play | 6 Comments

Easy Christmas Crafts for Kids – Make a simple Christmas Tree

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Angela

If you are looking for some easy Christmas crafts for kids, check out this easy to make Christmas tree.

Together with Victoria (4,5 years) I did some easy Christmas crafts in virtually no time. You might remember our previous Christmas tree, but now we went for something easier to do. So we did two easy Christmas crafts that any young toddler can do.

For tour first easy Christmas crafts project, I drew a triangle on a white cardboard, and Victoria cut it out- she handles the scissors quite well, so if you think your toddler is less handy, then you might want to do the cutting of this easy Christmas crafts project for kids.Then we folded the base, to give it stability, and made some extra cuts in the side of the our Christmas tree. Afterwards Victoria used some Christmas decorations and…voila the result! Do you like our easy Christmas crafts for kids project?

For our second Christmas tree, I followed the same process as before with a small modification. Instead of using Christmas decorations Victoria just used washi tape to finalize her easy Christmas crafts for kids project.

And then she experienced some more with different colors and models … This is an easy Christmas crafts project for kids that is helping them practice their fin motor skills.

I hope you are as convinced as I am that this is an easy Christmas crafts project for kids. It takes about 10 minutes to do one paper Christmas tree, and some hours to play with ;-).

What we used for this easy Christmas crafts for kids:

A piece of cardboard
Scissors and pencil
Washi tape
Christmas decoration

Check out also other easy Christmas crafts for kids.

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged christmas crafts, craft ideas, crafts for kids | 2 Comments