creative jewish mom

Make Doodle Coloring Pages From Connect The Dots

Ya see, I told you to expect some doodling around here! Once you add some doodling to your life you may even find it quite useful! Last night as I was preparing dinner, my daughter was copying the designs on my doodle envelopes, but this turned out to be too challenging for my sons 6 and 8, so I quickly found them a connect the dots book for a little quiet fun. Okay, now what? Go over their outline with a black pen, add some doodles and give it back to them to fill in with color! That's called thinking on your feet thanks to doodling!

Classic Parachute Birthday Party Favor Fun

Remember these? I saw some of these classic parachute man birthday party favors at Target on our last trip to the US and snagged a package because I always loved them! And any toy that uses the wind as opposed to batteries is a winner in my book! My kids had fun this morning dropping their parachutes into the breeze and running down two or three flights to collect them. A good way to expend some energy and a fun little toy to have on hand when the little ones are in need of a fun activity.

And of course, I was thinking that one could really make some of these using say plastic animals or any figurines. All you need to do is cut a dinner plate size circle from a piece of heavy garbage bag type plastic, pierce four evenly spaced holes in the circle at the perimeter, and using kite string, tie pieces of string through each hole and then around the shoulder of your figure. Tie two pieces to each shoulder and voila, it should work, though I can't say my kids were terribly excited about trying this one ourselves, so let me know if you do!

Fun Birthday Party Games

For my daughter's birthday party back in July I thought it would be fun to come up with some birthday party games no one had every heard of. After a bit of a search I came up with three games that seemed like they had good potential. The results? Two out of three were 100% hits and the third was good but a bit too challenging for this crowd.

Birthday Party Balloon Tower Game:

Divide children into two teams. Give each team around forty or fifty balloons and a roll of packing tape. The team that builds the highest balloon tower using only the balloons and tape wins. The game was off to a great start, but the girls didn't quite have the structural knowledge to figure out how to make a tower out of balloons and tape that will stand up! Definitely a great game for architects, engineers and handy types, but didn't quite go so well with nine year old girls. Maybe throwing a few more elements into the mix, like some cardboard tubes might help. Let me know if you try it! It might even be fun as an interesting activity for kids!

Birthday Party Cotton Ball Game:

Two children compete against each other for a race against time. The idea is to see who can be the first one to move the cotton balls from the bowl on their head (held by someone) to the bowl on their lap, using a spoon and while blindfolded. For the bowl on the head I used a microwave dish cover since the deeper bowls seemed a bit too difficult. And for the bowl on the lap, a large plastic mixing bowl. The game is challenging because it is difficult to tell whether you've actually scooped up cotton balls. There were lots of squeals and cheering, and the game was a great success.

Birthday Party Chocolate Bar Game

The children all sit in a circle and take turns rolling a die. The first one to get a six runs to a basket of dress-up clothes, quickly puts on something funny (a hat and a scarf, etc.) and runs to a small table and begins trying to eat a bar of chocolate with a knife and fork. In the mean time, the children start rolling the die again, and the first chocolate eater is replaced by the next child that rolls a six. The girls were shy to start gulping down the chocolate, so many just started cutting up the whole bar before eating. I think we went through three chocolate bars with a group of 15 girls, and I had some extra bars on hand to give chocolate to those who didn't get to eat any during the course of the game. Oh, and I put the bars in the freezer to make it just a bit more difficult! This game was lots of fun and funny too with the dress-up element.

Have any great birthday party game ideas? Please let us know in the comments!

Tie Dyed Tissue Paper

Here's a great craft activity that you're gonna love! Large sheets of tissue paper are folded into little triangles, the corners are dipped into full strength food coloring and voila! All you need besides these basic supplies is just a little patience, and you can make some gorgeous tie dyed papers to use as gift wrap or for other craft projects.

And, actually after we tried this project, we had some bowls of food coloring left over, which is how yesterday's crystal ice castle with salt idea was born! Two fun projects to do in one day!

I first saw this project on Land of Nod's new blog here, and their results are beautiful! You might also like to check out the original tutorial here, for some slightly different results, and for instructions on how to fold the paper to obtain the pattern that you see here.

Three tips that you might want to consider: don't use sheets that are too large or the dye will not saturate the whole sheet, secondly, you really don't need the rubber bands, and thirdly, open only partly while wet or the paper will most likely tear. Enjoy!

Science Experiment For Kids: Ice and Kosher Salt Sculptures

Here's a fun and simple science experiment for kids that's artful, cool (literally) and requires only some very basic supplies. And the results are downright gorgeous, or at least intriguing, depending on the colors one uses! Infact, I hesitate to call this a simple science experiment for kids, since anyone of any age who appreciates colors and the beauty of ice crystals will certainly enjoy this one! I was inspired by a post over on The Artful Parent, where an ice block made in a milk carton is used, but I decided to make a smaller castle like shape by filling the bottom half of a recycled plastic bottle with water. Ours melted leaving lovely holes on the inside, and it really looked like a crystal palace of sorts!

You'll Need:

• kosher salt (use can mix in some regular salt too, but I think the large salt crystals are more beautiful)
• food coloring or liquid water colors
• a block of ice, we made ours in the bottom portion of recycled plastic bottles
• a plate or preferable a deep tray to catch all the liquid as it melts
• an eye dropper (optional)

How To:

Cut open plastic bottle to release ice and place on plate with the bottom flower-like side up. Dump salt crystals onto the top of the ice and then with an eye dropper start placing drops of color on top. We didn't have an eye dropper, so we actually used tiny shot glasses to just pour the color over our block of ice which worked too, but it's preferable to do this in smaller quantities to at least prolong the activitity a bit!

As the ice melted we looked closed at how the salt was melting the ice and discussed how in some cold areas of the world, salt is often used on the streets during the winter to melt ice. And that's it! Enjoy. This could be a nice project to do with a group of kids at a summer get together, and come back tomorrow for another great project that you can do at the same time to use up your little pots of food coloring!

 

Coloring Salt With Chalk: Jerusalem Scene For Tisha B'Av

Crafting with colored salt that you can make yourself is so much fun, especially for kids who are more process oriented than expressive. While home-made colored salt poured in layers into recycled jars is certainly pretty, and there are lots of oohs and ahhs as the layers are built, I wanted to give more meaning to this project. So I decided that the layers of sand could most certainly represent the rolling hills of Jerusalem, right? Or they could also represent the hills of sand in the Judean dessert just outside of Jerusalem.

We finished off this project by sketching rows of houses onto our jars to remember Jerusalem, in preparation for the solemn holiday of Tisha B'Av, coming up next week. A dessert scene with palm trees and camels and a procession of travelers on their way to Jerusalem would be great too!

You'll Need:

• table salt
• colored chalk
• plates
• a funnel (or something that one can use as funnel)
• white glue
• a permanent black marker
• recycled jars

How To: Pour salt onto plates and color the salt with chalk by drawing on the plate. After you've colored several colors, start pouring layers of colored salt into your jars. Dont forget to use plain white salt too! When you've filled up the jar, pour a layer of white glue on top in order to prevent the sand from moving, once the glue had dried. Set aside to dry overnight, and if desired, sketch Jerusalem or dessert scenes on your jars, and display.

And if you'd like to teach your kids about the significance of Jerusalem, and the Holy Jewish Temple, the Beis HaMikdash, (that is blatantly absent from so many history books, but certainly represented on google), now is the time! 

Vacation Crafts- Nature Crafts With Rosebuds

Here's another super simple vacation or any time craft, courtesy of my eight year old daughter! I'll have to admit, I was eyeing the plate of rose petals that my mother had put aside to add to her "organic" recycling bin, as they were just so lovely. And sure enough, when I got up the next morning, my daughter had already figured out that with just a stapler and some rose petals and leaves, one can make some beautiful artful roses! So my friends, add a stapler and some staples to your traveling craft kit and let the kids go to town stapling leaves and petals, either to paper or just to themselves, and sit back and watch what they come up with! And on the afternoon just before the holiday of Shavuos when many children love to decorate the house with leaves and flowers collected in nearby fields (if you are fortunate to have some....) well, a stapler might just come in handy this year!

Vacation Crafts- Rubber Band Balls

Rubber band balls are great vacation crafts since they're not messy, require very few supplies and could even be made in the car! Plus rubber band balls double as a science experiment of sorts, and could be a fun gift to leave behind if you're visiting friends or family. I would love a bowl of these on my desk! And funny enough the merchandisers over at Target seem to agree with me, as after we made ours I saw some very neat looking ones for sale in their office supply section! But I'd say go for the homemade kind, especially if your brothers had paper routes and there are still bags of rubber bands hanging around your mom's house!

You'll Need:

• a small ball of some kind, or even a very tight ball made from a wad of newspaper
• rubber bands in a nice assortment of colors
• a sense of humor for when the kids realize that rubber bands are great for shooting too!

Enjoy!

Vacation Crafts....Fun With Sidewalk Chalk

What are vacation crafts exactly? My definition of vacation crafts would be crafts or activities that are easy to transport, require minimal setup and can be enjoyed by a range of ages without adult supervision, such that the adults can catch up with the relatives they're visiting, or have a little bit of down time themselves. With summer vacation just around the corner for many, now is a great time to start planning some fun summer craft acitivities for the kids, and I think that sidewalk chalk is a great one! (Though do check with those you may be visiting to make sure it's okay with them.)

And while the kids are out there in their pyjamas and the sun is overhead, (which in case you're paying attention means that it's at least noon and they're still in their pyjamas?) so why not have some fun with silhouettes? And come to think of it, it would also be fun to trace shadows with chalk for the starting point of a fun sidewalk chalk activity, don't you think?

A Simple Pipe Cleaner Craft: Tic Tac Toe!

A super simple pipe cleaner craft that's also a game. No explanation required right? Pipe cleaners are one of those simple craft supplies that one should always have on hand, as there are really so many great uses for them! In the past I have posted about pipe cleaner birthday crowns, and pipe cleaner sculptures, as well as pipe cleaner and pom pom critters! And now, you can even stash some in your purse and make a quick tic tac toe game when the need arises!

And of course, you can make some extras to use for scoring or tallying just about any game. I do think this would be a great way to teach a young child this classic game, don't you?