Snail Mail Love for Little Ones Part 1

Having to deal with Covid-19 in the beginning was really rough. We have a daughter who was in pre-school and a son in high school. They both had a hard time adjusting to doing online classes and not being able to see their friends. It was the rainy part of the year for Washington so we weren’t able to do a lot of outdoor playing in the beginning. We had to find activities to do indoors.

One of the activities we were able to do with our daughter to keep her occupied was sending out mail to our friends and family. She was also able to send a few out to her classmates since they couldn’t see each other in person and she was also able to send a few to some residents of the assistant living home where my mother-in-law resides.

We made different types of cards and letters to send out. It also allowed her practice writing her name and basic greeting words. This is such a great activity to do together. We still do this during the summer months but on a smaller scale because we get to spend more time outdoors now. I hope this is an activity that will inspire her to continue writing mail as she’s growing up.

She loves walking to the mailbox to place her cards in and put the flag up. She also absolutely loves going to mailbox to find mail addressed to her.

Here are a few of the mail we worked on. She’s quite the artist and loves crafting so this was right up her alley.

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She painted coloring pages and addressed them and signed them. When folded up in to quarters it fits nicely into a 4 3/8″ x 5 3/4″ envelope. The coloring books in the ad below are our favorite for painting with watercolors because the pages are really thick. The pictures are very simple and big which makes it much easier for little ones to paint.

          

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My college aged son and his girlfriend also drew some pictures for our daughter to paint. They used thick watercolor paper and a black sharpie to draw the pictures. The papers were cut with a trimmer to 4″ x 5 1/4″. We later glued the painted pictures to colored cardstock that were cut to 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ and folded in half. We love using the watercolor papers below because of it’s thickness.

We later used the supplies and the same process to make other greeting cards. We made some for Easter, a few simple “Hi!” and “Hello!” ones, and we also let our daughter use her creative side to create drawings and paintings of her own. The cards were well received and she got a great response from family and friends.

What are some of the indoor activities you did to help keep yourself or your children busy during the beginning of lock down?

Textures – Toddler Activity Project Fail

I often browse through Pinterest looking for various activities to keep our toddler occupied throughout the day. As I find ideas, I think to myself, “I can do this. I can go to the dollar store and find items to come up with a project of my own.”

A short visit to the Dollar Tree near us and low and behold, I found two great items to create a quiet project to keep our toddler occupied… or so I thought.

A small storage container with compartments and a bag of colorful pom poms = color sorting activity. I hot glued a piece of pom pom to the bottom of each compartment and added a few more pom poms of the matching color to each. I thought it would be a success.

This sorting activity has been our nemesis the past few days. The wonderful itty bitty pieces of colorful fuzz seemed to multiply and explode onto our carpet each day.  They have become awesome pretend food.  We finally gave up trying to teach our toddler and decided to just join in the fun and pretend to eat the little colorful pieces of pretend pie, tea, cake or whatever our daughter cooks up.

I hope maybe someone can at least use this as an idea for a project of their own. I do have to admit, the pom poms have been a great, quiet tool and quite a hit at keeping my daughter occupied for long periods of time. I think the textures and the colors are what appeal to her. Perhaps someday she’ll want to actually sort them or maybe I’ll find another learning project to create with these fun, mini, fuzzy spheres. In the meantime, we’ll just enjoy the happiness they bring to our little girl.

Painting Time

One of the things on our Family Summer Check-List was to paint a canvas and paint a few rocks to hide in our local parks. My son and I were finally able to sit down and get some painting done. He’s still working on his canvas but here is my final product.

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I followed the step-by-step instructions from the following Youtube.com video. Great tutorial! I didn’t have have the same paints and tools but I used what I had. I’m quite happy with how it turned out considering.

Our community has a rock painting group. Lots of great artists (professional and amateur) participate. Painted rocks can be hidden in various parks for others to find. The lucky persons can either keep the rocks for their own garden or re-hide them for others to find. This is such a fun thing to do with kids. Tomorrow we will be hiding the following rocks that my son and I have painted at a nearby city park.

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Does your community have any fun art things that you and your family can participate in?