Tag: funforkids

Scary Face Pancakes Are Back at iHop!

It was a night a lot like the night of Oct. 29, the last time it happened. Something strange came over our pancakes. The toppings sprung to life, rearranging themselves. Candy corn curved into evil eyebrows, whipped cream twisted into a devilish smile. The transformation had begun! Oh no, what’s that?! It can’t be, it’s happening again, they’re aliiiiive!

Scary Face Pancakes are back and kids 12 and under get one for freeee on October 29th from 7am to 10pm! Create your own this Halloween Season!

Halloween Riddles for Kids

Well, we are almost half way through October so I’m guessing you are thinking about Halloween. Do you decorate your house for Halloween? Do you dress up and go trick or treating? Do you have a Halloween party? It seems like Halloween is more popular than ever if you look at all the Halloween items for sale in the stores. I’ll try to add some Halloween ideas here on the blog to help get you in Halloween Mode! Let’s start off with some Halloween riddles for kids! 🙂

#1.) Why do ghosts never lie?

Answer: Because you can see right through them!

#2.) What kind of music do mummies like?

Answer: Wrap music!

#3.) What do you call a skeleton who sleeps all day?

Answer: Lazybones!

#4.) What fruit does Dracula like?

Answer: Neck-tarines!

#5.) What musical instrument do skeletons play?

Answer: A trom-bone!

#6.) What kind of pants do ghosts wear?

Answer: BOO jeans!

#7.) How do you fix a broken jack-o-lantern?

Answer: With a pumpkin patch!

#8.) How are vampires like false teeth?

Answer: They both come out at night!

#9.) What do you call a ghost that gets too close to a fire?

Answer: A toasty ghosty!

#10.) When is it bad luck to see a black cat?

Answer: When you are a mouse!

Haha! I hope these Halloween riddles made you giggle! 🙂

Be an Explorer Like Christopher Columbus

Happy Columbus Day! How many times have you heard the saying, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”? 😉 I know, I know…now there is a lot of disagreement about what Christopher Columbus did or didn’t do, but one thing I think we can safely say is he was an explorer. So to celebrate Columbus Day today, let’s help the kids become explorers!

The first thing an explorer needs is a cool hat, right? 😉 I’m going to show you how to make a cool explorer’s hat out of paper. I am using a piece of construction paper so you can see more clearly how to make it, but you might want to use something bigger like newspaper. Just depends on how big the person’s head is that you are making it for.

To start, I got a piece of green construction paper.

Here’s how to make your hat. Fold it in half the long way.

Open it back up.

Now fold it in half the other way.

Leaving the paper folded, fold in one top corner of the paper to the middle line so it looks like a triangle.

Now do the same thing on the other side.

Fold one side of the paper’s straight edge up so the fold is at the bottom of the triangles.

Turn the paper over.

And fold the other side up the same way.

Your hat is done! Pull it open at the bottom folded edge.

This little guy was happy to be a model for your new explorer’s hat. 🙂

As I already mentioned, you can use different sizes of paper to make different sizes of hats. Here is the one I made with construction paper, one made with a single sheet of newspaper and one made with a full sheet of newspaper.

For the full sheet of newspaper size, you might need to let your triangles not meet in the middle so that you still have paper left over to fold the edges up.

Barbie and Ken thought it would be fun to be explorers too!

What else does an explorer need to go exploring? Maybe a spyglass? Let’s make one of those too! All you need is an empty paper towel or toilet paper roll, a piece of paper and markers or crayons.

Cover the tube with the construction paper if it has a lot of glue marks on it like this one does. Use glue or tape to hold it in place. (I used tape because it doesn’t need drying time.)

Let your kids decorate their spyglass with markers or crayons.

You are now ready to be an explorer!! What does an explorer do? Well, they put their explorer hats on and walk around the house or outside and they look through their spyglass to see what they can spy! They use their imagination to discover a new land. Be careful because you never know what kind of strange animals you might find!

Also watch out for things like carpet that might have quicksand or lava! You might need to jump from rug to rug in order to not get sucked in! 😉 I hope your new hat and spyglass will make exploring a ton of fun!

Science Experiment With a Balloon

Hello again! Gather around, all you budding scientist! Let’s do a fun experiment today. It’s an experiment that has been around for a long time, but is always fun to show to kids. You’ll need the following items: some vinegar, some baking soda, an empty water bottle, a balloon and a funnel.

The idea of this experiment is to show that you can blow up a balloon by making a chemical reaction. No blowing involved! 😉 Begin by filling the empty water bottle about 1/3 of the way up with the vinegar.

Insert the end of the funnel into the opening of the balloon. You might need to stretch the balloon a bit to get it on.

Put 2-3 spoonsful of baking soda in the funnel and shake it down into the balloon.

When you are finished with that step, remove the balloon from the funnel.

This next step is important. Stretch the opening of the balloon over the opening of the water bottle, BUT make sure to keep the balloon hanging down so that none of the baking soda falls into the bottle! Look at the next picture to help you understand what I mean.

Pull the balloon down over the bottle opening so it is completely sealed by the balloon. After you are sure the balloon is on the bottle, slowly pour the baking soda in the balloon into the bottle. It will begin to fizz – this is the chemical reaction! Your balloon will start to inflate!

As the reaction in the bottle continues to take place, your balloon will grow bigger.

And bigger!

And BIGGER! As you can see, I was afraid to let go of the balloon on the bottle! LOL I could just imagine it coming off and flying all over my kitchen and dining room!

So why did the chemical reaction happen? Well, the baking soda is a base and the vinegar is an acid. When they are combined, the reaction gives off a gas called carbon dioxide. That’s what inflated your balloon. 🙂 After most of the fizzing reaction was over, I did get brave enough to let go of the balloon finally. 😉

I hope you have fun trying this experiment! Congratulations on being a scientist today! 🙂

Fun Pencil and Paper Games

Are you looking for an entertaining game to play with a group but you don’t have many supplies handy? All you need for these crazy drawing games is some paper and pencils. Give each participant a sheet of blank paper and a pencil. Let the fun begin!

For the first game one person gives out the directions for what to draw. The funny part is that everyone is given the same directions, but all the pictures look differently. These are the directions we used:

1.) Draw a tiny oval body.

2.) Add a giant head.

3.) Draw 2 short legs and 2 arms.

4.) Draw 2 little eyes and a mouth.

5.) Add 2 ears.

6.) Add a long tail.

Pretty simple, right? Now look at the 9 different pictures we ended up with:

We all had a good laugh when sharing our pictures. 🙂 I think you can easily find the one with the longest tail! Haha!

For our second game, each person thought of something simple to draw. It can be anything you want, but you will be drawing it 4 times so you probably want to make it fairly easy to repeat. For the first drawing, everyone draws with their dominant hand. In other words, whichever hand you write with is your dominant hand.

Drawing #2 is drawn using your non-dominant hand. If you are right handed, this one you draw with your left hand. You can compare the first picture with the second picture to see if you can notice any differences.

For the 3rd drawing, draw the same picture as before using your dominant hand again, BUT draw it with your eyes CLOSED! No peeking allowed! 😉 You can see that it was hard to keep things lined up!

For the last drawing, you must place your piece of paper on the bottom side of the table. Yes, under the table! Again, no peeking! Hopefully you can each find a smooth spot on the bottom side of the table to draw on. Look how crazy these pictures turned out!

Pretty funny! You can probably think of more goofy ways to draw if you want to make the game last longer. Like putting the pencil between your toes or placing your paper on the top of your head. You’ll all have a good laugh when you share your pictures with each other. 🙂 Have fun and happy drawing!

A Beautiful Place to Vacation

Sorry for fewer posts this week but we had the nicest family vacation in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. If you’ve never been there, you should definitely add it to your bucket list. We love the beaches!

There is so much to do and see that a week is barely enough time to scratch the surface. Like fishing…even though we didn’t catch anything big enough to keep.

Some people caught things they wished they hadn’t caught!

There are lighthouses to see.

Sand to play in…sand turtles to make.

Footprints to leave behind…even if only for a few seconds before they are washed out to the ocean.

An aquarium to visit…

And you must beware of shark attacks in the local gift shops! 😉

We had some stormy weather during our week but still had some beautiful relaxing days to spend with some of our family. The time always goes by so quickly and then it’s time to go home. But we love our time spent in the OBX! 🥰

Fun Things to Do at the Beach

Going to the beach is always so much fun! (If you like sun, sand and water, of course!) But sometimes the kids get “bored” while the adults would still like to have some time to relax. Here are a few suggestions to keep everyone enjoying your day away.

Look for wildlife in the area. They can be quite entertaining. 🙂 Birds…

Depending on what type of beach you go to, you might be able to find some little crabs.

And you can make a nice little bunker for a crab. Haha!

Of course, building sand castles is always fun.

Depending on where you are, fishing might be permitted.

Drawing in the sand is another option. We had some creative artists. 😉

And there is always burying yourself in the sand. Lol

And collecting treasures of pretty shells and stones.

It can be fun seeing what other people catch while fishing. 😳😱

And watching the moon rise in the evening can be a great way to end a wonderful day at the beach. ☺️

Wacky Wednesday Tongue Twisters

We haven’t done any tongue twisters for a while, so let’s try some today. Wiggle your tongues around to get them loosened up and here we GO!!

Trying saying each of these 5 times fast. 🙂

1.) Mixed biscuits

2.) Pirates Private Property

3.) An ape hates grape cakes.

4.) Willy’s real rear wheel. (Oh my, this one is hard!)

5.) A happy hippo hopped and hiccupped.

Wow! Some of those I had trouble saying right just ONE time! Haha! I hope you have fun trying to say these! And be sure to try them out on your family and friends! 🙂

Welcome to Arm & Hammer Recess!

I received an interesting email today that I thought you might also enjoy. It came from Arm & Hammer, as in Arm & Hammer baking soda.

Hey Parents! Join ARM & HAMMER Recess - Fun for your kids. A Break for you.

Here’s the little blip about Arm & Hammer Recess that you’ll see on their website:

“Looking for clever ways to engage kids AND teach them something new? (Bonus points for low effort, low cost, and fun!) Discover a whole world of Baking Soda-inspired crafts, experiments, and recipes to try with your family. Great for after school, rainy days, or weekends, each activity is kid-friendly and the perfect inspo to get little creators thinking in fun new ways.”

Their website looks like it has a TON of fun things to do so if you’d like to check it out, here’s the website address:

https://www.armandhammer.com/recess

Have fun! 🙂