Ok, that title sounds rather crazy, doesn’t it? Well, it just might be! Lol I saw this idea in a magazine a while back, but we just tried it out today. The most important thing I can tell you about this activity is…#1.) Do it outside and #2.) Put swimming suits on the kids first! Ok, now that we have that out of the way, here’s how it works:
Grab a dishpan, some little washable toys and a can of shaving cream.
Put a little shaving cream in the bottom of the dishpan, then add some of the toys.
Add more shaving cream, then more toys until all the toys have been added. Make sure to end up with shaving cream on the top.
Now comes the part where you go outside! Have your water hose handy! Haha! Tell the kids how many toys are in the tub and let them go digging for them. (This will be the shortest time of the whole activity!) 😉 Let them wash the toys off with the hose.
The next part is where it can get a little crazy so it’s your call just how far you let this proceed. Kids and shaving cream just kinda automatically lead to shaving cream finding its way to a lot of other places besides the dishpan.
Haha! If we had thought of the swim suits earlier, we could have just hosed them down when they were done playing. 😉 But that’s part of summer fun, right? Making messes outside and playing in the water when you’re done! A special thanks to this sweet, tolerant mama for letting her kids try my crazy ideas! I hope you’ll give this a try! Your kids will be glad you did! 🙂
Happy Monday, everyone! It’s only 2 days until St. Patrick’s Day! Do you celebrate at your house? If you’re looking for another fun activity to do, here’s one I posted last year that’s simple and yet brings a lot of fun to your kids. It’s all about searching for hidden shamrocks and getting a prize from the end of the rainbow. Here’s a link to the fun!
Easter is this coming Sunday, April 12th! Have you made your plans? Things will be different this year, won’t they? Lots of events have been canceled due to the Coronavirus pandemic but you can still have Easter fun even if you are stuck at home or stuck inside! Let me tell you what we did a couple years ago for Easter and maybe you can tweak it a bit to fit your situation. I was staying with our daughter and her hubby and kids while my hubby was gone on a business trip to China. It was cold and even snowing that week so I made up an Easter Egg Treasure Hunt for the kids. I started out with 96 plastic colored eggs and a 100 piece puzzle. I put the puzzle together, slid it carefully off the table onto a cookie sheet, put another cookie sheet on top of the puzzle so I could turn it over, then slid it back onto the table. I grabbed a pen and wrote the following rhyme on the back:
“Good job! You did it!
You stuck it out!
So now let’s see what
This hunt is about!
Could there be diamonds?
Or a brand new car?
Alas, no – we DO love you
But we can’t go THAT far!
So hidden close to where
I now reside
You’ll find the box
That holds your surprise!”
I then broke the puzzle up and put 1 piece of the puzzle in each plastic colored Easter egg. Four eggs needed to have 2 pieces inside in order to make the puzzle pieces fit in the number of eggs I had. I then hid the eggs around the inside of the house. When it came time to have the Easter egg hunt, the kids were off to find them in a hurry!
After they searched for eggs, they gathered together to count the eggs and make sure they had found all of them.
Once we made sure they had all the eggs, they took them to the dining room table and opened them and removed all the puzzle pieces. Then the whole family gathered around to work on putting the puzzle together.
When the puzzle was finished, they used the cookie sheet method again to turn the puzzle over so they could read the back and see what to do next. The part of the rhyme that says “So hidden close to where I now reside…” referred to the bedroom that I was staying in while I was visiting their family. The race was on once they deduced where the box with the surprise might be! They found it beside my bed. Inside the box was a new Tangle puzzle and a small Nerf gun for each kiddo, wrapped in tissue paper. They each got 6 “bullets”. In the bottom of the box was a piece of folded paper that read “Read this after opening gifts.” This message said…
“Oh, hey, wait! You’re not done yet!
There’s still another prize to get!
To reach your prize you must take out
Any bad guys hanging about.
But you must be careful with your aim
Because a wrong shot will end the game.
Teamwork is what you will need
To finish this task with all due speed.
3 minutes to shoot all the bad
But not 1 good guy can be had.
20 bad guys must go down
In order for you to reach the crown!”
There was a room set up with lots of small pieces of paper with stickers on them. 20 pieces of paper had dinosaurs on them which were the “bad guys”. And there were 20 pieces of paper that had puppy and kitty stickers on them which, of course, were the “good guys”. The pieces of paper were folded in half so they would stand up. The idea was for the kids to shoot and knock over all the dinosaurs within 3 minutes, but none of the puppies and kitties could be hit. If they knocked over a puppy or kitty, then they had to start all over with all the papers being set up again.
After the kids “shot” all the dinosaurs, they reached their prize – a new book for each one. I got too involved and forgot to take many pictures but here are some from after they finished their treasure hunt. This one is Grandma (me) trying to shoot a “bullet” through the Tangle puzzle hoop. Ha! (Grimacing always helps your aim…lol)
We had fun with our Easter Egg Treasure Hunt! I hope you can take the ideas that we used and tweak it to have a fun Easter at your house too! 🙂
Still need something fun to do for St. Patrick’s Day? Here’s a super quick idea that can still bring plenty of smiles! You’ll need some green paper and a “prize” for each child that will be participating in this game. Start by drawing some shamrocks or clover shapes onto the green paper. I happen to have a cookie cutter shaped like a four-leaf clover so I placed it on the green paper and traced around it with a pencil. You will need as many shamrocks as there are children.
Cut out each shamrock.
Write a message on each shamrock. I wrote “It’s Your Lucky Day!”
Make sure you have 1 shamrock for each child. I made 4 for this example.
Turn the shamrocks over and write a number on the back of each one, starting at 1 and going up.
Make the same number of little squares of paper and number them with the same numbers so that there is a square with the matching number that is on each shamrock. Get your “prizes” together and tape 1 numbered square to each prize. A prize can be a small toy, a new book, some candy or a special cup of snacks, just for a few suggestions. Have your prizes in a place where they can’t be seen by the children. Hide the shamrocks but leave a tiny bit of green visible. Gather the kids in the same place and turn them loose to hunt for the shamrocks. If you like, you can make up a story about a mischievous leprechaun that visited your house and left behind shamrocks for them to find. The kids must search for the shamrocks in order to find the treasure from the end of the rainbow that the leprechaun brought them. Or make up a story of your own. 🙂 When all the shamrocks have been found, the kids should bring them to you and you can give them the prize that has the number taped to it that matches the shamrock they found.
This should be a fun little treasure hunt for kids of all ages. 🙂 Have fun and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The Kids Niche 