Daily Idea #185: Monster Hands

Have you ever worn a thick pair of gloves and then tried to zip a zipper or pick up a small item off the floor? It seems impossible! For today’s daily idea we are going to make this into a challenge and see how many every day things we can do with “monster hands”.

You’ll need at least one thick pair of gloves or mittens (If each person has their own everyone can work on the tasks at the same time). Have each person try to do various every tasks: zip a zipper, get a tissue from a tissue box, pick up a fork, a spoon, or a chopstick, put on socks, tie shoelaces— let us know any other ideas you came up with to try and complete with your monster hands!

Daily Idea #184: Marshmallow Toss

My kids love marshmallows, store bought, homemade, whatever. We roast marshmallows with the fire from the stove since we usually don’t have a campfire, we make marshmallows, and we usually have to hide the marshmallows because the bag would be gone in a day if they were out where every could see.

Today’s daily idea is capitalizing on this, however, and we are bringing out the mallows! All you need is either mini marshmallows or regular sized marshmallows and plastic cups. Set up the cups so the hole is faced upward. Arrange them in a flat pyramid.

Stand at least 2 feet away at have each of your kids toss their marshmallows trying to make it into the cups. Each cup can be worth a different amount of points and whomever gets the most points wins!

Daily Idea #183: Crazy Dress Up

We don’t celebrate Halloween, but we do love dressing up and since Saturday is Halloween, I thought we’d use that excuse to get dressed up today but with a twist.

For today’s daily idea, I am giving my kids a person/character for them to get creative and dress up as. For example, if I tell them they should dress like a pirate, I want them to go into their own closets and get creative. Using their own clothes and toys for props, they will have to then do their best to dress like a pirate. If I ask them to dress like a doctor, they will then have to use their own clothing and toys to dress like a doctor. They may not use actual costumes to complete their look. Go through as many rounds as you would like dressing up in as many ways as you can think.

Daily Idea #182: Lego Fall Challenge

We have recently become obsessed with Legos in our house. I always thought that once you built the Lego set that you had purchased, there was no use for the Lego after that. Not my kids. They have built and taken apart their legos so often that I am surprised the pieces haven’t worn down!

So, for today’s daily idea we are using Legos for a fall building challenge. Each child will get the same amount, sizes, and colors of Legos (20 pieces of varying sizes and mostly orange, brown, black, green, and white). We will have many rounds of 2-5 min each where they are set to a task of building a different shape with their pieces (a pumpkin, a leaf, a ghost, a skeleton, a spider, a monster, a witch’s hat…). Whomever uses the least amount of pieces for their object in each round wins. The caveat is that the rest of the players have to be able to understand and see what the object was that each player was supposed to be creating.

Daily Idea #181: 20 Questions

20 Questions is a huge favorite in our house because we can play it anywhere and at any time. We usually stick to a category so it doesn’t take hours to figure out of what the person is thinking. For example, we’ll say, “Disney characters”. Each person then has to think of a character from a Disney movie. We all pose yes or no questions to one person until we can figure out about which character they had been thinking. We then move on to the next person. When everyone’s character has been guessed we pick a new category and go again.

Daily Idea #180: Make Your Own Rainbow

Yesterday we put our celery stalks in 6 jars with water colored the various colors of the rainbow to watch as overnight the veins in the celery turned the color of the water. Today we are taking our prime colors and creating a rainbow.

Items needed:

6 small plastic or glass cups (I’m going to use the mason jars from yesterday and see how well it works)

6 strips of paper towel

3 primary colors of food dye (Red, Yellow, Blue)

Water

What to do:

Arrange your cups in a circle and fill the first, third, and 5th cups with water. Add some red food dye to the first cup, yellow food dye to the third cup, and blue food dye to the fifth cup (if you are using the drops, about 5 drops should be enough. If you are using the gel, just make sure it’s mixed thoroughly). Take each sheet of paper towel and fold it in half length wise. Then fold in half again lengthwise. Trim the paper towel so that not too much excess stands up over the cups. Place one half of the paper towel into the first cup and the other half in the second. Place the next one in the second and third cup. Then again in the third and the fourth cups. Another in the fourth and fifth. Again, in the fifth and sixth and finally, loop the sixth and first together with the last paper towel. Then watch as the water travels up the paper towel and travels to the cups to create the rainbow.

If your children are old enough, have them record their observations.

Daily Idea #179: Rainbow Celery

I don’t usually use food in our experiments but this is my one exception. In honor of this week’s Torah Parsha, Noah (Old Testament Bible chapter), we are making a rainbow with food coloring and celery.

Items Needed:

5 stalks of celery (with the leaves still attached at the top)

5 jars or glasses

water

food coloring

Start by filling each jar halfway with water. Then mix in some drops of food coloring with each jar (if you have the food coloring pack with only primary colors you can have your child make orange, green, and purple by mixing the correct primary colors— red and yellow for orange, blue and yellow for green, and blue and red for purple). Place each celery stalk in the different jars and let them sit overnight.

Tomorrow morning, have your child observe what they see. If they are old enough, they can write a few sentences about what happened. If they cannot write yet, have them draw a picture with their observations.

Daily Idea #178: Carve a Pumpkin

I have to mentally prepare myself for this one because I hate getting messy/dirty, but I know my kids love it. So, for today’s daily idea we are getting small pumpkins, setting up a messy station, and carving pumpkins.

I’m getting the small/medium sized pumpkins (one for each of us— yes, even I am going to get my hands in the pumpkin). I am setting up a table outside with wipes and large spoons. And we’ll even be trying to save the seeds from the pumpkin to roast them, although I will have to look up how to do that.

With a sharp knife, I’ll cut a hole around the stem large enough for my hand to fit inside each pumpkin. The kids will then be in charge of getting out the guts with their spoons and shoveling them into a container (like I said, I want to try and roast the seeds later);if you don’t want to keep the insides, just toss them into a bag and throw them out.

Once their pumpkins are mainly cleaned out, have them draw a face or a design on the pumpkin. Carefully cut out the designs and you have yourself a carved pumpkin!

Some tips I learned in researching pumpkin carving:

1) The pumpkin will only last about a week once it’s carved.

2) If you want to try to prolong the life of the carved pumpkin use a 50:50 water to white vinegar mix and rinse the inside of the pumpkin once all the guts are out.

3) Choosing a pumpkin with a flat bottom is best.

4) You can cut the hole in the pumpkin on the bottom if you want to leave the stem intact.

Daily Idea #177: Paper Pumpkins

Paper mosaics and tissue paper crafts are always a hit in our house. They take time to either rip up the paper or to crumble the tissue paper bits and then there’s the gluing. The kids love it, I love it: It’s a win-win.

For today’s daily idea, we are going to use the paper mosaic idea to make some fall pumpkins. All you need is some orange, black, and green construction paper, glue, and a sharpie or a thick pen.

With the sharpie, make an outline of a pumpkin on a plain piece of paper— it doesn’t matter if it is a perfect pumpkin, a rough outline is all you need but the bigger the pumpkin the better. Have your child begin to rip up the various colors of construction paper. When they are ready, have them to glue their scraps of paper on and inside the pumpkin outline. You can use the green for the stem and some vines (and if you want to take this one step further, red, orange, and yellow construction paper bits make great fall leaves under the pumpkin).

Daily Idea #176: Scrap Paper Drop

We’ve done the penny drop but we haven’t tried the scrap paper drop yet and this one looks like it will keep the kids entertained for quite a bit. The goal is to drop a small piece of scrap paper (or a bigger piece for younger kids) and to have your child catch the paper before it hits the ground. If that seems easy, try dropping the paper from higher up or make the scrap paper smaller or even use tissue paper.

Super easy, super simple, super fun!

Daily Idea #175: Draw What You See

Today we are taking a quiet morning to be creative. I want to see what my children see, so I am giving them paper and pencil and I am asking them to draw what they see. You can have them do this from their bed, at the table, outside, wherever they want to sit and look around and just take in their surroundings. Once their drawings are finished, have them tell you about what they saw and any thoughts they had that they want to share.

My only rule for this is that they must do this activity for 20 minutes. They don’t need to draw for the whole time, but they do need to sit and try.

Daily Idea #174: Wall Sits

This daily idea is so easy and requires literally no prep, it amazes me that I didn’t have this as an earlier daily idea (it may be that I had blocked out this particular activity because we had to do it every volleyball practice).

Wall sits are exactly what they sound like. Find an empty area of wall and stand in front of it with your back to the wall. Slowly lower yourself like you are sitting in a chair where the wall is the back of the chair. Your knees should be at about a 90 degree angle to the floor and your back will be pushed up against the wall.

Now, the challenge is to see who can “sit” the longest! We had a member of our volleyball team that used to tell us stories while we were “sitting” and the goal was to make it to the end of the story. When our coach would interrupt and ask questions to make the story longer, it just made the thing that much harder! Start with having each child tell a short story and then start asking them questions as the stories progress.

Daily Idea #174: Peep Jousting

My friends and I, growing up, would almost always have peeps in their house around Halloween time. We never actually ate them but we had so much fun putting them in the microwave and watching them expand. For today’s daily idea, I am taking this experiment a step further; Peep jousting! Thanks to the Jersey Momma for this super fun activity.

Get yourself a pack of Peeps of different colors and toothpicks. Have the kids make a chart of the various colors to keep track of which color wins the most rounds. To set up the joust, take two different colored peeps and place them on a microwave safe plate, facing each other, with a tooth pick poked into the front of each peep. Place them far enough away from each other so that they are not touching, but close enough so that they will touch when they expand in the microwave.

With adult supervision, place them in the microwave for no more than 45 seconds (you probably won’t need all that time). The winner is the the Peep whose toothpick pokes the other Peep first. Once a winner is declared, take them out of the microwave and discard. Keep track of the color who wins each round and declare the victor when you run out of Peeps.

Daily Idea #173: Paper Football

We used to play with a paper football ALL the time in class! I have been trying to find a good way to explain how to create said football and found this link which has the best explanations and short videos for a step by step tutorial. Once you have made the paper football, you are ready for the game.

Here are the rules:

Each player takes turns flicking the football across the table to try to get it to stop partway over the edge of the table. You score a touchdown every time this is achieved. If the football goes all the way over the edge of the table, you get a “kick off”. Place the paper football on your palm and hit your fingers on the underside edge of the table to launch it while the other player holds their fore fingers and thumbs in a “U” shape (or in the shape of a goal). If you score a touchdown, you also get to try for a field goal.

Daily Idea #172: My End is Your Beginning

Today’s daily idea is a brain teaser and can be adjusted to fit most ages. The idea is to say a word and have the next person say a word that begins with the last letter of the word just said— for example, if I say my name— Kelila, the next person has to say a word that begins with an A. The person who can’t think of a word that starts with the ending of the previous word is out and a new round is started. You can continue until only one person remains or set a word at the beginning or the game and each time a person is out they get a letter of that word. When they get out enough times that the word is finished, the game is over.

To make it more challenging for older kids you can have them stick to a category, like cities, countries, breakfast items, etc…

Daily Idea #171: Human Wheelbarrow

We’ve had a lot of time at home without electronics because of the Jewish Holidays and my kids have been pretty great about playing board games, card games, getting outside for bits of time, but the one thing that they can’t seem to figure out is teamwork. Even with the games, after a round or two someone usually ends the game by claiming the other cheated or that they got bored. So for today’s daily idea we are working together in pairs and we are working on taking turns.

Each person is going to be a human wheelbarrow. That means the “wheelbarrow” will start by laying on the ground on their belly. The other person will hold the ankles of the person laying down while the “wheelbarrow” uses their arms (either all the way up on their hands or on their forearms) as the way to move. Place something light, like a pillow or a stuffed animal, on the back of the wheelbarrow and work together to make it across a room or down a hallway without the object falling off. Take turns being the wheelbarrow and moving your light object from one place to another.

Daily Idea #170: Future Fairy Tales

Today, since I’ll be in the kitchen for most of the day (that’s what happens when you leave all the cooking to one day), my kids will be on their own to keep themselves entertained. Of course, I’ll be here if they need anything but thankfully they know I am not their source of entertainment when the TV or the iPads are off.

So for today’s daily idea, they will be thinking of their favorite fairy tale (Cinderella, Snow White, Peter Pan, etc…) and imagining what the characters’ lives are like in the future after the story happens. For my kids who can’t write, they will be able to create as much of the story as possible verbally and retell it to me or act it out with their siblings. For my oldest, she can write down whatever she comes up with or whatever she and her siblings come up with together.

I can’t wait to see where these stories go!

Daily Idea #169: Don’t Use the Legos

We’ve really been having outside of the box fun with our Legos recently thanks to a book I picked up with Lego game ideas. Our favorite one so far is to build an object using the least amount of Legos.

For example: whomever is playing has to build a giraffe. Everyone builds their giraffe (it must be recognizable as a giraffe to everyone else when finished). Whomever uses the least amount of bricks is the winner of that round.

Daily Idea #168: Vertical Bowling

A few weeks ago we bowled with socks down our hallway. It was traditional bowling where the cups (as pins) were laid out in the 10 pin form. Today we going vertical and playing more of a carnival game bowling.

Stack at least 5 cups in a pyramid on a cleared off section of the kitchen or dining table or at the end of a hallway. If you really want to go for the carnival feel, have the kids pick out a few toys that be “prizes” for the day. If the person knocks over all the cups in one shot, they get to pick a prize. They can then keep that prize for the day and must return said prize to the owner the next day. Use a balled up pair of socks to knock over the pyramid. Have fun!

Daily Idea #167: Floss

Last year doing the floss was all the rage. I don’t consider myself a great dancer, but I can move and I never understood how the floss move worked. My 9 year old can floss so fast that it looks like her hips and arms aren’t attached to her body!

So, for today’s daily idea we are challenging ourselves to teach someone (or learn in my case) how to floss! I found this really cute video from Jack Hartmann on YouTube that helps a bit. Sounds simple: it’s not. Sounds a little ridiculous: it’s TOTALLY ridiculous and hysterical.

Enjoy!