Preschool Fun!

I love my job as a nanny! I also love that I get to use my elementary education degree! I have no desire to pursue a teaching job for many reasons...I won't bore you with all that now.  The kiddo and I do lots of fun and sometimes educational activities when he is not at preschool.  I love coming up with new ideas or just stealing some from Pinterest.  Here are some recent activities we have done.

Snacky Snowman

You will need:

• construction paper
• glue
• all the snacks! (marshmallows, cereal, pretzels, colorful candy, chocolate chips, coconut...)

I drew an outline for the snowman.  Then just let him get creative! Marshmellows are great for the snowman, but you could use almost anything.  Cheerios, chocolate chips, M&Ms...Who says it has to be a white snowman!? A snowman made out of Skittles would be pretty cool :)

Ta Da! Mine is the pink one and kiddo's is blue.  He had a lot of fun with it.  And of course we ate the extra snacks afterwards.

Mini Books

You will need:

• construction paper
• scissors
• glue
• markers
• old magazines
• stickers 

This is pretty self explanatory.  We made these little books when the kids had a snow day.  I brought a bunch of old magazines and found some fun stickers.  We each picked a topic for our book and got to work.  We just folded the construction paper to make a mini book and held it together with some yarn.  Staples would work but our stapler was empty. These were really fun and kept everyone busy for about 2 hours!
  

 Color Bingo

You will need:

• blank bingo sheet
• colorful candy (M&Ms, skittles...)

This might be kiddos new favorite game.  You can easily make your own bingo sheet or print one from here.  Just fill in the spaces with whatever colors of candy you use.  We had a bag of Valentine's Day M&Ms so we got to add pink and white!  Fruit Loops would be good makers too.  Anything that gives you different color options.  

We didn't play this like traditional bingo.  Kiddo had to fill up the whole board before he won!  We played two different ways.  First, I called out a color and he had to put a candy on every space with that color.  Then, he picked a random candy and then had to find that color on the board.  It is very helpful if you make sure you have the right number and color of candies so when the board is filled, the candies are gone.  After playing a few rounds the prize is all the candy :)

Colorful Foam

You will need:

• shaving cream
• food coloring
• corn starch
• bowl

I have mentioned before how much kiddo loves science.  He loves mixing things together and making "potions".  This mixture doesn't do anything too crazy or scientific, but it is fun to play with and makes a nice big mess!

Mix together equal parts corn starch and shaving cream.  Get those hands messy! 

It makes a pretty cool substance.  Kind of like really soft clay. We played with this for a while before adding some color.

He loves mixing colors and seeing it change.  Of course he wanted to add all the colors.

He called this "poop" color.  Once we added all the food coloring, the mixture got pretty watery so we couldn't play with it anymore.  It was fun getting a little messy.  The whole house smelled like shaving cream for hours!

So, that's what we have been up to lately.  I don't know about you, but I am ready for Spring!! I cannot wait to get back to the park and pool :)

Got a Bunch of Boxes?!

I don't usually complain about the weather...too much... But some days it is just TOO cold! So cold you don't feel like leaving the warm house. But when you work as a nanny, it can be tough to entertain a little one all day in the house. Sure, we color, paint, watch some tv, etc. That gets pretty old after a while. Today we decided to get a little creative. We didn't want to leave the house to go buy anything, so we worked with what we had. That happened to be lots of boxes.  Dad had invested in three space heaters for the next few frigid days!

We got to work with the boxes. The family recently got two kittens so we decided to build them some little houses!

Add some electric green duct tape and you got a prettty sweet kitty castle!

Kiddo desperatly wants a puppy so the next creation was a puppy house. I don't think kitty got the memo.

This killed about 2 hours and I think I might have had more fun than the kiddo... Overall I think the kitties had the most fun!

I don't know about you but as a kid I was always thrilled when my parents got a new appliance or something that came in a big box! We built space ships, cars, castles, the possibilities were endless!! 

What is the best thing you built out of a box??

Treasure Hunt

With all this cold weather and school cancellations lately, I am trying to come up with some fun indoor activities with the kiddos! At -10 degrees, snowball fights and sled riding are not the best choices. I don't want to be the nanny that had a kid lose a toe due to frostbite!

Anywho... I decided to set up a little treasure hunt. I wrote out about 10 clues and hid them around the house.

Just be sure to make a little cheat sheet so you know where all the clues go after you write them. Notice I numbered each card to be sure the hunt would be successful! 

Coming up with hiding places is fun. In the freezer...

In the oven...

Next to all the bunny crackers in the snack cupboard...

Also, I make one clue down in the basement, then one up stairs, back down, up two flights of stairs...Gotta make the kid work for it!

Then put the treasure in the last spot. Nothing too fancy, but I know kiddo will be excited.

Then I ever so casually tell the kiddo I found a clue with his name on it. We are both baffled?! I suggest we follow the clue. He quickly agrees!

"There is a clue with the ice cream!!"

He is looking so hard!! This one took him a little while to find. 

We were getting a workout running around the house. He got more excited with each clue he found. The whole time he kept asking who could have done this?!? Elves?? Minions?? Daddy?? A spy?? All good guesses kiddo!

A wet clue in the bath tub. 

Ha, love this picture! He is really searching hard for that treasure.

Yaaay! And then the treasure is devoured! While watching some Curious George of course :)

Kid legit has NO idea who did it all! Happy hunting :)