Before you know it, the kids will be home for winter break.  Sure, the first few days they’ll be happy playing with toys and just hanging out, but what happens when they get bored?  How will you help the kids avoid cabin fever this winter?

How to Avoid Cabin Fever in Kids

Plan an indoor camp-out with the kids, complete with s’mores!

Have a few jingle bells on hand?  Build this cute indoor obstacle course with a Christmas twist!

Use a ball of yarn to weave your own spider web maze for the kids to crawl under and through.  (Older kids will love creating their own web!)

Make craft stick catapults and see how far you can fling mini-marshmallows or paper wads.

Grab the recycling box and check out the junk drawer to make your own invention box!  (The kids may just learn something in the process!)

Raid the sock drawers and have an indoor snowball fight that will leave them giggling.

Make snow!  This simple taste-safe cloud dough looks like snow, without freezing little fingers.

How about a STEM activity?  Can your kids build a plastic cup pyramid without touching the cups?

Science is always a hit with kids!  There are tons of winter science experiments kids can try using ingredients you probably already have at home.

Break out the board games, or even better, let older kids design their own board game for the family to play.  (Check out these great math games and sneak in a little learning, too!)

Gather up your “treasure,” hide it, and send the kids on a scavenger hunt to find it.

Challenge your kids to make Styrofoam structures.

Turn on the tunes and have a dance party!

Try your hands at straw weaving and make colorful bracelets to wear.

Grab a stack of sheets/blankets and build a blanket fort.

Have a bunch of large boxes left from the holidays?  Make a cardboard box castle or fort.

Host your very own candy cane hunt.

Hand the kids some dry-erase markers and let them decorate the windows.  (This is always a hit here!)

Kids love science.  Make fizzing snow for tons of fun indoors or out.

Pop some popcorn, grab a blanket, and snuggle up to watch the movie of your kid’s choice.

Still looking for ways to avoid cabin fever this winter?

• Find over 30 awesome STEM activities in my ebook Up.
• Try out a few Christmas crafts and activities to do together.
• Get out the Nerf guns for math fact practice.

The post Ways to Avoid Cabin Fever over Winter Break first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

“Mom, I’m bored.”

These are words moms dread hearing over and over during summer vacation.

When it’s too hot to run around at the park, and you don’t want to spend a bunch of money, what do you do?

Go bowling!

Thanks to a wonderful program called Kids Bowl Free, your kids can bowl 2 free games every day all summer long.  That’s a lot of bowling!

This summer I decided my 2 preschoolers were ready for the challenge, so I signed them up for the program.  Did I mention it was free?  (I love that!)

So I loaded them up in the car and we headed off to check it out.

It has been a while since I’ve bowled.  Things sure have changed!

The lady at the desk was super helpful.  Pretty soon our lane was outfitted with bumpers and 8 pound bowling balls.  Once we were decked out in our bowling shoes (just $2 to rent), we were set to give it a go.

Little Peanut went first.  She gave that ball a mighty shove… 

Can you tell she was proud of knocking down the pins?

After rolling the balls down a few times, the kids decided to try the ramp.

Yes, I said ramp.  Who would have thought that they would have a ramp for preschoolers to roll the ball down?   I mean, how neat is that?  It makes bowling easy and fun for the whole family!

And you know what?

I found out my youngest is a bowling natural!  In his first game, the four-year old got 4 spares and the only strike between us!

The whole place was full of moms with kids bowling — so great to see!

We will definitely be bowling a lot this summer… After all, I have to redeem myself!

The four year-old beat me!

See that?  He got 97 to my 93…  And that was with me keeping the bumpers on when I bowled!

Want to bowl with your kids?  If you plan to bowl more than a couple times, save money and get the family pass, which is good for up to 4 adults, for just $24.95.  Remember, kids are free all summer long as long as you sign them up!

And, if you are looking for more free (or almost free) summer activities, check out my Free Summer Fun post.

As mentioned previously, this is a sponsored post on behalf of Kids Bowl Free.  I received a family pass in exchange for writing this post.  All opinions are 100% my own. 

The post Kids Bowl Free! first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

My daughter is a climber.

She always has been, ever since she started walking.  It was one reason I became a multitasking mom when nursing her brother.  I’ve even shared a picture or two of her climbing the door frames.

Once she started climbing her dresser (which IS fastened to the wall) and jumping from it, I KNEW we had to find her something she was ALLOWED to climb indoors.  (After all, we do have climbing stuff outside, but the weather doesn’t always cooperate with her climbing instincts.)

I started daydreaming about one of those climbing walls.  I’ve heard of people making them on walls in their basement, or even in the garage.

But I wasn’t sure we were ready to commit to that.

Then, with the help of a few Pinterest ideas, we came up with a plan.  A stand-alone climbing wall that can be moved when needed, with two sides to climb on, put together a little like an A-Frame house.

A trip to the hardware store and an Amazon order for handholds, and my husband got to work.

I wish I had a picture of how I decided where to put handholds.  I literally held up each kid and asked them to pretend to climb the wall.  While holding them against the wall, I marked spots with a permanent marker.  While I was getting worn out, they were having a blast and kept asking to “do it one more time!”

Once it was finished, our daughter was itching to get climbing right away…Our son wasn’t sure at first.

But once he realized it wasn’t a full-sized wall, he had to give it a try.

We finally got them off the wall long enough to move it into the downstairs play area.

Do you have a climber in your house?

For all my FB fans, don’t forget to enter the felt doll giveaway!

The post Climbing Wall Fun first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

We have enjoyed playing with shaving cream at the kitchen table for a long time now.   It’s good, messy fun that is easy to clean up.  Plus, I have to say the kitchen table is always a lot cleaner afterwards!

For some reason I have never let them play with it in the tub.

Until now.

The other day they were grumbling with each other, and my oldest decided she was going to get a bath.

The next thing I knew, the youngest was peeling off his clothes, too.  (He can’t resist when he hears the water running in the tub!)

And big sister was furious!  “I don’t want you in here!”

Shaving cream to the rescue!

I put a couple drops of food coloring in two different containers and then added shaving cream and told them to get mixing with their fingers.  They were super excited by the colored shaving cream, and started painting the walls immediately.

Peanut had fun drawing shapes and practicing letters, while Monkey covered the walls and then drew a variety of cars.

And since it was in the tub, clean up was a breeze!

Oh, and I did I mention how clean the tub was once they wiped it down with a washcloth?

Love it when cleaning can be fun!

Shared on these great sites.

The post Preschooler Fun in the Tub first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Like so many little boys his age, Monkey has a fondness for trains.  (Okay, that’s an understatement; he’s obsessed with anything with wheels!)  So when Uncle D. invited us to the train show, we couldn’t resist.

There were the usual venders, trying to sell trains, track, and other miniature parts for train sets.  There were also tons of trains set up for us to watch.

One we kept coming back to was this large set up on the floor, where they could get really, really close.  Of course, most of the trains were up on tables; after all, adults aren’t as comfy watching trains on the cement floor.   Not wanting to hog the kids all to myself, I let Uncle D. have a few turns helping them see the trains. 

It is amazing what detail they put into these displays!  There were farms complete with lots of itty-bitty cattle, bridges over babbling brooks, and burning buildings with all the emergency vehicles ready to help. We even spotted the Batmobile and Superman (coming out of a phone booth, no less) in one of them!

Oh, and, to the joy of many small ones there, Thomas was seen in a few displays as well.

Monkey picked out a new train for his set at home, while my energetic little girl opted to try her hand at the pedal trains.

Overall they both had lots of fun at the train show, and they were both worn out by the end!  (It was almost as much fun as the dollhouse show we went to last year….)

Have you taken the kids to see trains set up anywhere?

Today is the last day to enter our Sibu Beauty Giveaway…  Good luck!

The post Choo-Choo! Time for the Train Show first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

If you read my post on the Most Loved Monster book activities, you might recall that I was planning to give each of the kids a heart with a brief “I love you because…” message every day through Valentine’s Day.

They have loved getting their special hearts every morning and have been displaying them for all to see.  (My son loved the one that said, “I love you because you like fishing with Papaw.”)

I’m thinking it may just become a Valentine’s tradition for our family.

***

Looking for a fun Valentine’s Day craft of activity to share with your own Valentines this week?

Here are some of our favorites:

• Heart Animals
• Chocolate Kiss Mice
• Valentine’s Sun Catcher
• Heart Creatures
• Love Bugs
• Driving over Hearts

As always, have fun crafting with the kids!

The post Valentine’s Day Crafts first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.