Sorry dudes! I don’t want to mislead you and have you think I know the best travel shoes for you, I have a good idea of what they are, but I definitely know the best travel shoes for women. I’m not going to overwhelm you with a huge list. These are my all-time favorite travel shoes and of course, they’re more style suggestions than anything. You don’t have to get the exact brands and colors to make them a great shoe, but here’s what I’ve worn around the world. I’ve only walked on six continents though so who knows, there could be one I’m missing. Continue reading …
Want to see more hiking and camping posts? Click here. You can find all of our Colorado-based adventures here. And you can find all of our escapes within Rocky Mountain National Park here.
If you’ve been following along on Instagram, we spent a quick 36 hours in Rocky Mountain National Park last weekend. On Saturday we took an ambitious hike – click through to see more photos and details.
We are big fans of curating Easter baskets that are fun and educational. For example, last year the boys went bonkers for their bug-themed baskets.
This year we are deep into all things letters and numbers. Admittedly, these theme doesn’t sound that exciting, but as you’ll see below, there are a few basket-worthy items that would serve the dual purpose of being fun/enjoyable while being educational.
jenga-type game, but with numbered blocks! I know that the boys will love these for a variety of reasons. They just learned Jenga and will be excited to play. We can use the numbers and dice for a variation on the game – for example, deciding which block to remove by rolling the dice. The boys can also using the blocks to work on putting the numbers in order, doing simple math, etc.
alphabet & number magnets : I went with this pack because it had two sets of lower-case letters, one set of upper-case, and two sets of numbers. Plenty of material for spelling and doing math problems at the fridge.
7 ate 9 : a super cute mystery based on that groaner of a joke that cracks my kids up.
Today I feel… an Alphabet of Feelings : It’s the perfect 1-2 punch of going through the alphabet while putting words to the wide variety of emotions they may feel.
At the beginning of the year, I encouraged our readers to “make with me“. In that post I shared a few of the many benefits that you may get from picking up a hobby, and I gave you a few simple suggestions for how to turn your hobby into a regular habit (that’s good for you!).
If you follow our Instagram feed or have been a long-time reader, it’s no surprise that my primary hobby is knitting. I always have a project (or ten) in the works. While I don’t need the encouragement to knit more, I’m taking this resolution as a nudge to share more of my projects, in their many phases, on the blog. And if you’d like to find me on Ravelry, my username is winterfoliage.
Have you ever used potato stamps before? The idea is super simple : carve a shape into the smooth side of a cut potato, dip it in paint, and print it on paper!
Today we created a simple project inspired by Swimmy, a book written and illustrated by Leo Lionni.
Swimmy & Lionni
Lionni is said to be the first children’s illustrator to use collage as his main medium. In this book, the illustrations are printed. And, on many of the pages, you can see that the same stamps are used over and over again, as in these examples with the fish.
Swimmy’s story is relatively simple. He stands out from his school of fish, but sadly one day they are all eaten (except him!). He ventures out into the ocean and sees many wonderful sites. Eventually he finds another school of fish, and this time he teaches his new family a way to work together and protect themselves.
If you’ve never read it before, we’ve included a video of the story above. But really, there’s nothing better than reading aloud to your kids, and it’s nice to have the book on hand to discuss the artwork and how to use a couple of stamps to make a complex image, so we suggest picking up a copy from your favorite bookstore or the library.
You’ll see that we focused our work on the pages of Swimmy and his school of fish. But there are many beautiful illustrations in the book that you could recreate (my other favorite is the seaweed printed using doilies).
Potato Stamp 411
I prefer keeping projects simple, because I often believe that that helps little kiddos create beautiful artwork without too many complications, confusing steps, or accidental blunders (like mixing all of the colors and just getting brown!). In an effort to keep this project simple, we used just two stamps and two colors, EXCEPT at the last moment when we added a black Swimmy to our pieces.
start the project by cutting out two stamps : a fish and a wave. This obviously requires an adult to use the knife.
set up two printing areas : I like to use a clean sponge with paint poured on top. You can pat the stamp onto the paint area to get a thin and even layer of paint on the stamp.
start stamping!
The nice thing about using Swimmy as inspiration for these projects is that the kiddos can stamp a school of fish going in any direction. As you can see in the original work, fish are swimming up, down, and all around.
And as you can see from our pile of work above, stamping takes a bit of practice. At first the boys wanted to stamp and slide the potatoes. Similar to how they would slide a paintbrush across the paper. It took a little bit of help and some practice to get them comfortable with stamping and lifting the stamp straight up.
This is a great project for making a book “come alive” for the kids. Imitating art found in books is a great way to expose kids to different techniques. It encourages them to start questioning how different pieces of art are made and gives them the tools to start making their own original pieces!
Teachable Moments is an ongoing series where we share simple ideas for exciting and encouraging learning anytime and everywhere. You can see previous posts here.
Today we’re popping in with a super simple science activity : flower dissections!
Flowers aren’t often the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions a dissection (maybe you’re thinking about that frog or shark from high school biology?). Read on to see why we think flowers are the perfect specimen for preschool dissections.
Today we’re sharing some of our favorite games for preschoolers. I’m on a mission to start family or family+friends game nights in our house. It hasn’t happened yet, mainly because I’m (almost) all talk and no game (hah!). I haven’t invited anyone over, and I haven’t opened an adult game box in years. But behind the scenes, I’m cultivating a few young game-lovers and am slowly building my game-night momentum.
With a 4yo and 2yo in the house, we’re still slightly new to the kids’ game section. Fortunately, I think we’ve already found some great ones. Sometimes we play in the evenings as a family, and I love the together time. But the mom in me also loves that playing games can be used to reinforce other skills that they’re learning. Read on to see what I’m talking about.
This guide contains a few games that we’ve played and liked. If you’re looking for a last-minute gift for a 3-5 yo, I really don’t think you can go wrong with anything on our list. A few are card games, making them perfect stocking stuffers.
I want to introduce you to our semi-permanent weaving tree.
We have a fairly large “backyard”. It doesn’t have grass, and it’s fairly steep in parts. But while it lacks a traditional yard, it comes with a whole lot of adventure.
This is part of our ongoing Cooking with Kids series, because bringing them into the kitchen creates bonding moments, opportunities to learn, and plenty of messes! And ginger is our ingredient of the season this fall. You can find more ginger recipes here, but if you want another dessert recommendation, skip right ahead to these chewy ginger cookies.
A few weeks ago, we woke up to our first snow of the season. If that wasn’t special enough, I thought that it was worth fully celebrating the day, and any celebration worth its salt requires a cake. That was the humble beginning of our “First Snow Cake”.
The base of our cake is a delicious ginger cake and it’s topped with a healthy layer of powered sugar snow. It’s a simple cake that’s easy to bake on a whim and should definitely be incorporated into your next snow day. The recipe and more thoughts on celebrating the everyday below. *I’m thinking that next year the cake has to be baked in this pan.
Cooking with Kids is an ongoing series where we share recipes that are easy enough to make with a two-year-old. If you’re new to the series, our first post that provides our detailed tips for cooking with little ones.
We’re so excited about today’s chia pudding because it’s a delicious dessert that’s amazingly healthy thanks to the chia seeds. This is also a dish that a little chef can put together *almost* entirely on their own! Why almost? There is a pesky can opener involved, and that can slow down even the most ambitious 4 year old.
There are so many benefits to letting your kids help in the kitchen, from the basics of learning to count and measure, to the more advanced following of instructions. You’ll also delight in seeing them take pride in their work and their ability to do something for others – how excited will they be to serve this pudding to everyone else in the family?! And finally, for some kids, this recipe may introduce new tastes; there’s the strong coconut flavor with a hint of cinnamon, and there’s the unique texture of the saturated chia seeds.
Read on to learn more about chia seeds and our simple recipe for chia pudding!
