Monday Meanderings - Joke Day

In honor of today being National Joke Day, I looked for some good jokes for kids to pull on friends and parents, and some that we can even pull on the kids.

Have some good, clean fun today!

Love to Know has some great practical jokes listed. I love the "Trapped in a Toilet Paper" prank. That would be very funny.

Kidz World has a listing of jokes that will not get kids in too much trouble when they give them a try. The most "harmless" one is colored milk.

I found another page of jokes on Love to Know that has some more great jokes. I might try the suds fun joke myself!

These practical jokes should be a great start to prank your kids and family. Have a great day and remember to laugh enough. Also remember that kids like for people to laugh at their jokes, so encourage your kids with a deep belly laugh when they tell you jokes or attempt to prank you.

Family Science Night - Volcanoes

Before we get to the good stuff (namely the actual volcanic eruption) lets learn some facts about volcanoes and impress the kids.

• There are approximately 1,510 "active" volcanoes in the world. Scientist currently know of about 80 volcanoes that are under the ocean.
• A volcano is a land form (usually a mountain) that opens downward to a pool of magma (molten rock) below the surface of the earth. It is a hole in the Earth from which lava (molten rock) and gas erupts.
• Magma is liquid rock that is inside of a volcano.
• Lava is liquid rock (magma) that flows out of a volcano. Fresh lava ranges from 1,300° to 2,200° F and glows red hot to white hot as it flows.
• The Earth's surface is made up of huge plates called slabs. These slabs sometimes move. When they move one plate is pushed below another plate and magma is pushed up between the two plates.
• Somewhere around the world there are approximately 20 volcanoes erupting as you read this. The majority of these eruptions are happening under the ocean and geologists may not even know about them.
• There are a total of 103 volcanoes in the United States. The breakdown is: Alaska (34), Arizona (8), California (9), Hawaii (10), Idaho (2), New Mexico (8), Oregon (21), South Dakota (1), Utah (2) Washington (6), and Wyoming (2).

Now on to the fun part, building your volcano!

Supplies:
A container to build in and to catch the "lava".
A disposable cup
Aluminum Foil
Dough ( we got our color by mixing together all of the red, blue, green and yellow doughs)

We used a mold for making stepping stones to build our volcano in but you can use a pie pan or a cake pan or any other container that you have handy. Put the cup in the middle of the container and then put a wadded up ring of foil around the cup. Next take sheets of foil and lay them over your cup, folding then into the inside of the cup by about half an inch. The rest of the foil will be molded around the wadded foil ring. Do this all the way around the cup.

Next you will take your dough and make it nice and pliable. I made mine into flat sheets and laid it over the foil form, lapping it into the inside of the cup again by about half an inch. Do this all the way around your volcano, covering all of the foil form. We let our volcano sit for a few hours before we proceeded onto the eruption, just to let the dough dry out a little bit. We used cheap dough and it was very sticky! This would also be a good time to put in some little plastic trees, animals or people if you wanted also. We did not do this as we did not have any cheap accessories that were available.

Now to make the eruption!
Supplies:
Baking soda (about 2-3 tablespoons per eruption)
Red food coloring
Vinegar (1/4 to 1/2 cup per eruption)

Put the baking soda in the cup (volcano). Mix the vinegar and the red food coloring in a separate container. Once it is a good color, pour it into the cup and then step back and wait for the eruption.

Pouring in the "lava" (vinegar & food coloring)

The eruption continues.

It begins to subside

The after picture.

A Healthy Family

Kid's Activity Pyramid

There are many things we can do to keep our family healthy. One of the easiest things to do is to just go outside and play. You can play games of tag, hide and seek, kickball, throw a ball, red light/green light or Simon Says. Regardless of the age of your children, you can play a game out side with them.

The youngest kids will understand Simon Says and red light/green light, the older kids will enjoy badminton volleyball, basketball or just tossing a ball around. It does not take a lot of forethought to do these activities and not only will it improve your health and the health of your child but it will also improve the relationship you have with your kids. If you do not already have some of the games that requires equipment, now is the time to purchase it. Stores are marking everything down to super clearance in preparation for fall and winter so summer items have to go. There is still plenty of time for you to use these activities outside though.

Another great thing you can do is a 5K walk or run with the whole family. Pick a local charity and participate in their event. Not only do you get to exercise but you can teach your child about philanthropy by collecting donations. Here in Lexington we can refer to a local shoe store's race calendar, John's Race Calendar. If you look at this calendar you will see that there is at least one race every weekend that is within a short distance of our town. I bet your town is the same way.

If you do not want to do a 5K, you could always put together a race for your family and a group of friends. It would be easy to go to a local track and perform your race. Before arriving, pick a few events or distances. You could have the Dads compete, the Moms compete and the kids compete. The winners of each event would receive a small award like a trophy or a medal. Be sure you have plenty of water and sports drinks on hand along with some oranges, apples and bananas to keep everyone healthy. If you do not have access to a local track, do an obstacle course at the local playground.

If you want it to be a longer lasting activity, buy pedometers for the whole family then pick a destination. From Lexington, maybe I would pick Kings Island in Ohio. When I go to Mapquest I see that it is about 115 miles. When I looked around online I discovered that 2,000 steps is about equal to 1 mile so we would have to walk 230,000 steps to get to King's Island. You could do a graph for each family member that you log the steps to every night. You can compete to see who gets to Kings Island first. It does not have to end with you actually going to the amusement park but it would be fun to then go to the place you are "walking" to.

There are lots of great ways to keep healthy and to teach your children how important it is to use their body every day. Maybe just playing in the backyard with Mom and Dad will teach the kids to love their bodies and to take great care of their bodies.

Wordless Wednesday - Bounce

Somedays you have to get in from the heat.

Learning our Colors - A felt board game (2)

Here is another felt board game that I made for my son. Once again, I just purchase the cheap craft felt that is 5 sheets for $1. I trace all of my patterns and then I cut them all out.

We put them up one fish at a time and do a different recital of Brown Bear, Brown Bear. My son puts up the first fish and I say "Purple fish, purple fish, what do you see? I see a WHITE fish looking at me." Then my son takes the white fish and puts it on the board. We continue through all of our fish colors and when we have the last fish up (in this case he will be yellow) I say "Yellow fish, yellow fish what do you see?" and my son is supposed to recite all of the colors back to me. He is not quite there yet so I assist him when needed, but he does try hard! As you can see, I have 11 fish cut out currently but we never use more than 4 right now. I do not want him to get frustrated. As he gets better at the game, we will pull out more fish to play with.

He loves this even more than he loves the original Brown Bear book, which is no small feat since I have read that book enough to recite it word for word.

I have also included a pattern for cutting out the fish shapes. Hope you enjoy this game as much as we do.

Fish Pattern

Monday Meanderings - Lunchtime

In Fayette County, the public schools are back in session this week so I am doing another post on healthy lunches.

This first link is Obento Baby. Most of the meals are for smaller children. My favorite thing about bento lunches is that there is a variety of items in the boxes so the kids (or adults) are getting a good variety of colors and tastes. I mean, seriously anyone can eat one carrot. Right?

Next up is Maisie Eats Bento. This is a great blog for ideas for lunch and snack bentos. There are fresh takes on old classics that kids love.

Healthy Lunch Idea epitomizes exactly what I am going for. A healthy alternative to the processed foods that schools serve. This is not just geared towards kids though, adults need to eat healthy also.

I hope you will take the time to explore these links and to talk to your child about making healthy choices. When you get the school menu, sit down and go over it with the kids and talk about the healthy choices on there. It is fine to eat an occasional treat but kids need vitamins and minerals to make it through a long day at school.