Thursday, August 1, 2024
Oh, Summer! We love you so!
Please slow down!!!
Laurie would love to thank everyone for the many wonderful birthday wishes!
She got to spend most of the day and evening
watching Little D and Little P while her daughter and her husband
attended a wedding.
The 20 something Laurie would have never understood
how this was a fun way to spend a Friday night (and birthday)!!!
HOWEVER
to Grammy Laurie it was the BEST possible way to spend this special day!
And now… Laurie is ready to dive deep with a GRAND post
filled with, what else, SUMMER FUN!
Read on for her ideas - 3 activities your Littles will simply love!
A few weeks before I began working on ideas for this post,
I taught Vacation Bible School at our church where this year’s theme was
SCUBA!
The activities and songs got my creative juices flowing!
Then the day before I was set to put some of my ideas into action,
I took Little D to a local children's theater where we saw the play Finding Nemo, Jr!.
Little D was so intrigued by the many things she saw in the play!
We were all set!
Ready to explore and create with a day planned of GRAND adventures!!
Here is an art project that uses a unique medium for its canvas!
Materials Needed
• bubblewrap
• paint
• paintbrushes
• scissors
• paper
• markers (for decorating your art work)
A GRAND Tip!
Always save your bubblewrap from packages you receive!.
Even if you are not using it for an art project,
young Littles love to walk and crawl on it,
and older Littles love to POP it!
Directions
1. Draw and cut out a fish shape on the flat side of the bubblewrap. We were able to get two fish out of our piece of bubble wrap.
2. Use paint to paint the “bubble” side. (I encouraged Little D to paint the fish many different colors, but she insisted she wanted an orange and white fish like Nemo!)
You will probably need to help hold the fish steady
while your Little is painting.
3. Flip the bubble wrap over and gently push it down on your paper.
4. Peel the bubble wrap fish off the paper.
5. When the paint has dried, use markers to create more details on your underwater scene!
An Additional Challenge!
When I was teaching we would make these fish prints with a REAL fish (of course, a dead one)! I would buy one at the meat counter and students would work in pairs with my paraprofessional, painting and printing with it. The best was that the eye of the fish would print! I wish I had pictures for you!
This fine motor activity provides an added bonus…
It teaches Littles about compassion for sea creatures!
Ocean animals can often get trapped in fishing nets
that were not meant for them.
In this activity your Little will build muscle strength while freeing the animals from the nets
by untwisting the pipe cleaners around them!
Materials Needed
• plastic or small stuffed ocean animals
• pipe cleaners
Directions
1. Wrap pipe cleaners around your ocean animals. These will be the nets.
A GRAND Tip!
Adapt this activity to the age of your Little!
Your youngest Littles will find success with one or two pipe cleaner nets.
Older Littles will be appropriately challenged with as many as five or six!
2. Encourage your child to free the animals from the nets by untwisting the pipe cleaners around them.
You could also use seashells and call the activity “Shelling on the Beach”.
A while ago I shared another fine motor activity where I wrapped small plastic animals in Play Doh. Little D would dig in the dough and pull out each animal. You could repeat this activity using small sea creatures or smaller shells you have found!
Three-year-olds love to run so when Little D asked to “play a running game”,
I quickly made this one up!
Materials Needed
• pictures of sea creatures (I found mine online and printed them from the computer)
• a small bin
Directions
1. Set up the play area: Lay the pictures around a playing field. If your pictures are on cardstock, they should be fine. Ours were on lightweight paper and since it was a breezy day, we secured ours with a rock on each one… which was just as much fun as the game for our Little D!
2. To Play the Game: I was the shark and Little D had to help the sea creatures get safely home from the shark. I would yell out the name of an animal (“I’m going to get you Octopus!”), and Little L would run, pick up the animal and run it to the bin. I would run after her while making shark arms.
I never actually caught Little D but she loved the excitement of the chase!
Two More Versions of the Game!
Version 1 - This is basic running at its best!
Make two copies of the sea creatures. Cut them out and lay them in a line in front of you and your Little.
On “Go”, you each grab a creature and run it to the bin, then run back and pick up another one until they are all gone. Run! Run! Run!
Version 2 - This would be a great option for older and/or multiple Littles to play together!!
One Little (the shark) stands in the middle between a row of picture cards and the starting line. The other Littles (the fisherpeople) run to the picture cards and try to rescue the animals before the shark catches them. If the shark tags you, you are out or you can become a shark, as well. The fisherpeople can only grab one card at a time and must run back to the starting line before trying again!
READY... SET... GO!!!
Hopefully our Under the Sea ideas have "o-FISH-ally" inspired you
to give them each a try with your own Littles!
If you have an activity for us to add to our own resources, please share!
You can always comment at the end of this post
or, if you prefer, you can reach out to us
Don’t forget to check us out on our social media sites, too!
(You'll also find these social media links at the top of each post!)
New content can always be found there!
In fact, did you see this recent IG/Facebook post?
Our own Little torchbearer in action!
Look at Little D balance a ball on a toilet paper roll
as she prepared for the Olympics!
DON”T FORGET…
With the Olympics in full swing,
we’ve got lots of activities - family friendly events & Little inspired games
as well as delicious eats… all waiting for you!
We both have busy weekends ahead of us!
YAY for Summer Adventures!
We’ll be back at some point next week with a post or two!
In the meantime, please consider subscribing to our site.
That way you'll always know when we share something new at OGL!
We’ll leave you with a great reminder of encouragement…
As our friend, Dory, from Finding Nemo would say
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Monday Morning Blog Club from Sticky Mud & Belly Laughs
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These are such fun ideas! I love them. We tried out the bubble wrap art before and we just loved it. So much fun! Thank you for sharing with us at The Crazy Little Lovebirds link party #50.
Also, I'm happy Laura enjoyed her Birthday. 😊
Steph@CrazyLittleLovebirds
Wow, are these fun ideas! I love the bubble wrap fish. And what a delightful way to spend your birthday. :) Thanks for sharing this post with us at the Will Blog for Comments #44 linkup. #45 opens Monday morning--we hope to see you there sharing more posts. ~Jennifer
Happy belated birthday Laurie. Love the bubble wrap painting, what a great idea to tie in an activity after a visit to Finding Nemo. Thanks for joining in with #pocolo Chickenruby
These are some really fun under the sea games! I love how that bubble wrap fish painting turned out.
Beautiful activities. Love the idea of the Ocean Rescue! What a great way to teach little ones about the impact we have on our planet. Also, happy belated birthday Laurie, hope you had an amazing day! Wishing you both a lovely week ahead. :) #MMBC