Summer Afternoon Activities to Escape the Hot Sun

Kids playing at summer park by Lisa Suender

Kids love the summer. Come vacations, parents encourage lots of outdoorsy activities - swimming, monkey bars at the park, time on the beach, climbing trees at the park etc. All is fine as long as parents follow some sun and water safety tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Harsh sunlight can burn tender skin on kids.

Here are some activities to keep indoor bound kids engaged:

1. Cooking: Get the kids to help cook. They could tear lettuce, halve tomatoes, make juices, roll out dough, ice some cupcakes etc. This way they have fun and learn about the processes of cooking.

2. Gaming: From summer gaming camps or workshops to playing Massively Multiplayer Online Games with family, kids are spoilt for choice.  

3. Art Projects: Kids enjoy a variety of arts. Even mechanical assembly projects can be artistic. The long summer is a great time to take up a fun project.

4. Catching up on Movies: If the school year has been very busy, the summer is a great time to watch movies, old and new. Kids love laughing over the movies their parents watched - the clothes, the pace, humor, everything.

5. Family and Friends: Summer's the best time to catch up with family and friends. Seeing the local sights, snuggling up to Granny and having her read stories, trying on mom's footwear - oh, the fun can be endless, for there's always something to do across generations.

The whole purpose of summer is to explore - new ideas, projects, food or just new ways to laze!

Gift for Mom’s Birthday – Crafts with the Kids

It’s almost a ritual to sit with my kids and make fun crafts. It’s not just an engagement and bond-building activity between the kids and me but is also a learning experience for all of us. The kids work on their fine motor skills while I become more educated on children’s behavioral patterns and development milestones. I love to get involved with the kids and their crafts and their ‘ritual’ never feels like a chore even after the longest and most tiring of days!

So, when my kids wanted to help with a craft that they wanted me to gift grandma on Mother's Day, I was happy looking up the internet for a suitable craft that mommy could use and the kids would enjoy making. I found many websites with really cool and easy craft activities for the kids. Finally, we decided to make something simple and useful for my Mom.

Paper Clip Card Holder

Used chocolate box

·         Giant paper clips

·         Colored paper

·         Felt

·         Scissors (Kid-friendly)

·         Glue

·         Board pins

Directions

• We drew different shapes and patterns on the opened up chocolate box and cut them out. A few common shapes and patterns that we drew were star, caterpillar, and triangle.
• I had the kids cut out similar shapes from the colored and felt papers and stick them on the cardboard 
  

• The kids applied glue to the back of the cutouts and stuck the paper clips to them. Make sure little less than half of the paper clips are covered.

Here's how it looks:

Afterthought

Speaking from my experience with kids, crafts are an extremely engaging and fulfilling activity for them. They don’t just love the process of getting messy, feeling different textures, and experimenting with colors, but they fall in love with the little masterpieces that they create. There have been times when our kids have asked to see a craft-gift they made us months ago. So, they love it, and we love it too. 

Now, I hope my Mom likes her gift on Mother's Day!

Pet Games, Nature Mandalas and other activities

"Trillium Poncho cat dog". Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trillium_Poncho_cat_dog.jpg#/media/File:Trillium_Poncho_cat_dog.jpg

In spring and summer kids can enjoy lots of activities, both outdoors and indoors. With pets, without pets, with family, with friends, in the garden, at the park - oh this list can be long.

3 activities you can enjoy with your pet:

1. Photograph your pet

2. If it's an animal you can run around with, play hide and seek in the yard or at the park.

3. Dress your pet or it's container.

3 pet-related activities without pets:

1. Play pet games.

2. Play with your pretend pets.

3.  Draw an imaginary pet.

3 activities with family:

1. Play board games.

2. Have a picnic.

3. Take each other's photographs and make a collage.

3 activities with friends:

1. Divide into teams and make scavenger hunts for each other.

2. Cook up something and invite your parents.

3. Get some paint and get permission to paint an old section of some wall or find an old 'thing' to paint.

3 activities in the garden:

1. Plant quick growing vegetables.flower.

2. Sprout some seeds in an empty eggshell filled with damp cotton. Pain the eggs with faces. The sprouts will look like hair!

3. Gather leaves, twigs and flowers - create a pretty nature mandala.

3 activities at the park:

1. Take turns to call out a spot in the park and race to get there.

2. Find new ways to play with familiar equipment.

3. Do some tree-spotting.

Can you think of other types of activities?

Apps for Spring

Spring is a season of renewal. Things grow, ideas sprout in our brains, spaces are cleaned and new things are tried out. A time for fun and games, it's a good time to have a handy list of apps suitable for younger kids. If you are exploring on your own, do check out the app reviews on Common Sense Media before you let your kids lose on them.

5 good apps for the spring covering music, art, puzzling, treasure hunts and pets:

1. Treasure Hunt by Photos

This app is all about playing a scavenger hunt game. With up to 20 clues and secret codes, this app will keep your kids challenged for a while. It even requires kids to get up and hunt around as in an actual scavenger game.

2. Pet Games by Jumpstart

Image Credit: http://www.neopets.com/index.phtml

An old favorite, this is a wonderful game where kids can use their imagination to have a pet and nurture it. A good game for kids who are asking for a pet, and for those parents who want to see if their kids can share the responsibility of caring for a pet with other members of the family. 

3. Tales2Go by Tales2Go

A collection of audio books to keep your youngster engaged. This is most useful for kids who prefer hearing a story over reading it oneself. It can also be heard while doing something else or even while traveling. 

4. Quell+ by Fallen Tree Games Ltd. 

Puzzle games for youngsters and grown ups. As it's not on a timer, it's a great way to unwind for grownups, and non-pressurizing for youngsters. The challenging puzzles keep the player hooked. 

5. Bloom HD by Opal Limited

This is a combination of art and music designed by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers. It' works best with headphones and is both visually and aurally stimulating. 

Enjoy these apps this spring! 

All images are courtesy the app store

Baby Talk: It's Not All Goo Goo Ga Ga

Oh, if I could get a penny for each time I felt a jolt of sheer joy when my newborn gurgled, yawned and made indecipherable sounds! It took my daughter all of two months to start her little cooing noises. Until then the only way she knew how to ‘talk’ to us was by crying. She did a lot of ‘talking’ back then. Her coos sounded like little amusing secrets that only she knew about.

This was also around the time when I began to introduce baby activities to help with her development. These included activities that were visually stimulating, engaged her senses and developed her fine motor skills. As I wanted to know what was going on in her mind and cooing didn’t give much of it away, I also made sure I included speech-related activities. 

“Lean Back, Lean Back” by lucidialohman is licensed under CC BY 2.0

At first, it felt like I was the one doing all the work as she stared at me with big wide eyes and slapped at the air. Occasionally, there were murmurs of astonishment and delighted smiles.

That was lesson one – to get babies to learn to communicate, we have to communicate. All the time. Talk slowly and gently while maintaining eye contact. Use exaggerated gestures and facial expressions to keep the baby interested in what you have to say. Babies love rhymes, anything musical. So sing away, sing songs and rhymes, add a few claps (‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands...’) and jump around. So what if the world doesn’t, your baby will sure appreciate you, off-key though you might be!

“Geoffrey Snapshots” by tOkKie-Pokie ..puddin' n pie is licensed under CC BY 2.0

While talking, don’t forget to modulate your voice. Vary the pitch, volume and tone. You can also start reading to your baby. They may not understand it but go ahead! I used to read poetry and fairy tales to my little girl. I would repeat them and I knew she was listening because some of them excited her almost as soon as I began.

Start pointing to things when you talk about it. I would do so by dangling her favorite toy and saying ‘Lookeeee, here’s Mr. Mojo Jojo.’ It may feel silly but all normal communicating protocol becomes void around babies. Kiddos love animal sounds – ‘Old MacDonald had a farm…’ was a favorite with my daughter. So be prepared to moo and meow a lot.

“sanchez_baby_shower_1014_0081” by Richard Gallagher is licensed under CC BY 2.0

As they get older, babies start trying to mimic these sounds. Don’t try to correct these sounds. Make vowel sounds and get them to mirror it. Get them to try and blow feathers; it will help them to practice rounding their lips. Talk to them about the mundane details of life. Talk to them about their bath, the flower they are gazing at, the massage you are giving them. They will listen with rapt attention.

It may take about a year before they first start uttering real words but a lot of preparation goes into that. It is the payoff after all the months of being exposed to language, and a milestone that deserves a place in the baby book (and the mommy book)!

Best Penguin Games Online

Penguin games are all the rage among kids, and thanks is due in no small part to their feathery protagonists. Penguins have quite a few mannerisms that work in their favour - their cute waddle, their catchy head bob and the wacky wing-flap come together to make them quite endearing to onlookers. Add to that their unmistakable black and white coat and their dark yellow beaks, and you have one beautiful bird that everyone loves to love.

Perhaps that was why Lane Merrifield and his friends chose penguins to be the main characters in the social game they decided to create for their kids. However, it is unlikely that they knew then how popular their creation, Club Penguin, would become. In just two years, it had 3.9 million users and was soon bought by Disney for a whopping 350 million dollars. While Club Penguin may still be the biggest penguin game online, there are many others that have also managed to hit the right note with their young target audience. Here are a few of the best penguin games online.

 “DJ3K - clubpenguin yellow puffle” by IvanWalsh.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Club Penguin – Well, this had to top the list for obvious reasons. The game is an MMO virtual world targeting kids in the age group of 6 to 12. Players use penguin avatars to explore the snowy terrain and play fun games on their own or with other players. Each player gets an igloo which they can choose to customize and invite other players to. They also get to customize their avatars, chat with other players, adopt pets, attend parties and take part in challenges around the island.

Penguins of Madagascar – Now these are popular penguins, perhaps even the most famous of their species. Rico, Skipper, Private and Kowalski have charmed audiences in several movies and cartoons and they now have an entire virtual world to their name. Fans get to join these elite secret agents in a mission to take down Dr. Octavius Brine and his evil henchmen. Interestingly, this game has an educational element to it, with players making use of scholastic and critical thinking skills to help the covert birds on their mission.

Penguin Diner – There are several diner games online, where the player races to take orders, serve food to the customers, and generally provide good service to collect big tips. However, the huge popularity of the Penguin Diner game in particular goes to prove how the addition of a flightless bird does good things for kids’ games. Penny the Penguin gets lost on a trek to Antartica and works as a waitress at a local diner to make money to return home. Players assist her in seating the customers, taking their orders, making sure they are served on time and meeting the targets for each day. The money that Penny saves can be used to buy upgrades within the game. With the rising popularity of this penguin game came Penguin Diner 2, Penguin Diner 3, Penguin Diner 4 and Penguin Diner 5. Strangely though, Penguin Diner 4 does not feature penguins!

Flying Penguin games – Interestingly, these games take their inspiration from the very fact that penguins cannot fly! There are several types of flying penguin games. Learn to Fly is a popular one where a lone penguin in Antartica, surfing the internet, is offended to see penguins described as flightless birds. He is determined to change that, and sets out to do research on what prevents penguins from flying and what kind of contraptions and flight conditions would help him achieve the smoothest, highest and longest flight. In Learn 2 Fly, the penguin has become wiser and uses a dummy to continue his research. He has also become quite frustrated, and adds an element of destruction to his efforts to fly.

Apart from these popular penguin games, there are plenty of other penguin games available online. You can even find an entire website dedicated to the penguin flash games on the internet, including several of those mentioned above. Penguins may not be able to fly, but they sure do know how to have fun.

Top 5 kinds of games your kids should be playing right now

There’s no denying the reach and influence that online games have on kids today. While the pros and cons of gaming is a topic of continuous debate, here are 5 kinds of games that parents must encourage their children to play. These games can help develop in kids various traits and life skills such as responsibility, affection, ability to accept victory and loss with equal grace, focus and hand and eye coordination.

Lo que me hace reir 5/30 by Josue Goge 

Candy games

Yes, we’re talking about the king of all candy games, Candy Crush Saga from King.com. The game has become a rage not for no reason. I have seen my friends’ children being handed their parents’ tablets just to keep them engaged. And most often they are either on Candy Crush or playing a pet game raising virtual pets. It’s interesting to see how the toddlers can follow the instructions and continue to advance through levels of the candy game and never get bored. Besides introducing children to colors and patterns, two very significant elements of the game, the candy game stresses more on mastery rather than success, a very useful lesson to help kids through the real journey of life. If your child has still not taken to Candy Crush, then it’s time for you to introduce the colorful game to her.

Pet games

There are a number of pet games online that engage kids in meaningful pastimes. While Neopets allows players to adopt virtual pets and raise them, care for them, and feed them, Moshi Monsters allows players to embark on adventure trips with their virtual pets and explore the magical Moshi world. Children must be encouraged to play pet games as they help them develop their affectionate, responsible, and disciplined sides. It’s always a good idea to acquaint the kids with pets in a virtual setup before they are ready to raise and take care of the cuddly, furry monsters in real life. Join the kids while they play pet games and share your tips and suggestions on their pets’ wellbeing and strengthen your bond with your child.

Car games

Most of us are addicted to car games because they are generally arcade games that let you race against your friends in a virtual space. Their glitzy visuals and realistic graphics take their fun quotient a notch higher. But what makes them more special than the rest and why should you encourage your kids to play car games? To begin with, car games can be great to introduce children to friendly competition. They will learn to compete with friends and accept any loss with a pinch of salt and a win with grace. Besides, playing car games also helps the kids to improve their hand and eye coordination. Parents must encourage children to play the games as it is a good opportunity for them to strengthen their parent-child bond too.

Word games

Word games can be extremely addictive. They are popular among gamers as they can be played for long hours without them becoming boring. They keep the players intellectually engaged, pushing them expand their vocabulary to advance through word game levels. Every child must be playing one of the word games right now to constantly up their vocabulary.

Running games

When we talk about running games, we aren’t just hinting at Temple Run. There are a number of running games like Subway Surfers, Pitfall, Rail Rush, Jetpack Joyride, etc., that are as interesting as Temple Run. Running games require the players to run, slide, jump, and tilt through a predetermined track while overcoming obstacles and solving puzzles. These endless games work on the kids’ patience and observation skills without the little ones even realizing it. The players have to concentrate keenly on the running tracks to locate obstacles from a distance so that they can determine a suitable way to overcome them much before they actually reach them. Get your kids to play a few of these running games today!

Play pet games with children, match candies, and run through a virtual lookalike of the great Angkor Wat and help the little ones develop important life skills in a fun way. Of course, while these games have much to teach the little ones, getting addicted to gaming can never be a good thing. So get your little ones to play these fun games, but always monitor and control he amount of time your child spends playing.