This week was some kind of crazy!
We had a massive heat wave with temperatures reaching the low 40s, which is very unusual anytime of the year here, but especially so at the end of September!
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Being pregnant, I did not fair well in this heat and found my fingers and feet swelling into sausages. As as a result, we kept things pretty low key and didn’t stray far from home.
Despite the heat, the kids still wanted to play outside, so I incorporated some fun water play to keep them occupied and cool.
For the first water activity, I filled their water table with water and added some dish soap. Then I gave them a few kitchen tools (funnels, measuring spoons and cups) and let them loose. They loved squishing the bubbles and then washing many of their outdoor toys, or to be more specific, toys they had left outside!
Then, for something a little different, I grabbed a couple of dollar store bins and dumped some corn starch, dish soap and food colouring inside. Then I took the hose and set the nozzle on its highest setting and filled the bins with water. As the water came out of the hose, I quickly rotated the hose to stir up the mixture. This resulted in long lasting, foamy bubbles with a bit of colour. For even fluffier bubbles, I could have mixed everything with a kitchen mixer, but frankly, I wanted to keep it simple.
Since we had to spend more time indoors than usual, I capitalized on my son’s obsession with Pokemon and found some great activities for the kids to do.
I found this great Pokemon alphabet matching game on totschooling.net, which was of course a blast! Not only did he get to “catch” the Pokemon by matching the letters, but he also had a great time identifying them all too!
Then I pulled out the toilet paper rolls, and printed off some Pokemon templetes from dltk-kids.com. The two year old wasn’t even remotely interested in this, but the four year old went crazy for it! We now have a small army of toilet paper Pokemon, which he spends hours playing with. It’s also been a great way to make our nighttime routine a little easier, as after he gets ready (pajamas, teeth, etc.) then he gets to pick the Pokemon he will create the next day. This has dramatically sped up our bedtime routine, which is more than a little nice!
Since we’re starting to work on penmanship, I printed off this Pokemon counting activity sheet from ISLCollective. I added a word bank on the side, so he could write the number symbol and word. He loved writing it out and was so excited to introduce grandma to all of the Pokemon on the sheet!
A couple of weeks ago, Micheals had these great canvas painting kits on clearance for $2.99 from $8.99! The include the canvas, paints, a brush and a paint tray. Needless to say, I picked up quite a few on that visit and they came in handy this week while we were stuck indoors!
We finished off the week with some food colouring, vinegar-baking soda fun! This super simple (although messy depending on how much freedom you give) is always a hit and the kids have a blast! I simply filled two cake pans with baking soda, and then cups with vinegar dyed different colours with food colouring. Using a couple of eye droppers from a pack that I picked up on Amazon, the kids make colourful explosions in their cake pan. Of course, if your kids are anything like mine, it won’t take long for them to try dumping the baking powder into the cups for big explosions, or to dump entire cups of vinegar into the pans for mega explosions! Nevertheless, have some paper towel handy and they’ll have a blast!
What are some of your best ways for keeping cool in the extreme heat?