Category Archives: Fun Activities

hungrytreeThis is a picture of the Hungry Tree. It’s a tree at Farrell-McWhirter park in Redmond. On pretty much every Friday morning from October through May, we visited the Hungry Tree and “fed” pine-cones to it. Teacher Ann from Tiny Treks provided the voice effects (“I’m the hungry tree. And boy am I hungry! I want some pine-cones! Oooh – thank you!”)

It’s really simple. And it makes all the kids really happy. Every week. Week after week. Especially my boy who loves repetition.

This week I’m reading a lot about Nature Deficit Disorder, and all the benefits for kids of spending time outside. One expert  said “It’s not about taking your kid to Yosemite once a year. It’s about taking them down to that little scrap of grass in the neighborhood every day. It’s about helping them develop a relationship with nature.” My boy has certainly developed a relationship with nature through this weekly ritual of visiting the Hungry Tree.

After we visit Hungry Tree, we balance on the logs, then go wade in the creek (thank goodness for good boots!), then hike through the woods, then return for a snack and story outside on the tarp. My son loves this routine. I love this routine!

But connecting to nature doesn’t need to mean a weekly 90 minute hike in the woods. You could have a “hungry tree” or similar nature buddy in your yard! My son has a “nature job” – every time we walk to the library or store, there’s an apartment garden we pass where the rocks are always getting kicked out of the garden bed onto the sidewalk. My son really likes rocks, and originally he wanted to take these rocks and carry them away. Instead, he now knows it’s his “job” to return any rock that he finds on the sidewalk back to the garden with its friends.

Does your child have a nature ritual?

Cheap Dates with Toddlers – Wildlife Viewing

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Spring is a great time to explore wetlands parks* and see what kind of wildlife you can spot. Ducklings are a pretty likely bet at most wetlands! Often wetlands parks have boardwalks, where you’ll have to hike out a ways to see the wildlife.

Hikes are great activities with toddlers, because they burn off energy but in a lot lower-key, non-overstimulating way compared to a trip to a playground at a McDonalds or the mall! (Now, I’m not knocking McDonald’s playgrounds here – they’re absolutely a place we head on a cold, rainy day when we’ve got to get out a little energy before story time at the library.)

You can sing songs or do nursery rhymes as you walk. You can talk about the things around you – the plants, the people, the animals…

Today, we went to Juanita Bay Park in Kirkland, WA. It looks small from the road, but then you get in and it’s a huge park with lots of trails and board walks. We saw a mama duck with 7 ducklings, lots of other ducks, red-wing blackbirds, and lots of turtles sunning themselves on logs. We spotted a baby bunny off the side of the path. And we checked out some ant hills on our way back to the parking lot.

One of the challenges of nature hikes is that sometimes the thing you want to see is a long ways away, or camouflaged. I think this offers great practice for toddlers in observation skills. When they look out at this sea of lily pads, can they spot the mama duck? How about the babies? It’s also good for listening to directional information: like when I was pointing out a squirrel, and said “look way over there, in the tree with the white blossoms on it. Do you see the tree? There are two branches on the right side – the squirrel is on the top branch”, there’s a lot of vocabulary and concepts that go into understanding those directions.

For more ideas for nature activities with your child, click here.

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* If you’re thinking there are no wetlands near you, I’ll tell you that today I looked at a map on a sign at the park, and it showed wetlands in every single state – I grew up in Wyoming, and the map showed wetlands in the northeast quadrant – now I’m curious where they are!

20 Outdoor Games for Children

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For my “Cheap Dates with Toddlers” series: I encourage you to head outdoors to the park of your choice, and try out any of these fabulous outdoor games!  [I don’t re-blog often, but this is a great post!]

Our Little House in the Country's avatarOur Little House in the Country

outdoor games

Hi there, today I am sharing our top 20 outdoor games.  Some of these games can be played indoors but most are more suitable for getting active outside in the fresh air now that Spring is here!  In case you need instructions on how to play these games I have linked them to other great sites and blogs about games for children. I’ve also included some photos of my children having fun outdoors!

Doodles and OOdles having fun with pretend cafe play outside Doodles and OOdles having fun with pretend cafe play outside

  1. Skipping games
  2. Treasure hunts
  3. Parachute games
  4. Duck duck goose
  5. Hopscotch
  6. Hide and seek
  7. Tag
  8. Clapping games
  9. Obstacle courses
  10. What time is it Mr Wolf
  11. Simon Says
  12. Stuck in the mud
  13. Musical Statues
  14. Red light, Green Light
  15. Horse/Donkey basketball
  16. Scavenger hunt (we use picture clues)
  17. Hot/Cold (searching for objects, the closer you get the hotter you are)

    Oodles and Doodles playing parachute games with daddy and a friend Oodles and Doodles playing parachute games with daddy and a friend

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Three States of Matter

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My son is continuing to explore the ideas of solids, liquids, and gases. (See previous post.)

Some of the lessons from our impromptu experiment have sunk in, and he’s also learning new stuff. When I pour his milk, he says “look, it’s a liquid.” When we were steaming veggies, he pointed at the steam, and said “look it’s a gas.” He wanted to set up 3 categories, so we gave him a bowl of ice for solids, a water bottle for liquids, and bubble wrap for gas. We explained there was gas trapped inside the plastic bubbles, and we had a lot of fun popping the bubbles and listening to the gas escape.

Later we came back and he was upset that his solid water was gone and there was liquid water in the bowl instead. We talked about how it was the same water, it had just changed from solid to liquid as it got warm.

I never imagined I’d be covering these topics with my three year old. How did we get here? By following his interest.

When he was two, he wanted to play trains and talk trains all day. So, we learned the names of all the types of train cars, and we learned the names of all of Thomas’ friends. Now, he’s into the planets and science, and I can tell you more facts about the solar system than I’ve ever known before.

With my oldest daughter, we followed her down the path of stories – books, plays, movies, writing – I’ve always loved musical theater, but after 20 years of engaging with her about theater, I know much more about it, and that’s only deepened my appreciation. My middle child has loved wilderness survival, soccer, theater, art, fashion design, hair color, and now vinyl LP’s from the 50s. I’ve followed her down all these paths, learning about each of these things. I love the joy of connecting over something they’re passionate, and love the opportunity to learn alongside them, and appreciate things I may or may not have ever explored on my own. (Yeah, types of train cars…. I never would have learned that on my own!)

A side benefit: I know kids learn more when they’re happy, and learn basic skills (like language) more quickly when we use that basic skill to explore something that’s important to them.

You can lead a child to an idea, but you can’t make him drink it in…

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My 3 year old is crazy about planets. He talks about the solar system continuously. We read lots of books about planets, and watch videos of science shows. In doing this, he gets exposed to lots of other assorted science concepts.

Yesterday he was talking about solids, liquids, and gas. Today, as I was unloading the dishwasher, he was stacking plastic cups, saying “this one’s solid, this is a liquid, this is a gas.” I tried to tell him they were all solids.

Then, I had a sudden flare of inspiration. I grabbed a pot, and told his I was going to put some solid water in the pot. I asked him what solid water was, and he knew that was ice and that we kept that in the freezer.

So, I scooped up a bunch of ice, dumped it in the pot, and asked if we should turn the solid water into liquid water. He liked that idea, so I put it on the stove and sat him next to it (with safety warnings, of course!). We watched the ice melt, and talked about how solid water was changing to liquid water. Then it boiled and we talked about liquid water changing to gas water and spreading out through the room (yes, the new word I used with my three year old today was ‘dissipate.’)

We threw in more ice so we had solid, liquid, and gas all in the pot at the same time. .

We repeated this several times, having a great time together. We talked about it, I was sure he understood it. I was feeling like Genius Mama!

After our experiment, he went right back to playing with his plastic cups, saying “this one’s solid, this is a liquid, this is a gas.”

With my first child, I would have been so discouraged. I would have gone from feeling like Genius Mama to feeling like Foolish Mama. I would have thought that because he went back to the same game that he had learned nothing from our little experiment.

But now, with child # 3, and many years of learning about parenting, and learning about how children learn as their brains develop, I’m still feeling good about our experiment.

Did I manage to completely teach my child all there is to know about states of matter in one ten minute game so that he’ll understand and apply it for the rest of his life? Nope.

But, did we have fun? Yep. Did he see that we can explore ideas together that he has heard about in books? Yep. Did he see, and understand in the moment, that ice turns to water and then to steam when you heat it? Yep. Did he learn, at least in the moment, that you can call ice solid water, what we normally just call water is liquid water, and steam is water as a gas? Yep. With the plastic cups, did he show that he understands things can be sorted into three categories of matter? Yep. Some day he’ll get that plastic cups are solids. He’s got plenty more years to figure that out.

The best part? We had some fun, engaged quality time together. And there was no mess to clean up when we were done!