Life can be busy and stressful at times but it’s impossible to take time off as a mom. Even when it’s a girls night out you know you’ll still come home to your babies and life hasn’t stopped for you to catch up. Here are a few ways to make your life easier. With a few fun and simple activities for your kids, ways to simplify your life, things to celebrate, how to make life a little less stressful, and how to calm things down.
Simple activities are a must at our house! With younger kids, I don’t have a lot of time to set up or buy supplies. Having a few ideas on hand has made life a lot easier. When the boys need a reset I’m able to quickly pull out an activity. Here are five simple activities that you can easily adapt to different ages.
Water transfer
This has been the easiest activity that’s always on repeat at our house. Jake, the littlest one, loves water. All it is, is an empty bowl and a bowl full of water (I put the bowls in a bin to make for easier clean up). I give him different tools to transfer the water from one bowl to the other. Some days I color the water, add pompoms, or different tools.
With the two older boys I’ll do similar things but I’ll usually give them cups, beakers, and primary colors. They enjoy mixing the water and colors while working on pouring and volume (we’ll see which one can hold the most/least water and make predictions). I honestly didn’t think Blake, the oldest, would be into this but it’s something that still holds his attention!
Looking for other simple PomPom actives check out this post!
Sticker Chart
We bought a sticker chart a few years ago as a reward system. In the end, it didn’t work out for us. It took too long to fill it out for a prie. I ended up throwing it in our sticker bin, and as I was cleaning the bin out I found the chart. I put it to good use by having ack put stickers on each dot. He worked his fine motor skills pulling the stickers off and putting them on the dots. If you don’t have a sticker chart you could make dots with a marker and have them stick it on there.
Light Table Clings
I first saw this brilliant idea on alakyle‘s Instagram. The boys love window clings so I knew it would be a hit! All you need is a light table, if you don’t have one you could use a container and put a flashlight or Christmas lights under it. Give your kids window clings (I always try to get them after a holiday on sale!). Then let them have fun playing with it. This is a simple activity that works fine motor skills and creativity!
Just a warning, it could stain the light table so be sure to take the clings off as soon as they’re done playing on it. I was preoccupied and waited to clean it up, now I have a red heart on mine.
Ice Painting
Although this takes a little prep it’s quick and painless, I promise! All you need to do is add some water to an ice cube tray then mix in some paint, pop a foil on, and add popsicle sticks or toothpicks (this will be the handle to wait with). I always like to find the easiest way to do these things so here are my tips!
How To Make Ice Paint
- Put the water in first.
- I used little pots of paint (the ones that come in painting kits). I dipped the brush in the paint than in the water. I mixed it with that paintbrush. So I didn’t have any extra dishes or a dirty paintbrush. Then I went to the next color until I was done.
- When you’re ready to paint. Take off the foil and popped the ice cubes out.
- Put paper in a tray. Since the ice will melt and go through the paper you’ll want to put it on something.
- Paint!
Although it was a little light as they were painting when it dried the colors were vibrant and so pretty!
Playdough Letters
The boys love playdough! We always have it in our house. I’ve thought about getting rid of it a few times because of the mess but realized how much the boys enjoyed it and how many simple activities we could do with it!
Jake still doesn’t know his letters but I try to have them around so he’s familiar with them. I might roll up some playdough and we’ll make straight lines and curved lines. I might talk to him about different shapes the lines can make. It’s only a few minutes if I’m lucky and he’ll move on to making his creations.
Ack is learning his letters. Some days I’ll make the letter out of playdough and have him press things, such as beads, into it. As he does that we’ll talk about the sound the letter makes and think of things that start with that letter. I can usually get in one letter before he’s ready to move on.
Blake is working on his sight words. So we’ll do things similar to ack. Roll out the word and press objects into the playdough. We’ll go over the word, sound, and letters as he does this.
These five ideas are quick to pull together and simple to do. I hope they’re helpful and you can use them when you need to change your mood in the house or you need a few minutes to yourself! Let me know if you try them and if you put your twist on them!