Just look at this picture of Rachel’s daughter!

Materials Needed:

• A tennis or badminton racket you don’t mind getting bubble-y (a fly swatter works too)
• A large tray, big bowl or bucket (big enough to fit your racquet or swatter in).
  • Trays work great for this since you can lay the racquet in it rather than making a giant bowl of liquid!
• Dish soap & water to make your bubble liquid

How To:

1. Mix some dish soap and water in a big bowl or bucket. Use more soap than water, filling the bowl just enough to dip a tennis racket in.
2. Bring your bowl outside and dip your racket into the bubble mixture. The racket doesn’t need to be completely submerged.
3. Have fun!
   1. Blow bubbles through the racket.
   2. Try swinging your racket fast and slow to make different size bubbles!
   3. Pop and catch your bubbles with your racket.
   4. Play your favorite dancing tune and dance in your bubbles.
   5. Have fun making it rain bubbles!

Here are all three of Rachel’s kids having fun!

Activity by Rachel Jong, Hardy Site

Materials:

• Felt
• Marker
• Glue
• Large paper clips 
• Scissors
• Hot glue (optional)

Instructions:

1. Outline your designs on the felt with a marker. Simple shapes like stars, circles, and hearts are easiest to cut out. If you want to do more complicated designs like animals, we recommend drawing them out on a piece of paper, cutting it out, and using that as a template on your felt to prevent waste.
2. Cut two pieces of felt for each shape as the paper clips will be ‘sandwiched’ with felt. The back piece doesn’t need to have a design on it but you can add one if you would like.
3. Cut out smaller designs to go on top of the large base that will become the front of your bookmark. Strips of felt become stripes, small circles can be polka dots, and triangles are great for the nose on a face! Glue your decorations to the larger pieces of felt.
4. Lay your felt bookmark facedown and place a paper clip on it with the double U side off the felt. If you want a more secure hold, ask an adult to add a drop of hot glue where the paper clip touches the felt. This step is optional.
5. Add regular glue on top of the back side of your felt and paper clip. Don’t forget to put glue on the inside of the paper clip! Take your identical felt shape and press it into the glue to make a paper clip sandwich. Let your bookmark dry completely before using!

Note: Sticky back felt makes this project even easier! You do not need glue or drying time if your felt has an adhesive back. Just be careful when making your paper clip sandwich—you may only have one chance to get the felt stuck together properly!

Activity by Tiana Chu, Floating Teacher

Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.projectswithkids.com

Materials:

• Sticks or wooden dowels/skewers
• Rubber bands
• Leaves/grass
• Toys with hair (dolls, horses)
• Sponges
• Qtips
• Scrap fabric
• Yarn
• Paint
• Paper

Instructions:

Nature Inspired Paint Brushes

To make a nature inspired paint brush take a walk outside and find a few straight sticks and plenty of leaves and grass. With the leaves and grass in a bunch, secure it at the end of your stick with a rubber band. Test out your new paint brush without paint first to see if it’s tied tight enough!

Yarn Paint Brushes

With skewers and short pieces of yarn use the same technique to make a yarn paint brush. Ribbon and scrap can also be used for a totally different texture.

Doll or Toy Paint Brushes

If you make sure to give them a bath when you are done, toys with hair like dolls and horses can also be paint brushes. Try giving them a ponytail or four and see what your brush strokes look like. 

Q-Tip or Sponge Paint Brushes

Qtips and sponges are another easy paint brush replacement. Cut the sponges to make stamps and tie together multiple qtips for different effects or easy flower stamps.

Activity by Tiana Chu, Floating Teacher

Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.applegreencottage.com

This is a fun way to encourage children to help with food preparation. Let them take charge of preparing some of their own snacks. It will also be teaching them how to make healthy choices. There are many other benefits of putting kids to work in the kitchen. A child who has a hand in making their own snack may be more likely to eat it. It will also teach them how to handle food and serve food!

Let’s begin making our “Fun Snacks”

Trail Mix

You will need:

• Small containers or plastic bags to fill with healthy foods
• Assorted ingredients to make your own trail mix. Below are some examples but feel free to substitute with other snacks you have at home!
  • Raisins
  • Low sugar, whole-grain cereals
  • Sunflower or pumpkin seeds
  • Dried Fruits like apples, papaya, or cranberries
  • Chocolate chips
  • Nuts

Give your child a chance to have the choice of exactly what goes into the trail mix. 

Yogurt Layers

Kids love to create colorful food and yogurt is a great snack!

You will need:

• Vanilla Yogurt
• Fruits (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or any other fruits your child likes)
• A container for your creation – we recommend a clear cup so you can see how nice it looks when you’re done!

1. Spoon some vanilla yogurt into a clear bowl or cup.
2. Create a layer of fruit.
3. Repeat until your cup is almost full
4. Optional: Sprinkle a little bit of granola or a crunchy whole-grain cereal on top to add a little crunch!

Ants on a Log

There are several variations of ants on the log so you can make this snack even more fun! All these suggestions are nut-free and delicious!

1. Wash a few stalks of celery and break them up into pieces that are about three inches long. If you do not like celery you can also use a piece of banana or carrot stick as the log. 
2. Fill your celery stalk and add a topping to represent the ants. Below are a few different ideas!
   1. Fill the celery stalk with hummus and add chopped up vegetables to represent the ants. Small chunks of colorful peppers or carrots work well.
   2. Use cottage cheese to fill up the logs then top each log with bits of fruits & veggies.
   3. Fill the logs with guacamole dip and use black beans to represent the ants.

‘Til next time,

Neddie Spaghetti

Activity by Neddra English, Hardy Site

Photos from the internet

A flat surface works best for this version. All you’ll need is some plastic cups, a ball (rolled up socks if you don’t have one) and a hallway of some sort.

Have the kids take some time to make a pyramid. Use as many cups as you can, the bigger the pyramid, the more fun!

Have the kids roll the ball down, and knock as many cups over as possible.

Try to challenge them, maybe only give them two rolls to knock them all down, try it blindfolded, or say they have to bounce it off the wall before it reaches the cups.

This is a great activity that many children will be able to do independently. They can also take some time to decorate the cups before playing as well!

Activity by Matt McDonald, Hardy Site Coordinator
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.whatmomslove.com

Supplies required:

• A plastic bottle
• Scissors
• An old sock that you don’t mind cutting
• Duct tape and/or a rubber band
• Dish soap
• Water
• A low bowl for your bubble liquid
• Food coloring (optional)

Instructions:

1. Ask an adult for help cutting off the bottom of your plastic bottle.
2. Take an old sock (you may need to cut it a little bit to fit it over your bottle) and put it over the cut bottom of your bottle.
3. Duct tape the sock to your bottle. This needs to be secure! You might even want to ‘double-up’ and add a rubber band too.
4. Make your bubble juice by putting some dish soap in a bowl and adding just a little bit of water – you want it more soap-y than water-y.
5.  Dip the sock attached to your bottle into the bubble juice.
6. Blow out of the bottle using the mouthpiece (don’t suck in, or the bubbles will go in your mouth!) and watch your bubble snake grow
7. Want to make your snake colorful? Ask an adult to put a few drops of food coloring on your sock!

Activity by Rachel Jong, Hardy Site

Here are ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of the onions Tiana is growing in her backyard!

Materials:

• Vegetable and fruit scraps
• Water
• Small cups/dishes
• Pots/planters
• Soil

Instructions:

Potatoes

Celery, lettuce, cabbage, and green onions

Onions

Tomatoes

Peppers

Supplies: 

• Any recycled items you want to use… here’s an example of one possibility:
  • a small cereal box body, plastic bottles for the legs, plastic tops from for the feet, plastic lids for eyes, strips of styrofoam for the arms, a bamboo skewer flagpole, soda bottle caps for details on top of head and ears, a large round spice container lid for the hat, blue painter’s tape for flag and body details
• Permanent Marker(s)
• Glue (if using a hot glue gun please ask for adult assistance!)
• Painter’s or Masking Tape

Directions 

• Open boxes carefully at the side seam and reconstruct inside out, closing the box at seam with glue or tape.
• Add details to the box with blue tape and then add features with a black permanent marker. Make sure you fix all parts with glue, and use masking or painter’s tape where you want to.

Enjoy  this opportunity to create your own unique robots! 

Have other art supplies around the house? You can add feathers, beads, and more to your recycled robot too!

Activity by Neddra English, Hardy Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.creativejewishmom.com

Below is a picture by Rachel’s daughter, Reese. She is riding on a unicorn with her cousin!

Materials Needed:

• A photo of yourself, someone in your family, or a friend (no photo? use an image from a magazine)
• Paper
• Scissors
• Markers, colored pencils, or crayons
• Glue Stick

Instructions:

1. First, cut out the person or image in your photo that you want to use.
2. Observe the position of the person’s body in the photo. Think about a background that would be fun to put the photo image into. Imagine magically jumping into an illustrated page of a book!
3. Place your photo aside and draw your picture.
4. Glue your photo to the picture.
5. Admire your photo in its new background!
6. If you wish, place your picture in a frame. Or, you can color a frame around your picture or cut & glue strips of colored paper to create a frame around your picture!

In this activity children can create their own fish by using circle shaped plastic plates and construction paper. 

Materials:

• 2 disposable plates per child (these can be paper, plastic, or aluminum)
• Thick paper such as cardstock or poster paper (recycled cardboard would work as well)
• Pencils
• Scissors
• Stapler (if you don’t have one, tape or glue work too)
• Scrap wood pieces to create a base for the fish (recycled cardboard would work as well)
• Water-based paint
• Paintbrushes
• Water for cleaning brushes
• Newspaper or another drop cloth to avoid mess!

Instructions:

1. First, place the two plates together (bottoms facing out) and secure with staples. You can use tape but staples are best.
2. Second, take 2 pieces of thick paper and draw out the following shapes: a fish head, a top fin, a bottom fin and a tail.
3. Then cut these shapes out of both pieces of paper so you have two of everything. You will staple, glue, or tape the fin, tail and head pieces together, but only along one side.
4. You need to keep one of the sides open so that you can attach it to the plastic plates. Attach the fins, head and tail to the plates.
5. Making a stand for the fish. Fasten the fish to the stand using tape or glue.
6. You can decorate the fish using colorful paints, construction paper or markers. Be creative and make them colorful.
7. Have fun circling for fish and seeing the beautiful fishes under the sea.

Activity by Neddra English, Hardy Site

Photo Credit: www.craftsbyamanda.com