I was just wondering what other stayat home dads do with their kids durring the day, especally now that it is winter and much harder to get outside. I feel like I am doing the same thing with my kids over and over again, and having some new ideas would be great.
What to do durring Winter
Winter playgroups
We have a steady playgroup here in Va 10:00 am Wednesdays. We rotate letting the parents pick something to do, sometimes it's a house pg sometime its a mall trip. We also will travel a touch further. I also have found in the local papers, story times at our local library's. Community centers are a great source of exorcise for our little ones. Ice skating. 3 yrs old is not to early for a double bladed skate. I have also enrolled KGA in ballet classes @ 2.4 yrs old on Mondays and on Fridays we have little tykes gym. Check your local mom's groups online they announce what things they are doing ( steal their ideas, not on the same days. They will catch on to you after the second time. Go online and make a business card for you and your little ones and hand them out when you get a chance ( at target when you meet another AHP or at the mall also give a few to your spouse maybe she knows another AHP for you to hook up with. I hope this will help a little..
Kevin
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New dvd player--45 dollars (peanut butter accident )
Trip to Sesame place--1200 dollars
Many trips to the Emergency room--boo koo dollars
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We still go outside.
We're bundled up, but still make it outside to do something. Go sledding. Build a snow something or other. Unless it is like ten outside or raining, we don't see a reason not to go out. We have playdates and a regular Friday playgroup in the afternoons after preschool. My older one is in second grade, so we don't see him until 3:15. Then it is homework time, Tae Kwon Do lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and playtime (he doesn't like to call it playdates anymore) for him a couple days a week too.
I am not going so crazy. We keep busy with our schedule and with my activities in the PTA, our homeowner's association and with my freelance art (what little there is at the moment) and general house to-do's.
Here are a few snow
Here are a few snow ideas:
1. Take an empty spray bottle and fill it with water dyed with food coloring. Let your kid go to town spraying graffiti all over your yard.
2. Make slime out of corn starch and food coloring (google a recipe) and put it in a ziploc baggy. Then go outside and make snowballs with the center carefully cored out. Pour the slime into the snowball core and cover up. Snowball fight Nickelodeon-style!
3. Cut a monster feet pattern out of cardboard. Then duct tape the feet to your kid's snowboots. Let him romp around your neighbourhood and see how many people come home from work thinking that they've seen the footprints of a sasquatch.
We still go outside...
because we're in central Florida and often drops down into the low 70's during the day in January. Tonight it's dropping down to the 50's; brrrrrr!
My wife and I took the kids to Disney yesterday in shorts and t-shirts. We got wet from two sudden downpours in the evening, but it's been pretty warm here otherwise.
After an hour of slathering on sunblock each morning in the summer, though, the mild winters sometimes don't seem worth it. In the low 90's is the average high here then.
Bouncing
He goes to Preschool twice a week through the school district which gives me two half days a week which gives me time for grocery shopping without hoops to jump through, working out of a pre lunch nap. You gotta get a nap when the opportunity presents itself and if it happens to be 11 AM, so be it! He also has a buddy that he goes to a local warehouse of a bounce house and goes crazy for three hours on Fridays; his friend’s mom lets me leave. I owe her time and told her so, but she sez no worries as she needs to tend to her two YO while he bounces, so off I go. We get the monthly pass and he gets to burn off A LOT of energy this way. It is very clean and they clean and disinfect daily, plus they have a crafts room so I can add those one of a kind pieces de art to the pile.
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Make Babies, Not War!
I Wanna Know How Forever Feels...
Here are some more
Here are some more ideas:
Make pirate hats out of newspaper (google the fold-pattern) and turn your couch pillows into a pirate ship. Then pre-plan an easy scavenger hunt using letters of the alphabet as treasure. Questions can be as simple as "You will find the letter R where the food stays cold".
Download Google Earth (or Google Sky), which are both absolutely FREE, and visit places around the globe. You can even perhaps have a pre-planned adventure with pre-selected cultural songs set up on a folder in itunes, a slideshow of found cultural images prepared using your photobucket account, and perhaps a food representative of the country. You could do a different country every day for a week at lunch time.
Buy some face paint markers (available at a craft store) and spend some time turning your son into a tiger or a clown or something. Then let him draw on your face. If your feeling adventurous you can dye his hair with kool-aid (google for tips on doing that) and let him wear clothes from your wardrobe. Then surprise Mom with your silly make-overs.
Let your son choose toys that he no longer appreciates and put them in a box. Take them to charity. Reward him for the good deed with something special like a Happy Meal or a cookie at the mall.
Some great ideas
Some great ideas everybody!
Philip, both of my kids are going to TKD. My 7 y.o. boy has been going for two years is a purple belt. My 4 1/2 year old has been going for about a year now (?). It's blur, really. She is an orange belt. She is amazing. Total concentration for a four year old. They go to W. Kim Tae Kwon Do in Palatine, IL. She started in the three y/o program with the YMCA called "Little Dragons". Only she and one other student were asked if they wanted to continue further. The lessons there have had a great impact on their lives. Not only in the balance, confidence, strength and of course, self defense, but also with their discipline, respect, concentration and integrity. I understand that it may not be for all kids, in that all kids or parents may not choose TKD, or Karate or anything like this, but our kids chose it on their own and we support it and it has made a huge impact on them and us as a family.
Brian
Winter Stuff
We paint a lot. I go to the craft store and buy the little, cheap wooden cut-outs shaped like all kinds of stuff and then we paint them. We are currently doing hearts for valentine's day gifts. After we paint them, I glue a magnet on the back and wah-lah, instant fridge decoration as gifts.
The ever popular Play-Doh.
There is a new huge public library by us that we go to a lot for storytime and such.
Every Wednesday morning is a playgroup at our house for the pre-preschool crowd called "The Breakfast Club". Which basically is a lot of 2-3 y/o playing with toys in our basement, while I gab with the moms.
Go outside and play.
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Crafting on the Web Cam
I have a buddy that lives way to far away (over 2,000 miles) to actually get together with so we talk on cam a lot during the week. My youngest is a 3 year old boy and he has 3 year old twins, a boy and a girl. Our 3 year olds will occasionally 'talk' with each other while we are on. Although we've never been able to do it, we plan on doing a craft on cam together with all 3 kids sometime since all three love doing crafts.
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Library
Most local librarys have story time or other inside acctivities for kids. My local Brooklyn branch has story time three times a week. A local coffee shop ,Voxx Pop, has a great story time and Fair Trade coffeee too-boot.
You can alwyas check and see whatis happening in your comunity.
I also still go out and, agreed, bed bouncing is amost manditory in the winter.
Be Seeing You.
When
we lived in Wisconsin, we would go to bookstores a lot. Many had play areas and story times. When it wasn't too windy, we would walk nature trails.
Statesville, NC
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Routine during football season
Prepare for the next Packer game-
Mondays - we breakdown game tape from last weeks packer game.
Tuesday - game plan for this weeks game.
Wednesday - install game plan by repeatedly running pass routes and tackling our cats
Thursday - Go to Dad's group and inform them of our plans
Friday - walk through
saturday - wash packer clothing
Seriously...
Dylan and I go on an outing somewhere everyday. Whether it's a coffeeshop with a nice kids area, library for storytime or just play in the kids section, a Children's Museum, playdate, playgroup, the Little gym(it's a franchise, stressing developmental games and tumbling), grocery shopping, the park, UW campus (free museums), drink beer, go sledding, the community center...pretty much anything that's not in the house. I had trouble feeling stuck in my house last winter...so, intially I just forced myself out to run errands and to incorporate an outing into our schedule. Once I did that the rest was easy.
Inside activities - we make alot of bread at my house so we have real playdough to roll, shape and make floury messes. Some coloring, a limited amount of pbskids.org play...ramble, ramble, draw pictures, puzzles.....and I force him to take a three hour nap. It leaves less time to entertain him and more time for armchair quarterback prep....
Hope this helps.
Joel
Madison, Wi
Dylan-2, Surprise-April 30, 2008
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Joel
Dylan takes a 3 hour nap??!! I hate you. Lindsay gave up her nap at about 18 months. That was over a year ago.
Statesville, NC
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Matt
Yep, once he's down he stays down.
Joel
Madison, Wi
Dylan-2, Surprise-April 30, 2008
http://grateful-joel.blogspot.com/
meetup.com
Coffee shops, bookstores, libraries, malls if we really start hurting for something to do. I joined one of our local SAHM groups on meetup.com and they've got an awesome calendar going of every event in our area. I can normally fall back on one of their things if something else doesn't pan out. If your area has one of these groups might be worth joining.
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