Treasure Hunt in the Dark! (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've been outside with kids this week then why not link up what you've been up to?  Our Winter so far has been very mild, but very wet and it gets dark by about 4.30pm, so its not my ideal outdoor play environment to say the least!  But, today I was determined to get outside rain or shine and enjoy the darker evenings.

Treasure Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've played outside with kids this week then please do link up.  This week we've been treasure hunting, we walk a lot and this activity is guaranteed to keep our Pre-schooler walking!

Our Favorite Fall Activities (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party, if you've played outside with kids this week, why not link up below.  We love Autumn (Fall) and it's a brilliant time of year to get outside, not too hot, not too cold and loads of natural stuff (leaves, conkers, acorns etc) to play with.  So here's a round up of some of our favourite ways to play outside this fall.

Dragon Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've been outside playing with your kids this week then please do link up below.

This week we've been Dragon Hunting!  This activity was all Hubby's idea and involved catapults and colouring, this is what we got up to.....

10 Super Simple Ways to Play Outdoors (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Another great Outdoor Play Party today, if you've been outdoors with kids then please link up below or read on to find out my 10 ten simple things to do with kids outside.

We try to get outside everyday, but sometimes I get stuck for things to do.  On those days its always worth remembering that kids love the simple stuff so here's my top ten super, unbelievably, incredibly simple things to do with kids outside!

Easter Egg Hunt (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Easter eggs are in the shops and even though it's still chilly the sun has been shining so we headed outside for an Easter egg hunt.  We love getting outside, if you have an outdoor play idea I'd love to see you link up below.

Top 10 Posts of 2012

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Making Boys Men began in April 2012 with my very first post Fun with Jelly.  Nearly 100 posts later and it's 2013!  I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing with you the fun that the boys and I get up to so here's a reminder of our most popular posts in 2012 in reverse order.....

 

 

 

10 - Things to do with acorns and kids.  Some very cute and colourful ideas in this post and lots of glitter!

 

9 - Magnetic advent Christmas tree.  A lot of cutting in front of the TV to make this magnetic advent tree for the kids, but I had fun!

 

8 - Things to do with pinecones and kids.  A little bit of craft, a bit of learning, quite a bit of outdoors and a bit nature - that's quite a lot for a few pinecones!

 

7 - Spaghetti painting.  A personal fave, but very messy and the reason this posts has a three splat rating - be warned!!

 

6 - Using Kids Art for Christmas Cards.  I venture into the adult world of craft and manage to find a use for all those splatty paintings that only a mother can love!

 

5 - Outdoor number hunt.  A great get outside activity and a way to learn your numbers at the same time.

 

4 - 3 Craft stick busy bags.  Oh how we love busy bags!  I just cleared some out today so expect some new ideas in 2013.

 

3 - Things to do with foil and kids.  Obviously I'm biased, but there's 11 things to do with foil in this post, which I think means there's something for every kid whatever their interests!

 

2 - 3 busy bags with clothes pegs (pins).  Some fun learning ones in this set of busy bag ideas.

 

And finally the post that out runs them all thanks to A LOT of repins on Pinterest...... Bashing baked cotton balls!

 

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed reading Making Boys Men in 2012 and are looking forward to more fun in 2013, expect lots more crafts, outdoor play, busy bags and more 'things to do with' ideas! 

 

Make sure you don't miss a thing by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

 

Happy New Year!



Things to do with acorns and kids

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In my new series 'things to do with...' we've so far covered carrots and chestnuts (part one & part two) so this week keeping with a bit of an Autumn theme its acorns!  Again we've done so many different activities with acorns I'm going to split it into two posts (part two here), here we go with the first five activities.....

1 - Glitter acorns
Whilst I wouldn't want to add anything to Mother nature's perfection, everything does sparkle with glitter so why not acorns!

Champ hard at work painting glue on the acorns then rolling them in glitter.

Unfortunately, he then glittered his hands - hence the two splat rating!

But, glittered hands aside I think they look quite cute all sparkly!

2 - Acorn treasure hunt

Recently I read a post where a Mum had given here kids a drawn map and added x's to mark where the treasure was, unfortunately I didn't pin it and now can't find it to give it credit (if you also saw this post please let me know in the comments).  But, I thought it was a great idea so hid our glitter acorns and marked them on the map.

The map really helped as the acorns are pretty small even if they sparkled making them easier to find.

3 - Painted acorns

For a bit of decoration I painted some acorns, initially I used ready mix paint, but it flaked off so did them again with acrylic paints which worked much better.

The boys also enjoyed painting the acorns, although they mostly ended up brown - fun, but not that pretty!

4 - Painted acorn caps (for matching pairs)

The idea for painting acorn caps came from Paint Cut Paste they used markers to colour the inside of the acorn caps, instead I used paint, but then also like the original post used glue to make a lovely shine.

They look lovely!  I did these without the boys, but it could easily be done with older kids.  My plan was to then using them in a game of matching pairs - by turning them face down and matching the colours - if you get to give it a go let me know!

5 - Autumn Sensory Bin
We also popped the acorns as well as chestnuts (conkers) and pine cones for a sensory bin, ours was very simple, but check out some of the great ones from 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 and Happy Hooligans.

I hope you've enjoyed today's post!  If you liked this why not check out our Facebook and G+ pages too

Our Easter Celebrations - The Egg Hunt

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Ahh yes, the final part... the egg hunt.  I hid plastic eggs round the garden with mini chocolate eggs inside.  To stop Bud stockpiling eggs and leaving Champ with none, I gave them specific coloured eggs to collect each which prevented any squabbles.

The boys love a good treasure hunt!

By now though they were covered in paint and a bit of dirt so we headed off to the bath where I dumped in some glow sticks looped into bracelets so they looked egg shape and a load of other plastic eggs.  Not the best sensory bath ever, but the boys enjoyed the sheer novelty of having something different in the bath.

A fantastic afternoon and hopefully we achieved our objective of having lots of family fun whilst talking about the true meaning of Easter.  Plus, we hopefully have started a few family traditions to build on for next year.