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How to play with your child...seems easy enough, right? Not all entertainment has to involve going somewhere or spending alot of money. Any parent can tell you that the boxes toys come in often get played with more then the toys themselves. I think our imagination is the best toy we have, so lets teach our children how it works.

**** Inside Games:

Some of our favorites are painting, playdough, coloring, dancing, hide and seek, reading and baby dolls, ponies, blocks, and more dancing.

Box: I said earlier boxes are great! Save or acquire a HUGE box, the kids will do the rest. In and out, open and shut, over and under. When the new starts to wear off give the kids crayons or markers to decorate the box, and everything old is new again.
Tape: Masking tape can and does get put on the floor in lines, squiggles, and dashes to help us practice balance and hone our large motor skills. Currently, we have the tape in shapes and the kids get a reward for finding and standing on the shape that I ask them to. There are no losers in this game, if the little ones get stuck, then the older kids yell advice until they find it. Next, we are going to put down letters of the alphabet and numbers.

Auntie is sleeping: I lay on the couch or floor and pretend to sleep and the kids try to sneak up on me. Of course I wake up and ROAR at them, sometimes chasing and tickling.
Balloon war: For this game, I sit at my desk with a gate up to create a bunker of sorts. The kids try to bombard me with balloons and I have to hit them back out of my area before they hit the floor.
Super Ma'ams: Each child has a cape tied around their neck and they race around the house. Some other versions that have evolved from this game are: Cooker, where my little ones pretend to be chefs and ghosts, with the blankets over their heads bumping into walls.
Who doesn't like building forts? We use old tablecloths, pillows, chairs, and anything else our imagination requires to build our forts, houses, stores, etc.
Garage sale: A new game that has taken hold since I had one last summer. The kids arrange all of the toys, garage sale style, then take turns shopping at the garage sale.

Beauty shop: Time for a quieter inside game? This will do nicely. We have a large doll bust, along with several pairs of scissors from playdough sets, barrettes, head bands and brushes in a large tote. Some of the girls will play with the doll and some will 'do' my hair for me, while I get to sit, sit, sit.

Dress-Up: Outgrown your prom dress, and how about those heels? Where is the costume jewelry that grandma left you? Gather all of these things up, throw them in a tote, and call it a dress-up box. I have my grandfathers cowboy hat in there and several 'Clutches' (fancy word for itty bitty hand bags) well used Christmas dresses and halloween costumes that I bought on clearance.

Super Spies: Gather up your old cell phones, broken flashlights and remote controls, remove the batteries, and place in an old diaper bag (or something similar) Add to this bag a magnifying glass, wrist watch and a few of those fake credit cards you get in the mail. No good spy will go anywhere without some sort of credit card. If the children are old enough to be trusted with pens, throw in a note pad and pen for secret messages. They may even need sunglasses for a disguise.

Excuse Me: Do your kids need to learn manners? Do you need to sit down? Perfect! Find an area that you can block with your arms or legs, using them as gates. Now encourage the kids to run around the house until they come to your 'gate', the gate can't go up unless they say 'Excuse Me'. Once they say Excuse Me, lift your 'gate' and let them through, they race around the house again and come to the 'gate' in the road...Excuse Me!... once again the gate will go up! This game goes on for thirty minutes or more before my two year olds get bored with it. To change it up a bit I encourage the children to practice other manners, such as "Please, open the gate", "Thank you gate lady" etc.

Word Find, letter search: Buy a cheap word-find book...tear out a page, print the letter that you want your child to find at the top of the page. Give them a pen and have them circle that letter everytime they find it on the page. Go over the page with them when they're done and circle (in a different color) any letter that they missed...if they 'miss' less then three of the designated letters give them a sticker or smiley face on the page. Teach them to slow down and pay attention to what they're doing...go to fast, miss to many letters and get a sad face. The older the child the more difficult I make the game; my five year old has to find two or three different letters per page; and my six year old has to find small words.

**** Outside games: Outside is definitely our choice whenever we can. Chalk, bubbles, water, swings, slides, and bikes rule!

A walk outside is just the thing when we have too much energy. We take out 'bug catchers' and explore the wildlife in our area. To date we have caught crickets, beetles, caterpillars, toads and frogs, butterflies, and tomato worms! We learn through play.
Wagon rides: down the hill and through the field to grandma's house we go. Sometimes we get to stop for a visit with grandma and grandpa, grandma always has a candy treat for us. Raiding grandma's apple tree is also something we enjoy.
Whackers: we use our whackers (flyswatters) to whack the tops off of the dandelions that my husband lets grow white and fluffy for us. We live in the country so we don't worry about having a 'lawn', just a yard.
Dirt and Mud: when it's dry, we dig with spoons and scoops in the soft dirt or the sandbox, and when it is muddy we find puddles to jump in and mud to squeeze between our toes. But they have just as much fun with the group bubble bath afterwards, its not often you get 3 or 4 playmates in the tub with you. Splash!
Golfcart rides: As soon as the weather warms we will ride around the property on the cart. Last year we had a 'pet snake' that would sun itself on a piece of tin in our field, and they haven't forgotten it, they keep wanting to go visit their 'nake.' Eewww!

Food Fight: This is perfect for a hot summer day. You will need soft food such as jello, cooked spaghetti noodles, hotdog slices, popcorn, marshmallows, ketchup, mustard, mashed potatoes, bread, cool whip spread on paper plates, a variety of canned veggies (drained) and kool aide etc. Dress the kiddos up in their swimming suits and footwear. Give each child a pair of swimming goggles. Let them throw food at each other or eat it if they choose. Who cares, it's supposed to be fun! Afterward run them through the sprinklers til they're clean.

**** Halloween Ideas:

Car Painting: This was a HUGE hit with all ages of children. Pick out a victim, we used our older minivan and let the kids fingerpaint the entire vehicle. I bought 18-1quart bottles and had enough for the party, use empty butter dishes or paper plates, put three different colors of paint in each dish. This is a great activity for the 'DADS' to be in charge of because all they have to do is make sure each child is handed a bowl of paint and refill the bowls when they run out. We set up the painting area near a hose so we could spray off the van and the kids as needed. ($50.00 cost)

Dot Room: A black light wonder! We covered the entire interior of our two car garage in flat black paper (bought online at a school supply place) then we placed neon colored dots of various sizes all over the walls, floor and ceiling. Put FLourenscent BLACK lights into the light fixtures and WOW! We even has a Dot Man who was dressed in black and covered in dots. You couldn't see him in the room until he moved, scared the crap out of the kids! It is sooo necessary to get even with them for whining every now and then, and the beauty of it is that they don't even know you are laughing at them and not with them. (Black paper $60.00, neon paper $10.00, lights $25.00 for a total of $95.00)

Concentration: Buy a package of 40 disposable drinking cups. Write the names of prizes on slips of paper and tape inside each cup. Make sure each prize is written twice so that the kids can find a match. Some prize ideas: smarties, tootsie rolls, $1 McD gift certificate etc., make it easy to win a small prize by putting that name inside alot of cups, and make it harder to win the big prize by only putting inside two cups. Turn the cups unside down and start playing. One prize per child.

Mad Scientist Lab: I have to say this has been the most fun for me to put together. Find or make items for the kids to look at in the scientist lab. Examples of things we have made are: a plaster cast of a Bigfoot print (fake! made in a large tub), old X-Rays (real), finches nest (real), crocodile tears (green liquid soap), fairy dust (glitter), vampire hunters kit (has holy water, stake, cross and small Bible) arrowheads (real), mouse poop (chocolate sprinkles) and one of my favorites: the tongue from a sassy child, its rubber of course, but the kids don't know that, and it feels real. Use your imagination! I have over 100 items in my 'Lab'. Save all shapes and sizes of clear or translucent plastic bottles to display your ingredients in. I've used spice, soap, lotion, soda and peanut butter containers just to name a few.

Pumpkin Smashing: This year we purchased 40 small pumpkins for the kids to carve and later smash at our halloween party, and guess what...it was a blast! The winner of the pumpkin smashing was stout young lady who'll have absolutely no trouble keeping her dates in line when the time comes. As for the pumpkin smashing we did in a sideyard near our pasture so that we didn't have much cleanup to do. If you live in town a cheap tarp or section of plastic will work great. We borrowed aluminum baseball bats from our neighbors, they were lightweight and cleaned up easily.

"Green" Costumes: Everyone is pinching pennies and trying to cut corners so we came up with the idea for costumes to be made from recycled materials only. Of course children could dress in store bought costumes if they chose but we really wanted to encourage people to save their money by holding a contest to judge ONLY the homemade costumes. This encouraged people to make their own costumes, and our winner was a VERY clever Jellyfish costume. Materials needed: strand of battery operated Christmas lights or something similar, an old wicker sombraro, plastic cookie bowl, yarn cut to 2 foot lengths (about 20 pieces), face paint to match yarn color and a set of playclothes also in matching color. Turn the cookie bowl upside down and paint the exterior the same color as the yarn. Assembly: place the sombraro on a flat surface, wrap the Christmas lights around the hat (like a headband), Place the cookie bowl upside down over top of the lights. Tie yarn randomly around the edge of the sombraro these will be the Jellyfish tentacles. Paint your childs face and dress them in their matching outfit, you now have one jellyfish with lighted cap and swaying tentacles.

**** Websites that save my butt on a rainy days and holidays: