Activity Resource Books for Parents and Children

For moms out there, we are all guilty of letting our kids watch too much TV and let the TV babysits them while we are doing other things. The truth is, kids are much better learner when they explore it by themselves. When they learn, listen, and do give much more experience that are more precious for them. But reality is that we are busy cleaning, cooking, working, preparing clothes for the next day, packing lunch, doing laundry and many other things that sometimes we'd rather do than play with our kids.

Parents, we need to equip ourselves with resources. Today, I wanted to share with you several books that can help you get creative and enough resource to fill in those TV time with meaningful and fun activities. 

Art Lab book for Kids (of all ages)

"Susan Schwake's Art Lab for Kids is a well-thought-out guide, making it easy to introduce art into children's lives. Simple, clear explanations of technique, combined with inspiration from established artists, will enable children to feel successful and encouraged to explore art as a form of expression." - Rebecca Emberley, best-selling children's book author and illustrator - Amazon recommendations

When I took a glance at this book, as an artist myself, I was amazed that this book has a lot of different techniques of art that we can teach our kids. It's not just doodle drawings, but more of method of the art they are making. I personally love this book.

Another book was also published mixed media by Carla Sonheim, which is also worth checking out.

For those of you who have toddlers in the home, this book is absolutely a great book. I recommend you to get it and get yourself resourseful with the information inside. 

The Toddler's busy book: 365 creative games and activities to keep your 1 1/2  to 3 year old busy.

Snippet from Amazon: ...stimulate a child’s natural curiosity with entertaining math, language, and motor-skills activities, encourage a child’s physical, mental, and emotional growth, celebrate holidays and other occasions with special projects and activities, and keep toddlers occupied during long car trips or while running errands. The Toddler's Busy Book is written with warmth and sprinkled with humor and insight.

Trish Kuffner, the author also published several books that might interest you as well. They are all available to purchase online.

Remember creative parents produce creative kids. :)

Live, love and be creative. 

Ira.

Crafting with Kids

Hi everyone, I hope you would forgive me for not posting so much fun creative stuff at LLBC. I have been looking at so many creative things related to crafting with kids. In some I have tried the inspirations with my daughter, Lucy.

Here are some fun things we did creatively.

Jellyfish and mickey mouse necklace

We also did something fun related to the sea world, cut out a lot of different shape of sea creatures and have Lucy glued and decorated them with stickers.

 

The thing with kids is that you have to find something that will occupy their mind, in the same time fills them up with creativity, unlimited imaginations. I found this interesting hat making for Sanrio theme at Pinterest, and I copied the DIY and did something quick with Lucy. Frog and rabbit hats.

A little monster face that I found on paper source blog, interesting enough to create a monster face that flaps open and ready to eat you when you put your finger inside. This turned out to be a really fun game for Lucy.

Our infamous rabbit paper bag, super easy to make and fun to remember.

And this little guys cat and cow paper craft is something I saw in a really interesting blog somewhere, you can just trace, cut and fold, instantly you got your paper animal.

New activity that she enjoys is finger paints. She just loves to make a mess out of this. That's the thing about kids. They love to be messy! I took a potato and cut them in half, carve a little bit in the inside and we got an instant stampl

And maybe you can add a little glitter too!... She's using brush for the first time.

There are many things you can do with kids... beauty is not a guarantee and we are still working on that. But the creativity and imagination that we set the kids to think about are priceless.

Live, love, and be creative,

Ira.