Fun Brain dot com

Online sites that are appropriate for my 6 year old are great. He thinks he is “big” by getting a chance to be on the computer, and if the sites teach him something along the way, that is an added bonus!

I recently found www.funbrain.com

This one is great! He loves it! It has everything from Math and Reading to Spelling and Games. I highly recommend this one for school age kiddos!

Halloween Eve……

Well, here it is ~ the night before the big night! My boys are itching to put on those Ninja costumes tomorrow and show off their “moves”. We have decided to go to a small block party at our friends house. It is a small neighborhood of maybe 20 or so houses…so we will be entertaining the kids with games, hayrides and dancing more than trick or treating. I think it is going to be a blast! 

We have a certain area in our little town that gets a lot more “trick or treaters” than the average neighborhood. The police block off the roads and the crowds are worse than Mardi Gras! With a 6 & 3 year old, there is no way I would take a chance of bringing my boys there, I am way too nervous!

Here are a few last minute party ideas if you find yourself aroung a group of little ones!

• Build A Scarecrow
  Form groups and have a variety of old clothes, pillowcases for heads, markers and newspaper. Groups have 20 minutes to create. Give prizes to the scariest or funniest.
• Guess The Ghost
  Have one child leave the room. Then take a large sheet and have a different (child) stand and hide under the sheet. Mix up the remaining children in the room and then allow the child who left the room to come back inside. That child has to guess who’s the ghost, by process of elimination they need to figure out which child is hiding under the sheet. Then that “Ghost” goes out of the room and a different child becomes the new ghost, mix up the remaining children and repeat until all of the children have had a turn being the ghost.
• The Grave Keeper
  The last person left wins the game!
  Choose one person to be the grave keeper. The grave keeper closes his/her eyes and counts to ten while everyone else gets into a good frozen position and stands very still. The grave keeper then walks around looking for anyone who moves. If the grave keeper catches you moving (breathing doesn’t count), you are out. You can move positions when the gravekeeper’s back is turned but don’t get caught moving. The last person left is the winner and can be the new grave keeper when you play another round. Turn the lights down a little and play scary Halloween and graveyard music to really spook it up!
• Ghostcatcher
  Decide how many teams you will make based on the number of children. Have enough stickers for the team members to have one each of the same sticker. Choose a child to be in the center of the circle of children. Divide the rest of the children into teams of ghosts, for example Red Ghosts, Blue Ghosts. Place the pumpkin in the middle of the circle and blindfold the Ghostcatcher. Ghosts crawl around the circle on their knees and try to sneak to the middle to put their stickers on the pumpkin. If the Ghostcatcher hears a sound, he points in that direction and says, ‘Ghost!’ If the Ghostcatcher catches a Ghost before he places his sticker, that child must start over again.

Secretly ~ I enjoy Halloween as much as my boys. I am going to be the classic, yet easy to pull together “witch”. Have fun tomorrow and hopefully this will not be one of the nights your kids tell you they are bored!

Fun Halloween things for kids to do online…

Since Halloween is getting closer I wanted to visit this topic first….

Halloween IS celebrated by my family, but it is very very monitored. We try to do Halloween “parties” with the kids rather than going to the popular trick or treating neighborhoods. We focus more on pumpkin carvings and hayrides than the costumes and candy and the boys have a blast every year.

A few places online that have some neat Halloween stuff for the kids:

Virtual Jack-o-lantern - this is a neat site for kids 2 and up - you can hand pick your “virtual” jack-o-lantern’s features….eyes, nose, mouth etc. and then get a created by “insert your kids name here”printout to use for the real pumpkin carving. Best part is they can just recreate him over and over until he is just right. My 6 year old had a blast with this and now Dad and Gramps have some award winning jack-o-lantern carving in their future!

Send a Custom Jack by eMail - Here is a similar site with twist….first you go to the virtual pumpkin patch and pick out your favorite one. Then you are only limited by your imagination as to what you can carve into it! When your child is done you can add a personal message to your one of a kind jack-o-lantern and email away! This is a great rainy day activity, you could start over and have a special pumpkin for each member of your mailing list!

Halloween Coloring Sheets - Why is it that it is more fun to color on a printed picture than in a coloring book? Who knows?

Ben & Jerry’s Halloween Site - Who would have thought the “masters” of weird named ice cream would have a portion of their site dedicated to Halloween stuff. Lots of fun for little ones here!

J’s Halloween Interactive Story Telling - Something different – you can read the Halloween stories, complete with background music at your own pace. Since 1993, J’s Magic has been bringing you its annual award-winning Halloween story for kids of all ages. The pages load quick for a graphic site.

Virtual Haunted House - Cute, haunted house, that will take you room by room and even gives you the creepy background music! Turn off the light to view this one!

I don’t have a problem with my 6 year old participating in the sites above, as long as I am on the computer with him. I would never let him roam around the Internet on his own…..(gasp)….I hope you can squeeze some time in with your kiddos and let them see that there is lots of Halloween fun right here on the computer!

Welcome!

Well,  here it is! FINALLY after talking about it for months I am posting post number one of thousands! I am Kristi a work at home mom of 2 wonderful boys. Boys that LOVE sports, outdoors, adventures, and everything in between. You would think with soccer practice, karate, homework, basketball and of course school, these kids would not have time to even be BORED. Well, go figure when the family has a couple hours free from any appointments I will at least hear one of them announce that dreadful statement “MOM! I’M BORED…

 Ugh…. I know that you’ve heard it too, or some form with the same meaning….unless your kid is less than a year, which in that case, just wait. You’ll see what I mean! When I hear them say it I think so many things….

~ I am a bad mother – I am not giving my kids enough attention.
~ My childhood….when did I have the nerve to “announce” my boredom to my parents? Don’t think so.
~ How can this child be bored not just 10 minutes ago we were “insert random weekly activity here”
~ Maybe he means he’s hungry, not bored, just hungry and he is confused.
When it comes down to it, I “know” what he is saying. My kids want to do something FUN, something DIFFERENT and something FAST! So me “planning” a zoo trip for Sunday will not cure the ‘boredom blues’ my 6 year old have on Friday. What is that saying? Strike while the iron is hot? That is what I have got to do! Within minutes we’ve got to be doing ’something’.

Lucky for my kiddos I am a fairly young mom who not that long ago was a camp counselor for underprivileged youth. This gave me lots of experience dealing with kids who needed fun and unique ways to have a good time. I literally have volumes of book on this type of stuff. Obviously a lot is not suitable for my 6 and 3 year old, but between the volumes of books and my creative little mind I have lots to share! I hope you can turn to this blog when you are looking for things to do for your kids next birthday, play date or anytime your kids tell you MOM! I’m bored!