{Outdoor Play Party: Awesome Nature}

Hi folks, I know I haven't been around much lately, but we're back at school now and things are crazy and hectic. Between my full-time teaching job, additional department head responsibilities and homeschooling Princess Pea for Kindergarten on the side, I'm not sure when I'll be able to pop in next, so I'm putting blogging on hold for a bit. So I'm very sad to announce that this will be my last Outdoor Play Party for a while. However, the party will continue over at my cohosts' blogs (and watch for a new cohost next edition, too!). I encourage you to follow all of their blogs so that you can keep up to date with when new editions of the Outdoor Play Party are posted. I do hope that you will all still participate. I think that by sharing in this forum here, we are all doing our part to promote the importance of outdoor play for kids - too often overlooked in our busy, highly-scheduled society these days!

So, before I go, I leave you with some pictures from a recent hike we took. We had a lovely vacation in Croatia, including visiting the Plitvicke lakes area for a couple of days. We were so impressed that Princess Pea hiked a full 4 hours on her own, without a complaint! 

And what a beautiful place for a hike! 

Our route

And you gotta love hiking in Europe - in addition to the incredible and varied natural scenery, at the end there's always ice cream and beer waiting! ;-)

{Number Recognition Car Game}

As we were driving to the dentist's earlier this summer, just me and Princess Pea, we killed car travel boredom and practiced her number recognition by playing 'spot the number'.

We started with the number 4, since it was her 'last day of being 4'. She scanned all the houses we passed, looking for one that had a 4 in the house number. Once she found one, she started looking for a number 5, since she would be 5 the next day. Then, of course, we had to do all the numbers, so we went back to 1, then 2, etc. Each time she spotted the number she was looking for, she got so excited! (I love her enthusiasm!)

Sometimes she had to confirm first what the number looked like. It was interesting to hear her interpretations of what they look like. ("Is 8 the one that looks like a snowman?" "2 looks like a 5, but has a straight line on the bottom, and the 5 looks like an S, right Mama?")

She noted that the houses mostly had more than one number on them, which led to her discovery of how 2-digit numbers are written ("SIXty FOUR is a SIX and a FOUR!")

Far more fun and at least as effective as any worksheet! ;-)

What kinds of games do you play in the car with your kids?

{On the Road With Kids: Outdoor Play Party}

Travel With Kids:

Building Playtime Into Your Journey

We travel quite a lot with our children. As expats living overseas, it's sort of a way of life for us. As anyone who's ever travelled with kids knows, with young children in tow, a long journey can easily become a miserable experience for everyone if the kids decide they've had enough. 

But there are definitely things a parent can do to help make the journey tolerable, if not enjoyable, for everyone. Aside from ensuring that you pack plenty for the kids to do along the way, one way we've found to be incredibly important is building active playtime into the trip. But how?

For long-haul air trips, that may mean taking two shorter flights with a reasonable layover, rather than one longer haul, so that they can have a chance to get off the airplane and run around in an airport. 

For long car rides, it means timing your departure just right to maximize sleeping in the car, and it also means making rest-stops longer than just a quick bite to eat and a bathroom break. 

We recently took a trip to Slovenia for a family vacation (our third time visiting there - such a beautiful place!). As always, we made sure that we spent a full hour at rest stops - plenty of time to play before getting back in the car. 

We are lucky here in Europe that many rest stops have built-in play areas, either indoors or outdoors, which we seek out and make use of (we even mark good ones on the map for reference for future trips). But if there is no play area around and the kids are in need of a break NOW, we bring a ball or some such toy, so that we can stop at any rest stop and have a bit of running around nearby. 

When you finally reach your holiday destination, make sure that you don't overschedule your days or 'oversightsee' while you are there. Be sure to include large chunks of unstructured free play time in your schedule for the kids. 

A bit of outdoor play along the way makes a world of difference to the journey, we find!

What are your tips for travelling with kids?

At the last Outdoor Play Party, Create With Your Hands shared this fun and easy DIY garden play stream! What a clever and creative way to combine water play with outdoor play when you don't normally have water in your garden to play with.

{Outdoor Play Party: Scoping out the New Neighbourhoood}

I must admit, I've been a bit disappointed that we haven't had any (significant) snow yet (I was so looking forward to building a snowman with the girls this winter as Sweet Pea is a bit snowman obsessed at the moment), but I can definitely live without snow for a while longer - winter is not my favourite season!


Instead, we've been taking advantage of the mild winter weather to enjoy some time at various local playgrounds. I've said it before and I'll say it again - playgrounds in Hungary are fantastic! They are plentiful, they are usually newly refurbished with great play equipment, they always have a water tap (though they don't run water in winter), and best of all, they are always a community hub!


It's always disappointing when we go to playgrounds in North America during the summertime to discover that there are hardly any other kids there, if any. We're always hoping to make a summertime new friend, but we find we are usually the only ones there. But here, there are always lots of new playmates to befriend, which is perfect for my social butterfly, Princess Pea!


This week we've been scoping out our new neighbourhood before our move next month. We spent a spent a whole day hanging out and pretending that we already live there! :-)

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week! The linky goes live every second Friday at 12:01 GMT+1. Here are just a few guidelines for sharing.

• Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!

• Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.

• Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! Please grab the Outdoor Play button from the sidebar. 

• Each time we will feature an activity from the previous party. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished. If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the 'featured' button from the sidebar.
  
  
  
  
  Our last party had a TON of fabulous ideas linked up, it was really hard to choose which one to feature this week - they were all brilliant! But one that caught my eye was the post on 'Outdoor play and learning opportunities'  from Sixty Second Parent. A great article with loads of suggestions all in one place. I encourage all of you to read and share it! 
  
  

Sharing at: Family Frolics

{Some Simple Preschool Math Play Ideas}

Princess Pea has decided that now that she's four she wants to learn all her letters and numbers. ("Because that's what four-year-olds do".)

So, we've devised a few fun, play-focused activities to help her with some basic math skills at home.

Counting Objects:

Egg carton math. Each egg compartment is numbered (1-10, eggs come in packs of 10 here, not 12). She counts out the correct number of pompoms to place in each labelled compartment. Although she can rote count to 10 easily, she has a harder time with one-to-one correspondance when counting objects (i.e., she double counts some items, or skips some others because she's counting too fast, etc.). This is a good activity to practice that correspondance (which is also an important early literacy skill, by the way), and she thinks it's so fun!

You could also use beans or any other small object, and you could mix things up by using tongs instead of fingers to place the items in. Good fine motor skill practice, too. We used teeny-tiny pompoms, which also gave her fine motor practice.

Later I plan to use them differently, for example, using them like a number line to count up and back. E.g., "Start at 4 and count up 3. Where do you end up?" etc.; and for simple addition, e.g., "Take the pompoms from 2 and 3 and add them together. How many do you have now?"

Addition:

A dinner-time 'math game' she's started playing lately with Daddy is a sort of number quiz game. Very simple. Daddy asks, "What number comes after 4?" or "What number is before 5?". Then he changes the wording slightly to, "What's one more than 6?" or "What's one less than 3?", which begins to introduce the terms "more" and "less" that will be important for math in school. Then he makes it more challenging with, "What's 2 more than 2?" or "What's 3 and 2 more?", etc.. Princess Pea loves this game! Sometimes she comes up with the answers instantly in her head, and other times she counts her fingers. We played it in the shower the other day and she was so engrossed in the game that she almost didn't even notice I was washing her hair! Bonus! ;-)

Comparing Numbers:

Another game we introduced to her recently is "Top-It". For this you need a deck of cards. (We got a free pack from Lufthansa in their kids' goodies - very convenient for airplane distractions! And perfect because you don't need a full deck to play this game, so if some get lost between the seats it's no biggie!) Remove the face cards. Two or more people can play this. Each person turns over a card. The person with the higher number wins the cards. Princess Pea can't read most of the numbers yet, but she can count the hearts or whatever are on them when she needs to. This is also good practice for counting numbers at a glance (e.g., looking at the picture of 4 hearts and instantly knowing there are four without counting them out), and for beginning to learn to 'read' the number digits.

Also, see my post about our Magnetic Fishing game. We all love that game as it's so versatile for children of different ages/skill levels, so both girls can play it together and each enjoy it.

Patterns:

We have also been making pattern strings. See my post on our Pool Noodle pattern strings. You can use anything to practice making patterns. Foam shapes (circle, square, circle, square...), coloured pompoms (red, blue, blue, red, blue, blue...), toy cars (car, car, truck, truck...), or ink stamps (butterfly, airplane, flower, butterfly, airplane, flower...) etc. Try making different kinds of patterns, gradually increasing their complexity as suits your child.

We've been having fun with these play ideas, but I would never, ever recommend pushing them on your children. If Princess Pea initiates the play or discussion, we do it. Otherwise, we leave her to play whatever she likes. Kids are only kids for a very short time. I'm in no rush to have my little peas grow up!

{Bundle Up and Hit the Beach!}


 
I mentioned before that we are visiting grandparents this summer. First in Toronto, and then in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Nova Scotia is almost an island on the east coast, not quite surrounded by the Atlantic. Living in a landlocked country, the ocean is not something that my little peas see much of, except on vacations. I was so excited to take them to the beaches here! I had visions of collecting bucketloads of shells to take home and ideas of what to do with the shells when we got there.

Unfortunately, we haven't had much shell-collecting luck here after all. There are almost no shells on the beaches here! What there is, however, is very, very cold water! And fog. And frigid Atlantic winds. In most places, when people arrive at the beach, they strip off to their swimsuits. Not here. Here when you arrive at the beach, you bundle up in jeans, hoody sweatshirts, and maybe even wellie boots! At least that's what we do!



Yes, there are some crazy local kids splashing in swimsuits in the background!
And yes, it is so foggy that you can barely see the ocean from the beach!



Nevertheless, we've been to three beaches so far. Not many shells, but we've had some really nice times digging around, checking out the different types of seaweed, finding bits of crab legs, and throwing rocks into the water.

  

So, we won't be doing a lot of shell crafts after all, but we have a few shells, and we've got a bucketload of other treasures to play with instead.

Linking to: Little Wonders' Days Summertime Fun Party

{Outdoor Play Blog Hop: Chalk and Puddle Play}

You can join our weekly Outdoor Play blog hop every Friday (below) and link up your own Outdoor Play activities, but first, my weekly feature, Our Week Outdoors.

Our Week Outdoors: Chalk and Puddle Play

 

Last week we were visiting the grandparents in Toronto, Canada.
One day Papo brought home a bucket of sidewalk chalk for the girls to play with,
so early the next morning we set to work decorating their front steps.

It had rained overnight, leaving some enticing puddles in the driveway,
so the girls dipped the chalk in to make them wet,
and got a whole different drawing experience.

Princess Pea noticed that the wet chalk was softer to draw with,
more like painting than drawing,

and she experimented with drawing every colour on top of one another.

Gradually, the focus moved from the chalk more to the puddles....

Until it really became all about the puddles!

Specifically, trying to make the biggest possible splashes with hands, feet, and bottoms!

Check out that soaking wet bottom!

For more outdoor chalk play ideas, check out this Chalk Outdoor Play party!

Thanks to everyone who linked up to last week's Outdoor Play. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts!

And I absolutely adored this post on making batik art using all natural materials from Sunhats and Wellie Boots! Definitely don't miss it!

Now, on to the blog hop for this week:

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

> Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!

> Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.

> Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!

> Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished. 

By the way, if you're not familiar with blog link-ups, here is a handy blog hop / linky party info page from Pre-K Pages to get you started.

Share this link-up on your site

And don't forget to grab my button, please, pretty please, to post on your blog or website ...

<center><a href="http://mamapeapod.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.anamazingchild.net/elgg/_graphics/site/mamaPPbutton.png" /></a></center>

Oh, and don't miss my current Baby Signs giveaway! You could win a Complete Baby Signs Starter Kit!

Linking to: Sun Scholars' For the Kids Fridays; It's Playtime, High Paw, The Play Academy, Link & Learn

{Outdoor Play link up: Our Beach Vacation}

You can join our Outdoor Play blog hop below and link up your own Outdoor Play activities, but first, my weekly feature, Our Week Outdoors. This week it's all about our beach vacation in Croatia!

I'd also like to take a moment here to thank all of the wonderful people who guest posted over the last couple of weeks, so that I could spend this time off with my family: Sarah of A Teacher at Heart, Michelle of Michelle's Charm World, Maggy of Red Ted Art, Amy of Kids in the Studio, Rachel of Quirky Momma, and Abbie of Greening Sam and Avery. Thanks so much, all of you!

And there are more great guest posts coming up in the next few weeks!

Our Week Outdoors: Beach Vacation in Croatia



We spent last week on a beach vacation in Croatia. It was our first time visiting Croatia, but I'm sure it won't be our last.


We spent LOTS of time playing at the beach, of course...

We brought home a big bucketful of the sand and beach pebbles to make a beach sensory tub at home. (Thanks to Daddy Pea for lugging it back to the car!)

Of course, there was also lots of dining al fresco....

And we celebrated Princess Pea's fourth birthday with crepes on the beach at night. I had brought some Strawberry Shortcake napkins, candles, and a 'birthday girl' rosette to make it extra special. Princess Pea reported that it was her "best birthday in the whole world!" and has requested to celebrate every birthday from now on exactly like that...umm.... (sorry about the terrible picture, it was too dark to see anything through the viewfinder, so I was taking pictures 'blind')...

We also took time to explore the towns of Krk and Baska and took long walks along the boardwalks, exploring the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of these fishing/boating towns...

Photo by Princess Pea!

And, of course, there was also downtime at our rental apartment, with some outdoor play there, too, at the pool and in the shady spots on our large terrace...

And we took some walks through the countryside, exploring the sights and finding out about the local plants and animals...

Grapes and hazelnuts

Figs

Smelling the lavender

Playing in the shade of the hazelnut trees

We woke up every morning to the not-so-gentle sound of these sheep!

We came across this stray donkey that had broken its tether and was wandering around the side of the road

And nearly stepped on this huge grasshopper

We had an amazing week outdoors this week! How about you??

Thanks to everyone who linked up to last week's Outdoor Play!

I hope you didn't miss this fun idea by My Oatmeal Kisses for Ice Water Balloons - a perfect outdoor play activity for a hot, summer day!

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

> Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!

> Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.

> Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!

> Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished. 

Share this link-up on your site