Kids Love Cheap Easy Activities

Playing in Water is Fun & Teaching Time

Playing with water is a great way to have fun, increase vocabulary and teach.  Young children who read and do fun hands-on learning activities while talking to adults start school with about ten times as many words than children who don’t have these opportunities. 

Math and Science

  When the family heads to the beach for fun there can be  a little teaching, too. Take along different sized containers , a bucket, shovels, and plastic toys.  How many cups will fill a bucket?  How many buckets does it take to fill a hole in the sand? Where is the water going if  there is no exit stream? 

  Families can gather flat rocks on the beach and teach older children to skip them in the water.  Little children can throw a few stones in the water close to them.  Do bigger rocks make bigger splashes?  Why?

   Place some water in a container and start adding a few stones. Guess and count how many stones it takes before a container overflows. Gather natural items found on the beach and find out what floats and sinks.  Children also like to fill a small plastic boat- like container with rocks and estimate how many are needed to sink it.  You are teaching water displacement and volume which is a measure of the amount of space an object takes up.

  Children can make an outlet stream from their hole back to the lake. Now can they make a dam with sticks, stones, and mud?

  Speaking of mud, who can make the highest castle tower by drizzling mud through their fists?  This is a good technique for sugar sand that doesn’t pack well.

Water is Cheap Paint!

Paint and Wash with Water

  Water is a cheap paint, too. Young children love to paint with water and a small brush on colored paper or concrete. Provide a bucket and different kinds of paintbrushes. Together make the ABC’s, numbers, shapes, and draw pictures on the driveway. You can explain that the water molecules evaporate into the air.

 Children love to help clean bikes. They can use a hose or a thoroughly rinsed spray bottle filled with water.  Teach children how to spray and wipe with hand towels. They can also rinse off soap from your car and themselves on a hot day.

Indoor Water Fun

Water is Great Anywhere!!

  Water play is easy indoors, too.  Fill a dishpan or tub with water. Use plastic measuring cups to fill different containers.  Dolls, trucks and other toys can be washed with a little dish soap and a brush if you don’t plan to use the water for plants later. Give children straws to blow bubbles in the water or on their cupped hand. Estimate how many small toys are required to sink a container.

For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons live and podcasts.

 Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

When Grandparents Must Step In

First, Swing Into Protective Mode

When because of a variety of serious family problems, grandparents feel they must take over, even adopt grandkids, there are a number of issues to address and places to go for help.

  First, what all experts agree is grandparents must swing into protective mode.  Protect your grandchildren and protect yourself—your physical and mental health, safety, legal status, and financial status. Check with an attorney for a variety of custody arrangements in your state before going any further.

  Grandparents taking on the task of raising grandchildren are very courageous. That said, here is what can help with the day to day care.  Although every family is slightly different, there are protective factors to help the new grandfamily prosper. Grandparents can borrow the knowledge based on many years of study by Drs. David Hawkins and Richard Catalano of risk factors and protective factors for preventing problems.

  Grandparents can find out more about the Botvin Life Skills Training, an evidence-based prevention program for schools, families, communities, and places of faith. The information  about life training skills  is at www.lifeskillstraining.com.

   In your own grandfamily experts suggest finding prosocial involvement in the community like Scouts, organized sports, Y, 4-H, faith based clubs, other youth groups, and volunteer to help. Grandkids need recognition for prosocial involvement and behavior. Prosocial means having a positive helpful view toward other people in general.

Look to Training and Research

  Grandparents can develop a strong family unit with reasonable rules, duties, organization, and responsibility.  Provide opportunities for prosocial involvement like helping with the work load around the house, playing, volunteering, discussing together. Provide recognition for prosocial involvement like praise and hugs. Control technology use.

  In school, grandparents can participate, volunteer, check homework and school notes and communicate with the teachers. Be a part of school organizations. Be alert.  Insure children have opportunities for participation in prosocial learning, volunteering, working hard, studying, helping others, and being involved in many activities that nurture their talents and potential.  Find ways for children to receive recognition.

Structure and Social Skills are a Start

Are grandkids learning and using social skills? Establish a moral order of right and wrong in the family. Teach grandkids your faith. Join faith groups and be active as a grandfamily. Search for a school that teaches self- control, self -discipline, responsibility, respect, and helping others. 

  Do the grandkids interact with prosocial peers?  Some grandparents are taking parenting classes, switching schools, and even moving to a different area. However, the change must come from within or grandkids will seek out the same problem peers.

The problem is such an epidemic that there are many sites and places for help. Search for articles about financial help for grandparents on-line:
  See grandfactsheets.org; 
GrandFamilies.org; 
SavvySenior.org;  
GenerationsUnitedHelpGuide.org;  

GrandparentsRaisingGrandchildren at usa.gov. FocusontheFamily.com has many helpful articles especially at “Help for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.”  
See activities for all age groups at grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/ Learning Through the Seasons.
Photos, Fran Darling, fdarling fotos