Do your children enjoy jokes and riddles?

Jokes, riddles, puzzles and brainteasers are great ways to help develop better thinking skills.  They force children to think “outside of the box” and help them develop ways to better solve and understand problems.

One fun way to add riddles into the daily routine, is to put a riddle in your child’s lunchbox.  This allows your child to mull over an answer to the riddle throughout the day.  Sometimes children are quick to say, “I don’t know” without giving it much thought.  If they read it at lunch and have to wait until the end of the day for the answer, they may spend a little more time thinking about a logical answer.

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Have you ever made homemade crayons?

You may have seen the Crayola Crayon Maker online or in stores.  This is a great machine to have.  We love our crayon maker.  However it can be rather expensive (I found ours at a second hand store).

For those of you who do not have a crayon maker, or do not feel like storing another item in the already overflowing toy closet - Do not worry!

You can make your own recycled crayons at home.  This activity can be more fun than the actual crayon maker since the homemade variety produces cake-shaped crayons.  Kids always love a new spin on an everyday item.

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Are your children reluctant to learn or practice spelling?

If so, give Boggle a try.

Our son has always had a very negative attitude about writing and spelling.  This is due to the fact that these areas are a challenge for him.  He does not have to try very hard to learn other subject matter.  So the thought of taking time to learn and practice a skill is a foreign concept to him.

Last night we decided to play a game together and thought we would try Boggle with him.  He wanted to show him that working with letters and writing all in the same game could be fun.  And to our surprise, it worked!  He actually enjoyed himself and wanted to play again.

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Are you looking for a rainy day activity?

There are those days when the kids need something different.  As a parent you can usually tell that an activity needs to take place when they begin to fight over clouds.  Unfortunately I am not being sarcastic.  Last week my kids started arguing about the clouds in the sky.  I heard my daughter scream, “No that one is my cloud!”

This is when I decided we needed a fun yet simple activity to take their minds off of each other.  I realized there would most likely be arguing during the activity,  but I felt it was time to redirect.

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Do you know what type of lizard this is?

It is the horned lizard.  And here is the story about how I learned all about it….

We were on our way to school when out of the blue my son says, “Mom did you know that the horned lizard squirts blood out of its eyes?  And mole rats eat their own poop?”

At this point I was not sure I heard him correctly.  So I turned down the radio and asked him to repeat himself.  Sure enough he repeated the same information.  Since he seemed very knowledgeable on the topic I had to believe he was telling the truth.

My response, “What are you learning in school?”  (It is just easier to blame someone else for teaching gross information).

Of course he had not learned it in school but from a book that we have at home.  The book is called, Gross Out!  Animals that Do Disgusting Things.  I had bought the book about a year ago and he never gave it the time of day.  Now this week he cannot put it down.

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