We are on our billionth snow day of the year. That might seem like an exaggeration, if you are anyone other than a parent to a school age child in Fairfax County. I actually love snow days and love having my kids home, but canceled plans and lack of consistency is even getting to me these days.
Yesterday wasn't even a fun snow day. Mainly because, there isn't any SNOW (other than the dirty piles on the side of the road left by plows)! School was canceled because there was a beautiful sheet of ice covering all surfaces in morning. Guess what, at 10am it was all melted.
We are pretty much stuck inside all day, and on days like this, I tend to allow far too much TV and not enough focused play. Not this time! This morning at breakfast I decided I was finally going to follow through with one of the billion mommy hood pins I have pinned to do on
Pinterest.
I folded a paper plate into 8 sections and worked with the kids to figure out 8 things that they would like to do, or that I would like them to do (i.e. chores). Then, we spent the day taking turns picking activities from the "menu".
1. First thing first, I picked cleaning up the playroom. Really it was a necessity if we were going to actually play without injuring ourselves. I have learned that if I tell my kids to clean the playroom, they go play in the playroom until I go help. However, if I give them specific tasks - "Aaron pick up all the trains" "Baby Steven, put all the blocks in this bin" "Campbell bring me all the dress up clothes to hang up" - things move very quickly. We finished in about 20 minutes.
2. Second was Aaron's pick. He wanted to watch Brain Games. If you haven't seen this show - watch it! Super interesting and educational and all four of my kids LOVE it. Go to
National Geographic Channel's website to find out more about it; but new episodes air on Mondays at 9pm here in the DC Metro. I love this type of programming - absolutely no guilt letting them watch while I get the dishes cleaned from breakfast and start a load of laundry.
3. The next activity was picked by Campbell and it was playing with Legos. This activity ended up lasting well over an hour. First I gave the big boys the task of who could build the coolest vehicle. While they were building, I took the babies to read and build their
fairy tail and
Mickey Mouse Lego Duplo read and build books. These are some of the coolest products that Lego makes for the 2-4 age group. The sets come with a book and Duplo blocks, and as you read the story, you put together characters and props in the book. My little ones LOVE these. They also have a
Jungle book, a
Busy Farm book, a
Let's Go book. If you invite my kids to your kids' second or third birthday party, expect to get one as a gift. Moving on. Next, I had the kids work together to build a tower out of all of our
Mega Bloks. Last, I had them separate the Mega Bloks into colors (which they then decided to make into towers by block size... can you tell that their mother is a little OCD?).
4. After Legos it was lunch time (the morning had FLOWN by), and then Peter picked reading Harry Potter. It was close to nap time, so I got all the kids in their beds (they all sleep in the same room, despite the fact that they each have their own) and read them a chapter of Harry Potter.
5. Once they woke up (and yes - my 6 and 7 year olds do nap when they are home - or at least read quietly in their beds), Baby Steven picked playing
Hullabaloo. This is the perfect stuck-in-doors-we-need-to-get-energy-out game. It comes with a bunch of different shape/color pads that you lay out on the floor and a speaker than shouts out commands like - "march to a triangle" "sit on a musical instrument" "put your elbow on a red" - my kids love it.
6. Then it was my turn to pick again, so naturally I chose the other chore on the menu - matching socks. My kids actually love doing this. I give them each a basket, then I lay all the socks on the ground and they have to find matches, then bring them to me to fold together (they are only allowed to bring me one match at a time), then they throw them into their basket - who ever has the most at the end, wins. Also, I win, because I HATE matching socks. Shockingly, you wouldn't ever think this was a chore in my kids' eyes - they were actually excited when I picked this activity.
7. Next up was Aaron's pick. He wanted to do workbooks (nerd), so I gave each of the kids an age appropriate workbook or coloring book (we stock up on these at our local Dollar Tree). The big guys could literally do this for hours, especially the puzzle books. The little ones, on the other hand, get bored after about 20 minutes, so we moved on to our last activity.
8. Campbell got the last pick of the day, and chose to watch the movie
Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs. This was perfect timing because I was able to cook dinner and fold laundry while they watched.
Long story short - this was a great way to pass the time on a snow day, and we will absolutely be doing this in the future on days where we don't have anything planned. At dinner that night, we thought of other activity ideas and made 5 extra Paper Plate Menus, so that we would be prepared the next time we are stuck indoors or with no plans.
On each of our menus I tried to include 1-2 activities that involved movement, 2-3 fine motor skill type activities, 1-2 screen time to give me a chance to catch up on mommy jobs, 1-2 games where we had to take turns, and 1-2 things they could do pretty independently (some of these over lap).
Hope this helps some of you other parents out there feeling cabin fever this winter!
