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Kid Craft: Tissue Paper Fall Leaf Sun Catchers

October 8 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

These fall leaf sun catchers are such a beautiful way to welcome autumn and my kids loved making them.

Isn't the sun streaming through these fall leaf sun catchers lovely? This was a really easy, no-mess project the kids and I took on last week to welcome the new season. It was the perfect activity for working on our fine-motor skills while also beautifying our home. Get the full tutorial here. And if you need a laminator for home (great for projects like these as well as protecting all sorts of things from chore lists to meal plans), this is the one I use and love. Happy … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art + Kid Crafts, Holiday Projects, Seasonal Fun, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: fall art project, fall craft, fall craft for kids, fall kid craft, leaf craft, tissue paper suncatchers

How to Make the Ultimate “Quiet Box”

September 29 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

Essential components to making the ultimate quiet time box for your kiddos - we LOVE ours when its rainy outside and the kids are bouncing off the walls.

With the crisper (and around here, decidedly wetter) fall weather comes more time spent indoors. That means, it's time to get creative with ways to keep the kids busy. Along with relying on our all-time favorite toys for keeping kids active indoors, we're also re-vamping our quiet box. Want to see what I think should go inside an ultimate Quiet Box? Check it out here.   … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Parenting, Quiet Time, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: busy bags, How to make a quiet box, Quiet box, quiet time activities

DIY Melted Crayon Lanterns

September 28 by Julee

DIY crayon wax candle - fun & easy for the kids to do and the result is ultra chic - gonna do this at our next playdate with a few of our friends!

A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I decided to make wax paper lanterns. She loves decorating our house for holidays and, since Halloween is right around the corner, we used black and orange colors to create something that could double as Halloween decor. Although the project is incredibly simple and well-suited to children, the results are very dramatic and sophisticated. Here's how we made them ...   … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Holiday Projects, Julee Tagged With: DIY Halloween decor, Halloween, Halloween craft project, Halloween kids crafts, home decor, melted crayon DIY, melted crayon lantern

{Play Idea} 17 Unique Materials for Building & Creating

August 11 by Kristin

Lots of great ideas here for my little engineer!

Summer has hit full stride and all the free time off school has lost its allure.  We've been swimming, hiking, adventuring and more!   So, now it's time to explore new activities that will satisfy the kids' natural curiosity and endless amounts of energy. We've picked our top 17 building activities, using everything from newspaper to marshmallows.  Most of these items you'll have at home, so pick an activity from the list this afternoon when boredom hits your house. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Kristin, Sensory & Interactive Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: block activities, building activities, building for kids, STEM activities for kids, summer building projects for kids, upcycled building blocks

{Play Idea} A Simple Technique to Keep Kids Coloring Longer

August 4 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

A super easy tip for extending coloring time - filing this one in my Mommy toolbox!

Coloring is at the very top of my super-simple, go-to activities for keeping the kids happy and occupied. It's a total classic, of course, and encourages all kinds of open-ended creativity. So when my friends Holly and Rachel of Kids Activity Blog sent me their new book, I knew it was going to be well used in our house as soon as I saw this project. This is such a simple way to extend a basic coloring session. Can you guess what we're using to make our crayon creations pop? … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art + Kid Crafts, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: crayon art projects, DIY hair gel paints, kid art projects, kids activities

Outdoor Play Idea: Colorful Car Wash!

July 16 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

Summer playtime activity: Colorful Car Wash - my kids will do this one for hours at a time!

The kids and I take the summer sun as a direct challenge to come up with new and innovative ways to play outside and today I'm sharing one of our absolute favorites. Try this colorful car wash idea once and you'll be hooked - I swear. My kids really do engage in this one for hours at a time and yours just might too! P.S. Did you know that facebook has recently drastically changed the way pages like MPMK can share with their followers? Even if you’re a fan of the MPMK facebook page, only a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Outdoor Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: kids car wash, outdoor play, playing car wash, shaving cream play, summer kids activity

10 Best Ways To Organize Art Supplies

July 6 by Annie

10 Best Ways To Organize Art Supplies

I recently mentioned my newly rekindled desire to set up a tinkering/creation station in our new house for the kids. So - of course - I had to put our resident professional organizer on the job to make sure I had all the resources I needed to get it done right. Here's Annie with her ideas on how to create a beautifully functional and organized art space for your kiddos. P.S. Creating a space like this is also IDEAL for using with our free summer B.O.R.E.D. printable. School's out for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Annie, Art + Kid Crafts, Organizing, Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life Tagged With: art caddy, art cart, art organization, art supplies, art supply organization, craft room, DIY creativity center, How to get organized, live simply by annie, mason jars, POYEL, Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life

Quiet Time Trick: Make Calming Lavender Play Dough

June 24 by Kaley

Quiet Time Trick: DIY Calming Lavender Play Dough

We've talked about the amazing benefits of play dough. We've shared the best play dough recipe ever. We've even made play dough toolkits. So we can all agree that we love play dough. But did you know that it can also be used as a great calming activity for kids? By adding the soothing, calming properties of lavender to our favorite playdough, this activity is sure to calm even the wiggliest of kids on those long summer days. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creating & Engaging, Kaley, Quiet Time, Sensory & Interactive Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: calming play dough, diy play dough, homemade playdough, lavender, play dough recipe, playdough recipe, quiet time activities, summer play ideas

How to Make “Ah-Mazing” Bubbles with the Kids

June 11 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

Lots of great ideas on how to amaze the kids with bubbles here!

S is turning 4 next month and I'm SO EXCITED to finally have a backyard big enough to host a cookout birthday party. I've got a few things planned already and one of the stars of the show is going to be a bubble station featuring some of these DIY bubble blowers. I'm also contemplating the super amazing, human-inside-of-them, extra large bubbles. Have you ever made these with the kids? They're surprisingly simple to pull off.   Check out this quick video for the full how-to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Outdoor Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: best bubble recipe, DIY bubble blowers, DIY bubbles, extra large bubbles, homemade bubble blowers, homemade bubbles

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