All posts filed under: Activities for Kids

Toddlers and Self-Isolation – Ideas for small hands

Are you stuck at home with a toddler? We have plenty of experience hanging with these small people – here are some scheduling and art suggestions for trying to maintain your sanity. Babies and toddlers like routine, their world is so unpredictable so providing them with some sort of routine helps them to know what is coming next. If you’ve got a babe between the ages of 18+ months to 3 years try out our daycare schedule for them. 8:30-9:30 free play Clean up 9:45am circle time – we’re hosting a FREE circle time on Tuesday/Friday if you want to join – send us an email! 10am – snack 10:30 – outdoor play 11:30 – lunch 12-2:30 nap time 3-4pm outdoor play 4pm snack time 4:30pm art 5-5:30 free play. Art Ideas A list of materials needed (all can be purchased at your local dollar store, which is currently still open). Paper Markers Watercolour Paint Gluestick Salad Spinner Shaving Cream Food colouring Qtips Paint Bingo Dabber Letter Art: Toddlers love repetition – we start the …

#COVID19JEDI

It’s ok to go dark sometimes…it’s totally ok to NOT BE OK right now. Say this sometimes to yourself, it can be helpful. “I AM NOT OK RIGHT NOW”. I took a class recently – on Mindful Self-Compassion and there’s a theory about self-compassion being composed of 3 basic things – mindfulness, self-kindness and common humanity. I took this class with the amazing Dr.Heidi Walk and it uses the Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. I’ll break down the 3 parts, if you’re new to this theory.  Kindness:  So be “NOT OK” and give yourself a fucking hug. Tell yourself what a friend would tell you. Pretend you live on another planet (which would actually be really cool right now, you wouldn’t have to deal with any of this craziness, there’s no COVID-19 on Mars…or isssss there? Ok sorry…so you’re on Mars and your friend calls you and says, listen to what happened on earth today. Would you believe it? Would you feel like you were listening to a movie plot? Maybe, but either way bet you wouldn’t be …

Seasons Annual Haunted House

Join us for our annual Haunted House! This year we’re back, bigger and better than ever before! We have partnered with Kids Can Academy and proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to this amazing charitable organization! If you’re not into being scared, we’ve got crafts, games and treats for you! Or take a family photo in our pumpkin patch! Tickets are $25 (valid for a family of 4) and includes haunted house tour, treats, games and crafts – additional tickets are $8 each. Buy your tickets online at Eventbrite!    

Summer Crafts for Toddlers!

At Seasons, we love to engage our toddlers in summer crafts! Summer is a great time to do messy crafts as you can do them outside and use a bucket of soapy water to wash hands. Avoid having handprints all over your house annnnd keep everyone happy. Below are two simple crafts we did with our Tiny Tots. All you need is some paint and some googly eyes. For the dots, we used our tiny fingertips. This balloon elephant was another great craft and even better than the first one because it didn’t involve any mess. For this one, we just used a glue-stick to affix everything to the page. We also used this opportunity to discuss colours and focus on shapes.

ABC’s

It’s that time of year….back to school and therefore our Tiny Tots are back to learning their letters! Our tots are wee guys, but that’s the perfect time to start with an introduction to letters! We pick one letter a week and focus on it, we expose the tots to the letter in our morning circle and then base our fine motor activity on the letter as well. For some of our little guys, it’s their first time being exposed to the alphabet and others are grasping letter concepts. It is believed that children who can quickly recognize letters have an easier time learning their letter sounds. For other great resources on how to teach letter recognition, check out http://www.proudtobeprimary.com Here are a few examples of some of the art we’ve made for A, B and C 🙂

Easy Craft for Toddlers!

  Learning through artistic play is a great way to teach toddlers about a variety of topics. This rainbow craft is a super, easy craft to do with kids. All you need to do for prep is cut a variety of colours of construction paper and print out an outline of a rainbow. We used gluesticks as it’s less messy and we’re working with lots of little hands at one time. If you’re doing this craft one on one, white glue and a popsicle stick is also a great way to work on fine motor skills and learn about colours. As research has proven children learn best through play and that definitely includes artistic play. In our tiny tot program we do a lot of our teaching through artistic forms, art is a fantastic medium for teaching about colours, numbers, shapes and letter recognition. Visit our post on how toddlers can learn through artistic play for more information.  

How To Make a Popcorn Bar!

This past weekend we hosted a pizza/movie night birthday at Seasons Family Centre in the Annex, which was a very low key and super easy birthday (if you’re looking for ideas). The kids almost made it through the whole movie (which was close to 2 hours) and therefore made for an easy, calm and almost quiet birthday! We made a little popcorn bar, which didn’t take much set-up and the kids loved it. All you need is a bin for the popcorn and some smaller ones for candies. Visit your trusty dollar store for most of the supplies, we also purchased the popcorn boxes there. Print out some fancy looking labels and voila you’ve got yourself a Popcorn bar. If you’re not into the mess and the work, just visit our Birthday Page and give us a call, we’ll host your next Popcorn Ball

Unicorns!

Not sure when these fantastic, mythical creatures made such a roaring comeback, maybe they never left in the first place! We’ve been asked to do several unicorn themed birthdays and events lately and I thought would share some of the pics for inspiration. All our cupcakes and cookies were made on site at Seasons Family Centre in the Annex. If you’re not up for baking or hosting your own birthday – visit our Birthday Page for more information on how we can help you!