Today is Fun is dedicated to helping adults entertain the kids in their lives. The ideas here will keep kids happy and occupied for hours on end, without you having to spend money or buy more stuff. The tips are always entertaining, often educational and developmentally appropriate. We are here to help parents, home schoolers, teachers, and more. Please subscribe now to receive an idea each day. Today is Fun!

Art in a Rectangle

A great, fun artistic trick!

Posted on May 5, 2011 by steve
kids art activities

Isn’t it amazing how constraints and rules can really help us?

Today we’re going to use a simple rule and constraint to help the kids improve their artistic skills. And it will be fun, too, of course.

Today we’re putting art in a rectangle. That is, we’ll be using a rectangle as a guide, and the kids’ll be putting all the “important” aspects of a drawing in that rectangle.[more]

First, take out a blank piece of paper. Take a pencil and lightly draw a rectangle in the middle. Like this:

kids activities
Give the piece of paper to your child with this instruction, “Whatever you draw, try to put the important parts of the drawing inside the rectangle. You are absolutely allowed to draw outside the rectangle, but just try to put all the important parts inside it!”
kids art castle
And that’s it! Let the kids go. (If your kids need inspiration for what to draw, tell them to draw your family having dinner with a special monster guest. Or a special princess guest. Or whatever!) 

Of course, there’s no need to reprimand or punish children who don’t strictly adhere to the rectangle rule. But . . . I think you and your kids will see a very nice effect if they do use the rectangle guide. Generally speaking, when kids keep “the important parts” in the rectangle, their drawings are a bit better!

The reason, I think, is that the rectangle serves to focus the art a bit. When people view the image, their eyes will be drawn to the center of the picture, where all the important things are!

This trick truly will serve children as they grow and create art throughout their lives.

We hope you have fun with this one. Please let us know how it turns out.

While sometimes it’s good to think outside the box, it’s also good to draw . . . inside the rectangle!

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Aliens are all around us!

(Or animals. Or people. It's exciting, though!)

Posted on April 29, 2011 by steve

kids activities

 

 

Length: Fifteen minutes the first day. After that, a fun activity that will keep popping up!

Parental Involvement: Explain the idea. Help your kids find some examples.

Kids Should Be Able to: Study the world, use their imaginations.

 

Sorry if the title of this one sounds a bit paranoid. But it’s true! Aliens are all around us!

This is another activity that my kids just love. They talk about it a lot and bring it up out of the blue.

It’s simple: you look around your environment trying to find “faces.”

We’re so used to seeing faces, we don’t very frequently take a moment to think about what they consist of. Well, a face usually contains two eyes, which look like dots and are aligned with each other. Below the eyes there’s usually a nose(which is kind of vertical), and then a mouth under that (which is, in case you haven’t noticed, horizontal.)

So, to find or make a face, you need: two dots aligned, a vertical line underneath, and then a horizontal line underneath that. That’s it.

When we have to wait somewhere, I used to encourage my kids to look for faces. (As I mentioned, now they excitedly encourage *me* to find faces.)

 

kids activities

 

If your kids are ever interested, you could talk to them about the simplicity of faces, as I did above: two dots, vertical line, horizontal line. Similar to yesterday’s post, you just don’t need a ton of information to communicate effectively.

I’m glad my kids like this activity so much. I have to admit, it is very fun when the point a “face” out to me that hadn’t crossed my mind.

Give it a try. There are less fun things to do with your time. Face it!

 

kids games

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Family Cloud Dangle

It’s not a family tree -- it’s a family cloud. And it dangles!

Posted on April 27, 2011 by steve


Today you and your kids can turn all your family members into a fun activity! There are two ways to play this one, and we’ll explain both.

First, sit with your kids and make a list of every person in your family. No need to get into ancestors and great-great-grandparents, just stick to people your child knows. Distant, rarely seen relatives don’t need to be included here.

Next, your kid should take a piece of paper and cut out a shape for each family member on your list. They can try to make the shape represent the person in question. (For instance, Grandpa loves dogs, so one kid cut out a shape that vaguely resembled a dog’s head. Aunt Bea bakes cakes, so another kid cut out the shape of a birthday cake.) If no shape comes to mind, then any shape – triangle, diamond, flower, bean, etc. –- is fair game.

Once the shape has been cut out, your kid should write the person’s name on it.

Have your kid keep cutting shapes and writing names until every family member on the list has been taken care of.

Then grab some Scotch tape and tape the family together. You can assemble the family in really any way that you’d like: you could try to keep siblings together, or put kids near their Moms and Dads. Or it could be kind of random. Whatever works. It’s a cloud!

Finally, use the tape to hang the family up. A wall works well for this, of course, but it’s also fun to dangle the family cloud from a door jamb. Everyone can look at it as they pass through (ducking if necessary.)

(As mentioned above, there are two ways to play this. The second is a reduced version: do a family cloud but only use the people who live in your house with you. This is simpler and quicker, of course. But please have your kid include all the pets who live your house, too!)

Having your kids create their very own Family Cloud Dangle will be quite enjoyable. In fact, we think you guys will even have fun saying the words “Family Cloud Dangle” quite a bit.

 

–S

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The Future, Today!

Fun sketching ideas for the future

Posted on April 26, 2011 by steve

Every year, the tire company Michelin sponsors a competition asking people to sketch ideas as to what the car of the future will look like.

Specifically, they ask people to imagine how cars will be different ten years from today.

The company even awards a prize of $10,000 to the idea they like best!

Well, this year’s winner’s already been chosen – Marko Lukovic of Serbia. But should this stop your children from participating? No!

While we can’t offer such a hefty prize, we would like kids to think about the future. How will it be different? How will cars be different? How about houses? Or toys? Or food? Or anything?

Have your kids sketch their ideas on paper. And have them explain their thoughts. They’ll have fun doing it!

Kids love thinking about what can be different. Have them use some imagination! My kids also love hearing about my own very deficient childhood (I grew up without computers, cell phones, and DVD’s even!) Share these things with your kids today!

And have fun with your family . . . now and in the future!

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Punch it up with . . . Palindromes!

Classic, curious fun for smart kids!

Posted on April 25, 2011 by steve

 

A palindrome is a weird-sounding word, isn’t it? Have your kids say it: palindrome. That word just sounds different than commonly used, everyday words.

And it means something a bit off the beaten track, too. A palindrome is a word that is spelled the same forwards and backwards. Here is a very good example: Mom. Write “Mom” backwards and you get . . . Mom! (Same for Dad, to be honest.)

Teach your kids about palindromes so that they can be more comfortable with words, spelling, and creative ways of looking at the world.

The goal today is to get your kids thinking about these oddball – and easily spelled – words.

Here are some more:

Race Car
Wow
Bib
Pop

Get your kids thinking and scanning their worlds for palindromes.

After I told my own first grader about palindromes, he thought one up the following day. “Does ‘level’ count?” he asked. It does!

Of course, numbers can be palindromes, too. Here is an example: 11. Can you guys come up with other number palindromes?

How about times of day? What time is a palindrome?

Extra credit. Here is a whole sentence that is a palindrome. Ask your youngster to write it backwards and forwards!

Was it a cat I saw?

Finally, does anyone out there have a name that is a palindrome? Our friend Ana does. So does our other friend Otto. (Okay – actually we don’t really know any Ottos at the moment.)

Palindromes are great for your early grader schoolers. We want them thinking about words, about spelling, and about interesting quirks of language!

Wow and yay!

 

 

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