05-26-2016

Event Calendar: Summer 2016 in Charleston

I’m one of those mamas who doesn’t believe in the last week of school, so tomorrow’s the last day before summer break for my kids.

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And right about now, I’m feeling pretty good about our summer plans.
Which primarily involves the beach, the library, and the sprinkler out back.

You see, all our summer activities hover around one common denominator: that word being FREE.

So every year about this time, I’m thinking – Okay, this is gonna be the year that I am FINALLY organized with our summer calendar. I’m going to make a master spreadsheet of all the going ons in our town and any time I feel like we are on the verge of insanity (which, in our house, normally happens a few times every day) – we can voila – look at the calendar and find something fun and different to do.

But reality looks a bit more like this…

By June 14th, only two weeks into summer break, I’ll be skirting the edges of a mental breakdown from 24 hours a day with my kids and my house will have turned into pure chaos with no hope of finding out what activites are offered that day.

So this year I finally did it!

I created a master schedule of all the free or minimal cost events for kids in Charleston!

This calendar isn’t about camps, events that require pre-registration or cost a lot of money.

Instead, this is the perfect resource for those…
“I just need to find something happening in one hour or the kids are going to drive me to bedlam” moments.

There is now a link on my homepage called Charleston Events, so you can go directly there to find it.

Please keep in mind the library has hundreds of activities all by itself if you count all their locations. So don’t throw away your Charleston County Library Summer Reading Program Calendar! There are also at least 7 places in the lowcountry that offer movies for kids & families in the summer. I’ve tried adding all the June movies for 3 of the locations and will continue to add the remaining June movies in the next week.

I hope ya’ll enjoy this and it helps you out a little this summer when you just don’t know how to entertain the kids one more day!

jessica

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01-08-2014

Playtime in the snow

After enjoying homemade hot cocoa & popcorn yesterday, the kids had a bawl playing in the snow! Shaving cream snow that is!

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I often use shaving cream for sensory play…learning to write our letters, teaching the colors of the rainbow, and best of all…shaving cream fights in the tub! But I’d never thought to use it as pretend snow until Stella’s very creative preschool teacher used it this week to entertain while it’s been so cold outside.

So yesterday I set up an idyllic play scene and let ’em go to town on it. SO MUCH FUN!

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The best thing about shaving cream is that it really isn’t that difficult to clean up. I did use a ton of paper towels to wipe it up, so that wasn’t good for the environment. But once you wipe it all up then the rest comes clean with a wet cloth. And since they just used toy figurines and matchbox cars, the cleanup of those was simple as well.

So if you don’t have any magical snow glistening in your front yard, go out and get some shaving cream!

~ Jess

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02-01-2012

Valentines Wreaths

I LOVE VALENTINES DAY!

What is not to love about this holiday???  There is no dress requirement….none of the… you need matching outfits for your kids or you need to create some crazy costume that will be worn for a whopping 5 minutes. And, there is no hosting a huge elaborate meal at your house. Now, don’t get me wrong – I love having people over to my house, but sometimes wouldn’t it be nice if there was just one holiday where it wasn’t a requirement??? Oh wait, there is a holiday like that……..Valentines Day!

Some of you may be thinking….but I don’t have anyone special to spend the day with…that’s not true…you have yourself. You are special just being you and you don’t need anyone else to make you special. And, if you don’t have a ‘love’ in your life this year, I bet you do have some friends who would love to receive a note in the mail saying how much you appreciate their friendship.

I really cannot explain how giddy I get talking and thinking about Valentines Day. I wish ya’ll could see my smile. It is exuberant.

So to the point of this post…

My son was lamenting that we didn’t have a wreath on our door since we had taken down the Christmas decorations, so we got crafty and made a Valentines wreath. (I have learned since having kids or at least a boy that craft time really means a chance for me to cut and glue as my son’s attention span for crafts lasts about 30 seconds!)

So here is a handy dandy tutorial that I hope will get your crafty senses flowing!

Gather up all your craft supplies and try to keep your child from sniffing the rubber cement!

Tie the ribbon on first.

Then cover with felt for a background, using rubber cement to glue the felt together. I had planned to glue the hearts directly onto the felt but I couldn’t find a glue that would work for that, not even rubber cement. So we improvised and glued strips of paper together.

Now, cut out some hearts in any shape, size, and color you want and glue to your hearts content! We added glittery pom poms on because they were too fun and cute not too.

For the second wreath, it is pretty standard with just cut out hearts and stamps but I have these two tips…
1….Lay out the hearts in the desired shape on your table first. This helps position everything when ready to glue.
2….Use the old school Elmer’s glue, not glue sticks, for glueing the hearts together. You don’t have to move the hearts around so much with the old school stuff.

I hope these wreaths give you some inspiration for craft time at your house!

And…Do you enjoi Valentines Day or think it’s just another Hallmark Holiday?

Have a great night!

Jessica

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