So I’m not bragging but this fun activity won me The Mom of the Year Award! Well at least in my house it did.
Once again I forgot there’s was no school.
Yes, I’m cool like that.
I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t your husband the principal?”
Yes, there’s even a school calendar sent home at the beginning of the school that I apparently don’t look at.
I was actually quite disappointed because I had a whole productive day planned ahead for myself (alone) of going through toys, writing projects and… then this “No School” thing was sprung on me.
It’s wasn’t that big of a deal at least not until I realized it’s my no driving day. (We can’t drive on certain days of the week here).
I didn’t have anything cool planned for my kids like all the awesome, organized moms (who know when there’s no school) who come up with their own daycamps with crafts and field trips for the kiddos, when there is no school.
Does anybody really do that? Probably not, but nothing like piling on more unnecessary guilt.
When the Weather Doesn’t Cooperate with Your Fun Plans
It was 8 a.m and I knew we had to do something because these kids were already ANTSY. They had been up for two hours.
Since it was my no driving day I thought we’ll just have to spend the day enjoying the outdoors nearby. That worked fine for about an hour and then it started raining on us.
Yes, I said “RAIN”!
Well on our run down the hill we happened to come across a pile of recycled items. Today is “Recycle Day” in our neighborhood.
I picked up a large box in hopes that this would somehow get their creative juices flowing.
As soon as we walked in the door they had already come up with projects for this huge box. Unfortunately, their ideas were too lofty.
They wanted to make a tree house, a fighter jet, the Taj Mahal (just kidding)… So we ended up making this much more simpler project but equally as cool: (video is less than 20 sec)
This Fun Activity Won Me The Mom of the Year Award
We made an Indoor Cardboard Slide!
They had sooooo much fun.
WE had so much fun!
I had to try it. My husband is the fun arent but I must say this activity opened my eyes to jumping in more often instead sitting behind the camera observing them lay.
Can you see our fun graffiti on the box?
This kept them busy for over an hour. Just sliding down the stairs.
First, they experimented with the best way to go down SUPER fast. This picture shows the first method they tried that didn’t work so well. Thankfully, they didn’t take my advice. I suggested to go down headfirst and my 7 year old looks at me like I’m crazy and says, “Mom our faces are going to bump the stairs all the way down.” And a good point he made!
They went down the fastest when they straightened their whole body.
Just in case you’re concerned there was padding at the bottom of the stairs. The picture above is my dramatic son still screaming from excitement. There are lots of ways that you can go down that would make it dangerous like using a storage bin. Try different ways at your own risk.
Second project with the Same Cardboard Box
After they got tired from sliding we decided to paint some graffiti on our cardboard slide with the fun “blow through the straw” technique.
Once the paint dried they slid down some more, then some more and some more.
So the lesson learned here is I didn’t have to have a full day of activities planned for us to have fun, just a piece of cardboard and a little creativity can go a long way.
