Splash! Target Practice

It was another hot one today and I decided to pick another activity to try out from the ebook , Camp Mom! Summer Activities Pack.  I had just gotten done cleaning out my pantry last week.  Ella doesn't eat any of the little baby cereals anymore, so I threw out the contents and kept the containers for this game I had seen in the ebook.  I went ahead and set up the containers along with some plastic cups in a pyramid formation . We filled up a bucket of water and loaded the Super Soaker and then it was time for target practice to begin.

Both girls took turns...

But in the end we found a Splash Ball  was easier to throw.Lily would saturate it  in water and throw it at the target. She had an easier time with that. At this age I think the Super Soaker is too hard to manage. The kids loved running up and blasting the cans they missed at point blank range.  This was an excellent activity to build hand-eye coordination and cool off at the same time.

Water Painting

Yesterday was the Fourth of July and instead of joining the throngs of people at the local Sun and Sail Club, we decided to have some water fun of our own in the backyard.

A couple of months ago, I had come across this adorable ebook, Camp Mom! Summer Activities Pack, that I had found on the Creative with Kids Blog.  I bought it back in May, but since Lily has been in Summer Camp for the past two weeks, I haven't had the chance to actually look at it and choose some activities for us to experiment with.  Isn't that the definition of my hoarding?  I keep things until I can actually find the time to look at them and then implement them which never seems to happen. Anyways, I decided to try out her "Water Painting" activity. We gathered some paintbrushes and a bucket from the garage. Lily and Ella had their own fun filling up the bucket with water and then I let them "paint" the backyard.

Lily painted her name and her sister's name and quickly watched how they disappeared in the heat.  I taught her the "fancy" word "evaporate." So there was even a little science built into this activity. We even played a game of Tic-Tac-Toe with the "paint."  Let me tell you water is so much less stressful to use for painting than the real thing!

And of course, eventually the "water painting" activity lead into imaginary play, where Lily decided we were all house painters and we had to paint the dust and spider webs away from her cottage.  Overall, this was a really fun activity that we will definitely break out again.  I plan on doing some more water theme activities from the Summer Pack and I will try to post how they turned out here.