5 Random Things ~ Adventure is Out There!

It's been a few weeks since I've written a "Random" blog post. 

Happy New Year! We had lots of fun this past Christmas/New Year's break.  

1. Traveling Museums: The Columbus Ships

      

 

     

 

The Columbus Foundation has built replicas of the ships that Christopher Columbus and his crew traveled in on his discoveries in the 15th century. The Nina and the Pinta are traveling museums visiting ports all over the Western Hemisphere. The crew says they have the Santa Maria as well, but it's too big to travel in the rivers. They also told us that the Nina is replicated to the exact size of its original and the Pinta is bigger than its original. Two times bigger I think? Anyway. It is bigger than the Nina. 

These ships were on display down on the coast, so we traveled down to take a tour and learn a few things. As you can see, we went on a cold rainy day, which the crew said was a good time to tour the ships because then it was a realistic lesson of how it really was on those ships. One interesting fact is the original boats and crew members were wet most of the time. The moisture-absorbing salt from the sea water kept the sailors clothes wet, so they welcomed the fresh water rain so they could rinse the salt away. 

This little adventure was pretty interesting and I hope the children remember it. Since these ships are a traveling museum, I hope they come to the coast again. 

2. Creative Door Wreath

I saw this very creative why-didn't-I-think-of-that wreath for the winter months idea online. It's so easy. The internet version I saw had you put 3 different sized wreaths together and add a real hat and scarf to it (stick arms and mittens too). Their snowman wreath fills the entire bottom half of the door. As you can see, mine isn't so big... maybe I should've went bigger? Anyway. So my version is actually 2 different sized wreaths and cone-bottomed basket that when turned upside down looks like a hat over top the face. Instant head! So I attached the wreaths and basket together with floral wire and made the scarf and "hat" with burlap ribbon. I attached red lace with hot glue. And there is my own snowman wreath...  

Maybe I should add stick arms......

3. New Year's Countdown

      

 

East Coast Mommy Blog gave me a great way to count down the new year with the children this year: Countdown Bags!  So I put together 8 bags for each child. The kids had a bag to open every hour beginning at 5pm all the way down to midnight. I just used regular brown lunch sacks with a homemade paper clock attached to them.

I'm going to try to remember what the bags contained. It was all simple silly stuff, but the kids looked forward to opening them:

5pm had a construction paper cookie with the instructions "Bake Cookies" printed on it. We then proceeded to bake some giant pumpkin cookies from store-bought dough.
6pm had supplies to make their own party hat, as you can see them wearing in the picture above.
7pm was sand art. I had a little sand art activity that I had purchased for Adelle a year ago that we hadn't done yet.
8pm was a few little party necklaces from the dollar store and 2014 glasses.
9pm was play Trouble - the board game.
10pm was some little blower things and balloons.
11pm were some noise makers (yes, I saved those 'til almost last to save our insanity!)
12am midnight was a cup for some alcohol-free sparkling grape bubbly and a giant pumpkin cookie that we baked from earlier.




 4. Monopoly

I can't really remember a time playing Monopoly where 1 person actually owned half the board, complete with hotels and everything. Good thing he didn't pull that card that said pay so much for each house and hotel. He might've lost then.  Ha! 

5. Felt flowers

I came across these oh-so-easy felt flowers about 6 months ago or so. My good friend gave me a bunch of felt when I asked around back then. I finally decided it was time to try them out. Look how beautiful they turned out! These are going on my next wreath. 

I'm serious guys. I am NOT a crafter. These things that I have made were possible only b/c of the simplicity of them. I have no patience and no talent for anything beyond what an elementary child can do. 

Have a fabulous weekend!