We’re on the road…
work related. The Chicken Whisperer is speaking at the Sunbelt Ag Expo inMoultrie, GA. It’s the largest Farm show in the nation! We’ve been looking
forward to attending this show for a couple of months because Caleb LOVES tractors…
our whole family LOVES tractors! They have an antique tractor parade scheduled
EVERY DAY!
Today is the first
day of the event. We arrived yesterday with our RV and were guided to park in a
grassy field where we have water and electric hook-ups, but no sewer (Ugh!).
The storms were set to arrive early this morning and… they did. Rain… Rain…
More Rain… Thunder & Lightening… and More Rain…
The grassy field is
now a soggy mess. Andy had to walk through the rain and soggy, muddy ground
toting his materials all dressed in his Chicken Whisperer garb to have 2 out of
3 of his presentation canceled due to bad weather heading our way. They say,
“The third times a charm…” and it was with about 45 in attendance. With this
nasty weather… that equals about 450!
Caleb, Lily Anne, and
I tried to make the best out of our day stuck inside the camper. Let me just
paint a picture for you… A 3 year old and a 1 year old inside a 24' travel
trailer with no slides. Let me make that a little clearer… When you take away
beds, bathroom, closet, and kitchen, you are left with floor space. How much
floor space? Without drawing a specified diagram, just picture a 3' x 12' area.
Normally, I don’t take down Lily Anne’s pack & play bed which is over the
dining table, but today I did. We needed a table. We needed more room. We STILL
needed MORE, but we made do and we’re all still here!
I knew the most
important thing to do to keep them ME from going crazy, was to keep them
busy… very busy! Below is a list of the rainy day fun we had.
The first activity
was inspired completely by my 3 year old. As Daddy was leaving he said, “Let’s
make rain.” I have no idea what he actually meant by that, but to me it meant:
CRAFT! I pulled out some light blue construction paper and tore off a skinny strip
for each kid. Their job was to tear it into as many small pieces as they could.
I cut out the umbrella and then Caleb said we needed lightning and thunder too.
I told him I could make lightning, but thunder was just a sound we would have
to make. I helped them put glue on their umbrella and lightning bolts and let
them place them on their paper. Then, together we made glue dots all around.
They placed a “rain drop” on each dot. I added their names and hung them
up. I love decorating the RV with their art work!
Caleb saw me use a
marker to write their names on their papers and asked if he could color with
markers. I said, “Of course!” Letting them draw there stormy scenes while I
cleaned up was perfect! It was a great time for Caleb to work on his vocabulary
terms as he talked about the lightning flashing and the thunder rumbling, but
it also helps him to work through his fears of storms.
For the next
activity, I read the book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, by Charles G. Shaw. Caleb
LOVED it! He thought it was so funny! I had this activity planned in advance,
because we had been checking the radar and knew what to expect with the
weather. I packed some di-cut vehicle shapes and let the kids pick out the one
they wanted to turn into a cloud. I learned 2 things doing this activity.
#1 – The di-cuts
should have been smaller. Lily lost interest early on and just played with the
cotton balls. (Hey, a little sensory fun for her is fine!) Caleb was only
interested if I was doing it with him. Also, since they were so big, there
wasn’t much space to write the phrase coined from the book, “It looked like a
____, but it wasn’t a _______.”
#2 – Lily’s boat was
light blue so it blended better with the paper versus Caleb’s bright red train
that you can still see through the cotton balls.
From there, Caleb
enjoyed blowing a cotton ball back and forth on the floor. This would have also
made a fun game. We could have created goals and scored points by blowing the
cotton balls to them, but we didn’t get that creative at the time.
For the next set of
activities, I read one of my favorite Halloween books, The Bumpy Little
Pumpkin, by Margery Cuyler. I gave the kids orange play dough to create
pumpkins with while I cut out shapes of black construction paper to design faces.
For Lily, I flattened her dough and made the face. Then, I took a piece of pipe
cleaner that we used as the pumpkin stem to cut out the shapes creating a
puzzle effect. I then encouraged her to put the shapes in the holes. Caleb,
used a variety of shapes making different kinds of faces and then changing them
again and again. When Lily was done with her puzzle, I rolled the dough into a
ball and she put the stem in the top and pulled it out several times. I saw an
opportunity of interest and took it! I cut several more pipe cleaners and gave
them to her. She enjoyed sticking them all in the top and taking them out and
repeating several times. When he was finished, Caleb pulled out the letter cookie cutters for his name. We talked about what letters were in his name, which letter when first, next, and so on. I mixed all the letters up and he had fun finding the letters and putting them in order to spell his name! I'm so proud of his motivation to learn!
After nap, the
natives were getting restless. I knew I needed to get them moving, but without
breaking things. I saw in my bag of goodies, I had some balloons of various
sizes. I decided to go with the smallest, what would normally be used as water
balloons. I blew up a few of them and gave them to the kids. Normally, I don’t
let Caleb throw things in the camper because he’s 3 so his aim is non-existent
even if he tries to aim, which is not usually. He just likes to throw things up
in the air and HARD! In the camper, things have come down into the sink full of
water and even the stove while cooking! These balloons were perfect though… no
matter how hard he threw it, they barely went anywhere! We will definitely do
this more often. Lily Anne popped a few, but she got the hang of it and held on
to the last one for the rest of the day.
Around this time,
Daddy got back from his last presentation and since it wasn’t raining anymore,
we decided to brave the soggy, muddy, slosh outside our camper and enjoy some
much needed fresh air. The kids wanted to take their balloons, so I twisted
some pipe cleaner around the knot of the balloon and let them carry them around
the Expo. We saw gobs of tractors, climbed on a few, saw mammoth silos, and grabbed
a homemade treat. The kids still had their balloons when we got back, so after
dinner, we tossed them to each other for a while. Right before bed time, I had
the kids put the balloons on a stool and sit on them to pop them. They thought
this was hilarious and wanted to do it again and again. I will definitely
remember this in the future!
Tomorrow is supposed
to be nice! We’re looking forward to being outside… A LOT!
What are some of your
fun rainy day activities you've enjoyed while confined to a small area? Please share
them in the comments! I’d love to hear from you!
God Bless Your
Learning Journey!
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