What you’ll need:

• Plain and/or construction paper
• Art supplies (glue, markers, crayons, etc.)
• Pictures or drawings of things your child likes to do

What to do:

1. Staple plain paper together, preferably with a different colored cover, in order to make a book.
2. Have your child tell you about themselves: physical descriptions, favorite foods or things to do, all about his family or favorite pet.
3. Write these down on the pages.
4. Find unique objects to glue into the book, or help your child cut out pictures to make a collage or draw her own.

Display the book proudly and read it together, adding to it as your child is interested.

ninjapoodles

One of my very favorite things about fall is the harvest of many delicious foods, particularly apples in all their varieties. One fun way to celebrate the apple is to hold a family apple tasting contest. This is a tradition my sweet aunt started a number of years ago and I think your preschooler will enjoy it too.

What you’ll need:

• An assortment of different apples—try your local farmer’s market to find varieties beyond Red Delicious or Granny Smith
• Toothpicks
• Caramel dip

What to do:

1. Invite family and friends over for a fun night of apple tasting—you can even ask them to bring their own apples for even greater selection.
2. Cut each apple into small, bite-size wedges—remember, you’ll be sampling a lot of apples so don’t make them too big or you won’t have room to try them all!
3. Provide some caramel or other sweet dip. One thing we’ve noticed is that some apples have a much different taste when paired with the caramel versus eaten alone, so try both and compare.

One thing we do to make it even more fun is to encourage each person to vote on their favorites. Each year we tally up the vote and crown a new reigning champ for the families’ favorite apple. What’s yours?

Invite whomever you’d like and get creative! Summer is a great time for this activity because you can have tables and art supplies set up outside, which will minimize the mess inside. Have various mediums, such as paint, watercolors, finger paints as well as fun textured items like feathers, buttons and other objects for creating on hand. Butcher paper on the table can be the canvas, as well as wood pieces, or a large canvas for all to contribute art.

Be creative—the sky is the limit. Remember, Art Night is not about creating the best art, it’s all about creating and being together with friends.

What you’ll need:

• Bagel or stale bread (or even a paper towel roll)
• String
• Honey or peanut butter*
• Birdseed

What to do:

1. Smear honey or peanut butter on all sides of the bagel or bread.
2. Dip or roll the bagel in the birdseed.
3. Tie string to it and hang it up for the birds to enjoy.

So your kids can enjoy the birds that come to eat, try to hang it near a window they can watch from inside.

* Keep in mind that honey is fatal to hummingbirds so do not use it when feeding these birds. Also corn meal or lard should be added to peanut butter to keep the birds from choking on it.

What you’ll need:

• some scrap fabric (2 pieces of 5" x 5" works great)
• needle and thread (or sewing machine)
• bag of dried beans

What to do:

1. Sew (with a machine or by hand) the fabric together around all 4 sides, leaving about 2 inches of it un-sewn.
2. Turn it inside out and fill with as many beans as you like.
3. Stitch those last 2" inches of fabric together to close it up.
4. That’s it. You’ve got yourself a bean bag!

Make a few and start a game with your preschooler. Hang a bell or some type of bulls-eye on the branch of a tree or the bar of a swing set. Try to ring the bell or hit the bulls-eye with your bean bags and keep score of who gets the most rings or hits.

What you’ll need:

• Non-toxic colored paint
• Paper (non-absorbent paper works best)
• Plastic straws

What to do:

1. The children will suck the runny paint up with their straws, and blow it in different directions onto the paper, creating patterns. Make sure they don’t suck it all the way in and swallow it.
2. They could use one color and add white for different tones, or they could use different colors.
3. Repeat several times with different colors of paint.

Remember, for bubble painting the consistency of the paint needs to be runny as well as easy to suck up a straw, so you may want to add a little water!

Some fun ideas to try with your preschooler on that day or the whole month long is to make cookies with your child to take next door, create a card, or just make a little visit to a neighbor in your neighborhood. Talk with your child first about neighbors. Who they are, what they mean to you and how we can befriend them and be good neighbors.

• Relax with the kids and enjoy looking through old childhood photographs of you growing up and the kids as they’ve grown up. Share your favorite memories and activities you enjoyed as a child. Take pictures on National Kids Day and start to organize, with your children, scrapbooks they can share with their kids in years to come.
• Instead of kids making coupons for parents, adults make a coupon for the kids. Develop a list with the kinds of things your family hasn’t had time for lately. Together, create a coupon booklet. Then kids redeem the coupon any time they want a little extra attention

Check out http://www.kidsday.net/ for more ideas.

What you’ll need:

• One 12" Square sheet of paper
• 12" x 6" Square for the Water
• 12" x 4" Green Sheet of Paper for the Tent
• Red, orange or yellow colored paper for the campfire
• Scissors and glue
• Colored pencils or crayons
• Materials for decorating

What to do:

1. Your preschooler will place the sheet of green construction paper down in front of them, and start their camping site by cutting out different color paper and glue it to their green construction paper.
2. The blue piece of paper will be used to create a dam or pond. To give the edge a more realistic water look, your child could add a curved outline to the dam. Next, glue the blue paper to the green sheet. The blue paper would indicate a "dam" or "pond."
3. Next, fold the green piece of paper in four equal parts, length wise.
4. It is helpful to fold back a "foot" at both ends, to make the "stand up" tent more secure.
5. They can use small pieces of sticks for the "logs" around the "fire." The red paper will be used to create a fire.
6. Next, glue small pieces of shrubs, grass or twigs on the green sheet of construction paper, creating their "camp site."
7. Your child can explore their creativity and add "fish" to their "pond", "animals" or "people."

weegeebored

What you’ll need:

• Paint (runny, two colors)
• Paper
• Black marker pens

What to do:

1. Drip the paint, both colors, onto their white paper.
2. The children will then fold the paper in half, and smooth all over.
3. Open out and see what interesting picture you have created.
4. For extra effect, they can out line their creations with a black marker pen.
5. A variation to try: drop a few blobs of runny paint onto a piece of paper and tilt it to form rivulets.