Noodle Box

by Sara

On February 14, 2008 I bought a Rubbermaid container and 4 bags of alphabet pasta.  It was our Valentine's day present for the, then almost-two-year-old, firefighter.  We filled the container with the noodles and several of his favourite construction vehicles and voila, our very own construction site!  Eight years ago the total cost for everything was less than $20.

Many years later we still have the same box and the same noodles.  Although many have been sacrificed to the dog and vacuum. 

The noodle box is a toy that is kept behind closed doors.  I bring it out for the firefighter when I am working.  He will put the lid beside him and take out all the toys he doesn't want to use.  He will play happily for 30-45 minutes.

The monkey also loves the noodle box but he needs be supervised as noodles usually end up spread far and wide.  I find the fewer toys I leave in the box, the more creative (and less disastrously messy) the play is.

It makes for a great rainy day or "I need 15 minutes to get dinner ready" activity).  We also have a rubbermaid container filled with Moon sand and assorted scooping and digging toys.

Do you have any sensory box activities at your house?

Sara is a photographer and mom to three boys - find her at Sara McConnell Photography

Kids in Cowtown

As the song says, Go West! We are very excited/ thrilled/ giddy to be launching Kids in Cowtown with a fabulous Calgary mom! Danielle loved the great ideas and parenting community she saw here at Kids in the Capital and wanted to see the same resource in her own city. So working together, Kids in Cowtown was born!

Danielle has already started sharing some of the great ideas she has for kids and parents at Kids in Cowtown.  Just like at Kids in the Capital, Kids in Cowtown will be drawing on the great parent blogging community in Calgary.

We hope you will let any friends and family living in Calgary know about this awesome new blog. And don't forget to visit yourself or follow Kids in Cowtown on Facebook and Twitter!

Stuffed Paper Bag Turkey Craft

by Alyssa

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we are starting to get ready by decorating our house with fun (and easy) crafts found across the internet. My daughter has made hand-turkeys, a horn-of-plenty, and painted pictures this year we are going to try something a little different.

I came across this cute idea for a Thanksgiving themed craft; you can make them before the actual event or use them as a Thanksgiving craft to keep little ones busy after dinner! What’s fun about crafts like these is you don't have to use exactly what’s needed for supplies. We substituted a few ideas of our own from the original on Kaboose.

Stuffed Paper Bag Turkey: Supplies -

• Brown paper lunch bags
• Paint, Markers or crayons (for decorating)
• Felt pieces (orange, brown, green, and red) or coloured paper (we used paper for this one)
• 2 medium wiggle eyes (we didn’t have access to eyes so we just drew them on!)
• White or stick glue
• Scissors (parents, this is where we come in!)
• 1 Spoon and brown cardboard

How to make one:

1. Lay out brown paper bag on a flat surface. Using the paint, markers or crayons to add colour at the opening of the bag. About 5 to 6" long (this will be the turkey's tail feathers)
2. Open up the bag; make sure to make stripes all the way around including the sides!
3. Carefully cut the stripes with scissors. You can colour the other sides of the strips but this is optional. We left ours brown and gave it a little colour :)
4. Fill the bag up half way with crumpled up newspaper.
5. Gather the bag together just under the strips and fasten with elastic band. Make sure to fix the strips the way you like them, pinching just under the elastic you can bring them forward and arrange them, these are the turkeys feathers.
6. If you decide to use paper instead of draw the features on you’ll need to cut the following from felt or paper - orange triangle (beak), red heart (gobbler),brown triangles (feet) and green bowtie.
7. For the head: Place the spoon face down on the cardboard, trace it and cut it out. Make sure to make the neck long enough to insert into the body. This will be your turkeys head. Glue or draw on eyes, beak and gobbler.
8. Placing the stuffed bag on its side ruffles up, cut a small hole at the end of the bag where the neck and head should be.
9. Push the neck of the cardboard head into the hole and add some glue to seal it.
10. Cut some toes out from the two brown triangles, dab some glue and set the turkey on them so the feet will stick to the bottom. (our turkey stood on his own so we just drew the feet on)
11. (Optional) Cut out your bowtie and glue it on the front as well.

For extra fun you can try adding a "happy thanksgiving" sign and gluing it on the front of the turkey under the bowtie. You can really use your imagination when it comes to craft and this one is great for it too, we substituted some of the original supplies with what we had around the house and you can do the same too!

These are fairly simple and make a cute center-piece your child can be proud he or she made this thanksgiving! Happy crafting!

Alyssa is an almost-30, stay-at-home mom of two wonderful kids aged 2 (boy) and 6 (girl), together with her husband Patrick. She spends her days taking care of her family, home and everything in between while posting on her blog A Motherhood Experience by night.

Eko Bear

We have the pleasure of welcoming a new sponsor to Kids in the Capital, Eko Bear! A local online store selling eco-friendly toys , Eko Bear was started by Linda Peters out of desire to find environmentally friendly toys for her son.   Every product offered by Eko Bear is eco-friendly. This includes biodegradable toys, toys made from recycled materials and toys made with sustainability in mind. Eko Bear provides a summary of what makes each product eco-friendly in the shop by brand page.

You'll recognize a lot of the great brands offered by Eko Bear, like Plan Toys, Sprig and Clementine Art. If you are looking for something in particular and didn’t find it on Eko Bear, you can contact  Linda and she will try to find it for you.

We are excited by the upcoming giveaway being hosted by Eko Bear! We are very excited that Eko Bear is offering Kids in the Capital readers 15% off all purchases with the coupon code Capital15 until December 31st, 2010.

Make sure you take a look at Eko Bear website, check them out on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Welcome Linda!

Social Media Monday: Why blog?

by Brie If you told me two years ago I would one day come to define myself as blogger I would have laughed in your face. Politely of course. At the time  I was technologically challenged and nervous about having any digital footprint out in the wide world of the internet. Plus, why would I write about my life online? It would be totally self-indulgent. And besides, no one would read it.

How wrong I was. I fell into blogging and bit by bit I have been "coming out" as a blogger. Part of the reason is that my online world and the real world have come to intersect so much as friends in one world become friends in another.

Why blog? There are as many different reasons for blogging as there are types of bloggers. In Ottawa alone you will see bloggers that run the spectrum. People blog about what they love, whether it be food, photography, crafting, weight lose or geekdom.  Many of us blog about our lives.  

For a mom with young kids reading about the struggles and joys of other moms with young kids changed my life. During those first few winter months after I discovered blogging  it made me feel less alone even as I spent day in and day out with a baby and toddler. It was a blog  post that convinced me to have my kids share a room. It was blog posts that  comforted me that other moms lived lives as busy and crazy as mine.

No matter why you chose to start blogging, one of the main reasons we all continue is for the connections. The connections we build with our readers and the authors of blogs we read. For parents these connections are so valuable. We can learn from people who have already lived through our stage of life and we can share with each other the struggles and successes of our kids.

Do you blog? What do you love about it? Do you want to blog? Tell us what scares you most about starting and we will try to address that it a future post!

Brie is the mom of a 4-year-old daughter “the girl” and 2 old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.