Simple 4th of July Playdate

Often my friend from "Living and Learning at Home" and I get together for playdates!  The ages of our children are 4, 3, 2, and 3 months!!  We occasionally get to visit each other but mostly we are cleaning up spills, correcting melt downs, or changing diapers.  We often laugh because we start a conversation with one another, end up being interrupted, then totally forget where we left off!  We love it though and know that this "busy" time is fleeing away quickly!

Last night I went to bed and thought I should have some activities for the kids since 4th of July is coming soon.  I woke the next morning and looked around the house for some simple activities!  Here is what I "threw" together...

LUNCH: The most important acivity!

I looked through my cookie cutters and found a star from my Christmas cutters.  I used it to cut out bread stars for PPJ!  I asked the children if they ever ate a star before.  They thought it was funny!!

BOOKS: The teacher in me always 

finds a way to read a book!!

We read two stories one was a pop up book about the Star Spangled Banner and the other was the Pledge of Allegiance!! This made for a wonderful discussion on flag facts and vocabulary words like justice, flag, and states.

CREATE: We dot stamped and colored!!

I made a flag example but mostly the children came up with their own red and blue creations!

I only placed out red and blue crayons.  We looked at a real flag to help us color our own!

PLAY:  Of course we had to go outside!!

This idea came from "Family Fun" magazine!!

Gather flour, sifter, spray water bottle, and cardboard (used for star stencil)

Cut out a star from your cardboard.  Go outside and spray a patch of grass with water, lay your star stencil down, then sift the flour over the star stencil.  Remove the stencil and you have a STAR in the grass!

Each child was able to make a star!  Then afterwards they free played with the flour and water (great sensory activity!)  Later we played in the sprinkler to wash all the flour off our hands! 

SURPRISE!  My toddler calls presents/gifts "surprises"

Each child went home with an American flag for a gift!

Little did I know that Amy and her family were planning to visit fireworks that night so the themed playdate worked out GREAT!

Happy 4th of July!!