Puffy Paint

Getting Creative with Kids There is something magical about the three-dimensional appearance of Puffy Paint. Puffy paint is easy to make and you can simply find the ingredients already at home. Allow the kids to use the Puff Paint recipes as finger paint as well — although I don’t like adding color to the puffy […]

What to Do with Kids on New Year’s Eve

Are You Working for New Year’s Eve? If you are working for New Year’s Eve, here are some ideas to use with children as midnight approaches. For kid friendly drinks click here. For New Year’s Eve arts n’ crafts click here. If possible, rent some holiday movies such as How the Grinch Stole Christmasor The […]

Pomander Balls Make Great Homemade Gifts

Christmas Scents A pomander is a lime, lemon, or orange covered with whole cloves. Pomanders can be given as gifts to be used year-round in closets and drawers or displayed in a bowl. They can also be hung on a tree or included in potpourri. In the traditional pomander, cloves are placed so close to one […]

Holiday Paper Garland

Making a Simple Paper Chain Making paper garland is one of the easiest crafts to make during the holidays. It gives the kids an easy way to practice cutting and pasting. This simple paper garland decorates my charge’s fireplace mantel in her bedroom. Follow these steps to learn how to make a classic paper chain: […]

Thankful Leaf Wreath

Thanksgiving Arts N’ Crafts As nannies one of our most important roles is to help the kids in our care develop positive self-esteem and self-worth. And with Thanksgiving right around the corner, there’s no better time to help kids appreciate all they have. We should make an effort to make thankfulness the topic of conversation during […]

Line Dropping

Art with Kids To help kids develop a love of art history this week I introduced my preschooler the works of Franz Kline. All children begin to express themselves by using line. Given a writing implement all kids scribble and upon examination of the lines the kids draw it is often possible to determine what […]

Art with Kids

Kandinsky Tree I love the subject of Art History and hope to inspire my Nanny Kids to appreciate art as well. I introduced my three-year-old charge to abstract art by showing her Kandinsky Trees. Wassily Kandisnsky was a famous Russian artist who had a gift called synaesthesia cognate which gives him the ability to hear […]

Autumn Hand Print Tree

Creative Wednesday There is no better time to do crafts with the kids then in Autumn. All you have to do is take the kids outside and collect brilliant red and orange leaves that have fallen from the sugar maples trees to use in crafts. If you live in an area in which the leaves […]

Flying Moody Ghosts

Wednesdays with Whitney The little three-year-old I care for is just learning to use scissors and to draw happy and sad faces. I took her new obsessions and had her cut out pieces of white paper into ghost shapes and then she drew happy, sad, sleeping and surprised faces on the ghosts. We glued the moody ghosts onto […]

Luminescent Frankenstein Lantern

Wednesdays With Whitney Yesterday was the 1st of October, which means Halloween fever has hit the nation! Everywhere you look there are pumpkins, witches, and ghouls…oh my! Get into the festive spirit with your little ones by making this original take on a classic Halloween figure — Frankenstein. Supplies: Empty jar Glow stick Black Marker […]