I participated in an activity kit swap last weekend. Let me tell you, I usually hate swaps. The last swap I participated in was back in Omaha and was a Family Home Evening kit swap. I was cutting, coloring, cutting, laminating, and cutting for weeks and I HATED it!!! I also barely use the kits because I usually just wing it with FHE lessons. Anyway, I hate big commitments that require me to be crafty or creative. I am not crafty and have a hard time coming up with crafty things. I can come up with games and science projects by doing a google search, though. That is exactly why I decided to participate in this swap. My kids beg to do projects, play games, etc. So I put together 2 kits. One was a game and another was a kit to make Santa and Reindeer puppets. I got 12 other kits (12 for each kid) that had all sorts of fun activities from making ornaments to making birdfeeders to experimenting with salt crystals to making their own playdough. It actually wasn't that crazy or involved, like I dreaded. We are going to do another one this summer and my friend is going to include a make your own volcano activity--which my kids would dig! Anyway the rules were you had to have everything the kids will need in the kit, or else for example, if the kids will need scissors that item must be highlighted on the instructions. Also, we got a kit to make pinecone birdfeeders. Each kid has their own pine cone and yarn and birdseed, but just one jar of peanut butter for them to share. The instructions need to be detailed and if doing a craft include a picture of the finished project. Anyway, for those that just don't get that crafty with their kids, maybe this would be a fun idea.
3 comments:
such a great idea! I'm not very crafty..I through some playdough on the mat or some pipe cleaners and fuzzy balls and glue and see what they can create! This sounds like such a good idea...how did they put it togetheR?
This sounds like a great idea, I am not sure I fully understand how it works.
Okay Maren, here is how it worked. My friend wanted to host it so she handed out fliers to whoever she thought might be interested in participating. The fliers had the rules. The rules were you needed to come up with 2 activity kit ideas. As soon as she had heard back from those that wanted to participate she did a head count. 6 moms for a total of ten kids. So each participant needed to make ten packets of each of their activities. The activities could be anything. I made up a game/collage that used a bunch of little items (clothes pin, money, rock, pipe cleaner, cotton ball, etc.) that the kids had to memorize and then take one away and guess which was missing....anyway. Each kit needed to be complete, meaning you had to provide everything necessary for the kids to do the project/play the game/bake the stuff etc. If your project required glue and you didn't include glue you had to make sure that was highlighted on the instruction sheet. A detailed instruction sheet had to be included in each kit. The kits were all packaged in gallon ziploc bags. So then we got together at my friends house and divided up all our kits among the families. I brought 20 kits with me (2 different sets of 10) bought brought home 12 kits each for Lucy, Tucker, and Anders. So now if they would like to do a craft or project all I have to do is have them pick one of their bags and voila...all the hard work is already done for me. Does that make sense?
Post a Comment