How to make a Crab Hand Print with Your Kids…

What You’ll Need:

• Red Paint
• hands
• paper
• Paint Brush
• Black Marker (for the eyes)

Step 1.) Paint your child’s hand print red.

Step 2.) Have them press down their 2 hands onto the paper.

Step 3.) Have your child paint a circular body in the middle and arms and legs for your crab.

Step 4.) Let them draw on the eyes.

Creating this lobster from a toilet paper roll is the perfect craft to do in the morning with your child, plus it is so adorable! They’ll enjoy creating it and discussing the wonders of the deep sea with you. (If you’re looking for a great conversation starter – try out food chain game while they are making the lobster!)

What You’ll Need:

1. Toilet Paper Roll
2. Red Paint
3. Paint Brush
4. Red Construction Paper
5. Black Marker
6. Popsicle Stick
7. Tape or Glue (Depending on your preference)
8. Scissors

What to do:

1. Paint a toilet paper roll with red paint.
2. While it dries, cut a head out of red construction paper. This is basically a circle with two antennae.
3. Draw a face on your lobster. (Two big eyes and one happy smile.)
4. Then cut out two arms/claws.  In the middle of the arm, bend the construction paper. This keeps the arm turning in towards the toilet paper roll.
5. Glue the arms onto the back of the TP roll. It may be easier and less messy for your child to use tape, if you prefer that.
6. Put a popsicle stick inside the TP roll and tape in to the back with about an inch of the popsicle stick sticking out of the top. (This will hold the head up.)
7. Glue the bottom of the head to the tp roll with a piece of tape. The top of the head will now be resting on the popiscle stick.
8. Ta-da! Now you have an adorable lobster your child can play with.

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There are two ways this fun activity can be done.

1. You can make the sea in 5 minutes and then tape it to the table so the kids can play with it while you make dinner. You can ask them to find what you hid in the deep sea. “How many fish are there? What color are the fish? What to do fish eat?”
2. Or you can have your kids make the fish. Instead of using stickers they can cut out different kinds of fish from foam and can stick them in the deep sea bag with your help! They may enjoy it more since they were a part of making some of it.

What You’ll Need:

1. Ziploc bags
2. stickers- fish
3. water
4. blue food coloring
5. Glitter (We suggest silver or green)
6. Eye dropper (If you have been getting the BabbaBoxes – you would have got one in the Kitchen Science BabbaBox.)

What to do:

1. Mix some water with the blue food coloring in a medium bowl.*
2. Have the children to use the eye droppers to put a small amount of water inside of some Ziploc bags.
3. Add some glitter, and very carefully push all the air out of the bag, then zip it closed.
4. Children can then stick fish stickers on the outside of the bag to create an deep sea scene, or put the foam fish inside the bag.
5. Tape the deep sea baggie onto the table or preferred spot. This makes it less likely to open since again, it’s just a normal Ziploc bag.

* Another variation that we love is using hair gel. This creates a squishy sensory variation, and could eliminate the need for food dye if the gel is colored. Let us know how your Sea in a Baggie turns out!

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1. You no longer say “I gotta piss”.  It’s now “I gotta go potty”.
2. You never thought you’d be a fan of slobbery wet kisses.

3.  You laugh when you see a stray cheerio stuck to your shirt when you sit down at work.

4.  You used to be obsessed with your golf game, but now you’d rather go sledding with the kids.

5.  When you look down at your elbow, you find brownie batter.  Hmmm…you don’t remember baking…but, you DO remember changing a diaper. (this is a REAL picture)

6.  You trade your Gold’ Gym membership for wriggly free weights.

7.  One word: minivan

8.  The most profound thing you’ll read that day is written with crayons and construction paper.

9.  Your phone’s YouTube history is filled with My Little Pony, Dora, and Ninjago.

10. Remember that part of the bed that you used to call yours?  Now, you get the bottom corner.

Final and most important way:  In short, your world gets shaken up like a snow globe.  What you do at work takes on a refined meaning; You see your wife through a new amazing perspective; and suddenly, you feel like these little monkeys make you want to truly be a better man.  Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there.

- Peter, dad of 3

Um, okay. “So….where does chicken come from?” I asked. Her answer again: “Chicken.”

Clearly, we had some learning to do about where our food comes from. And who can blame her? So many of us are completely detached from the food sourcing process. For kids it must seem like food just magically appears.

I decided to make a game out of it. Sometimes when we were getting ready for bed, I’d ask her where the food she ordered came from. Then, to make it a bit trickier, I asked her to run down the food chain for each food. Lesson being: all food comes from somewhere. It went something like this:

What did you order?

A hot dog.

Where does a hot dog come from?

A pig.

What does a pig eat?

Leftovers. Grass. Pig food.

What does the grass need to grow?

Soil, water. Sun.

This game sparked her curiosity and always led to more questions, which in turn led to more learning. So next time you’re having story time or even waiting for food to arrive at a restaurant, encourage your kid to think about where that tasty food comes from!

We BabbaLOVE that you visited our blog! As a special Thank You, enter coupon code BABBA10 for 10% off any of our BabbaBoxes!

What You’ll Need:

1. Green Paint
2. cream colored construction paper
3. scissors
4. markers
5. paint brush
6. pencils and pens
7. Toilet Paper Roll
8. Tape

What to do:

1. Paint the toilet paper roll green. Let it dry.
2. Cut out a cream colored circle for the small pouch on the top of the bag. Attach it with glue to the top part of the dried TP roll.
3. Cut out 2 triangles, to make flags, and tape them onto a pencil or pen. On the flags write “#1 Dad!”, “Happy Father’s Day!”, or your own message.
4. Cut out a circle, bigger than the diameter of the TP roll circle. Attach it to the bottom of the TP roll to help it stand up. (This is helpful so it won’t fall over when it has pens or pencils in it!)
5. Cut a then stripe of the cream colored construction paper that is about an inch longer than the “golf bag.” Glue one end to the top of the TP roll, then push the other end up slightly so that there is some slack. Glue the bottom end to the bottom of the TP roll, with slack, creating a shoulder strap.
6. Also cut out a small square for the golf bag. Fold the edges on both sides in. Then tape/glue the folded edge, creating a pouch.
7. Place the pens or pencils, with flags attached, in the TP roll.
8. Give it to Dad! It will definitely be a “Hole in one” in Dad’s Book!

Happy Father’s Day!

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Print the “My Dad” coloring sheet here!

Is your dad a hipster? Don’t worry, we have you covered! Click here to download this PDF!

Make sure you share your finished coloring sheets on Facebook! We love to see how creative your little ones are!

We BabbaLOVE that you visited our blog! As a special Thank You, enter coupon code BABBA10 for 10% off any of our BabbaBoxes!

Create a Sidewalk Chalk Drawing with Your Kids

Try drawing a whale from the deep sea (inspired from our June BabbaBox!)

Try drawing a lizard.

Try drawing a tiger.

Try drawing a horse.

Try drawing a ladybug.

Try drawing a butterfly.

Happy sidewalk chalk drawing! Don’t forget to share your pictures with us on our Facebook page! We’d love to see what your awesome artist created!

We BabbaLOVE that you visited our blog! As a special Thank You, enter coupon code BABBA10 for 10% off any of our BabbaBoxes!

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

We wanted to send you and mom on a trip to New YORK or even to ORBIT the moon! But…after all we are just kids – your favorite THREE MUSKETEERS – and it wasn’t in our allowance budget this year. Too bad we don’t have a PAYDAY. Hint, Hint! We hope that made you SNICKERS, we know that you are no AIRHEAD. So when you wake up, don’t be surprised to see a huge MOUNDS of cheerios – “it’s breakfast in bed!” You’re welcome! So ROLOover and be glad that we couldn’t reach the BUTTER.

Love, your kids, Casey, Jess, and Daniel.

Is your family inspired? If you kids decide to make their own, make sure you share it with us on our Facebook page! We’d love to see them!

We BabbaLOVE that you visited our blog! As a special Thank You, enter coupon code BABBA10 for 10% off any of our subscriptions!

I love having conversations with my kids about thankfulness. In preparation for Father’s day, I’ve asked my kids a couple of questions in the car because if we were being honest, sometimes we moms feel a little like a limo service!

No but really, I  want my kids to start thinking through why we celebrate those we love. Here are some of the questions I asked in preparation for Father’s Day… hopefully these will spark a fun conversation between you and your kids. (Note: when I got home, I quickly grabbed a pad and paper and wrote them down for my hubby’s Father’s Day card. I know he’s going to love their answers!)

1.) Why are you thankful for dad?

2.) What’s your favorite thing to do with daddy?

3.) What’s daddy’s favorite sport?

4.) What’s daddy’s job? What does he do?

5.) How would you like to show daddy you love him on Father’s Day?

I can’t wait to hear your kids answers to these questions! I bet some of them will be adorable. Be sure to share them on our Facebook page for us all to enjoy!

We BabbaLOVE that you visited our blog! As a special Thank You, enter coupon code BABBA10 for 10% off any of our BabbaBoxes!