Kids Archives

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Check Your Noontime Shadow!

Five friends walk across a sandy beach under a bright sun, carrying a cooler and gear.

Here’s a fun experiment to do around the time of the Summer Solstice: Be sure to look at your noontime shadow — it’s your shortest noontime shadow of the year!

Clever Use For Egg Cartons

A cardboard egg carton used as a palette for bright red, purple, yellow, and blue paints.

Use a cardboard egg carton as a paint holder for children. When they are finished painting, the carton can be thrown away. (Styrofoam or plastic cartons can be washed out and reused.)

Set An Easy-To-Clean Kids’ Table

Colorful wax crayons lined up along the bottom edge of a piece of crumpled brown kraft paper.

Use kraft paper or butcher paper to cover the kids’ table at Thanksgiving, and set out crayons and markers for them to draw and be creative. It keeps them busy and makes clean up a snap!

Kids Cleanup On The Go

A hand holds a clear plastic spray bottle with a red and blue nozzle against white.

Before leaving on a family outing, fill a spray dispenser bottle with soapy water. A squirt or two and on a piece of absorbent paper will clean sticky fingers and faces in a hurry.

Simple Kids Lap Desk

Rectangular blue plastic cutting board with a handle cutout shown on a plain white background.

Large plastic cutting boards make great lap desks for kids when traveling.

Have a costume swap!

Why overpay for a store bought costume when you can get one for free? Organize other families in your neighborhood and trade last year’s costume for something your kids will love.

Halloween Costume Deals

Smiling child dressed in a pirate costume with a red bandana, eye patch, and black mustache.

Buy discounted Halloween costumes in early November to create a kids’ dress-up trunk.

No-Run Face Paint

Close up of a pink plastic hairspray nozzle on a colorful orange and pink aerosol can.

A light mist of hairspray will keep face paint from running.

Choose your desired pasta and place one cup (or more, if desired) in zip top bag. Add about 1/4 cup rubbing alcohol and 10 drops of food coloring, eliminate air, seal bag tightly, shake, and lay flat. Allow mixture to fully saturate pasta. The longer it sits, the more defined the color. Carefully remove and