Impress Your Kids » Just for Fun

Our Summer: Explorers {Atlanta Children’s Museum}

ohAmanda — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 10:20:24 +0000

A few weeks ago we met up with Vanessa from Silly Eagle Books and her girls to visit the Children’s Museum in Atlanta. Do you have a children’s museum in your area? THEY ARE SO FUN. The first time I went (several years ago, when Lydia was small), I had no idea what it was. When I walked in, I was blown away–it’s super simple and super amazing at the same time–it’s just a giant room filled with every single fun thing kids like to do.

Our children’s museum has this whole giant play area that begins with a farm (including the opportunity to milk a cow), goes to the farmer’s market, the grocery store truck, the grocery store and straight to a kitchen and table. The kids get to roll boxes of food off a truck, play cashier at the grocery store and then make the food in their own little play kitchen. It is so incredibly fun!

My very favorite part is the painting. They just set up a giant piece of plexiglass and let the kids paint on it. When they are done, they squirt it with water, squeegee it off and it drains into a gutter underneath. (I think I’m going to make one of those for a birthday party sometime! How easy!!)

There’s a giant water table (complete with raincoats and fishing poles!) and the biggest moonsand table ever! They even have stations for you to display your sculptures!

Lydia loved the giant ball machine–with levers, pulleys and more so kids can push and pull balls up over their heads and around the room!

There’s even a stage with tap shoes, a train set and giant tinker toys. I’m telling you, they thought of every fun thing!

The special exhibit at the Children’s Museum right now is called The Big Adventure. I knew we were going to like it because of the airplane. I think I told you Asa’s 4th birthday party (in September) is going to be a Flying Ace party. So, whenever we see a bi-plane like this, we get pretty excited!

All the exhibits (if you can call them that, they are really just play areas!) for The Big Adventure were about different kinds of explorers and adventures–there was a giant spider web to crawl through, a broken bridge to put back together, a crazy path for trikes, a rock wall and an underground tunnel.

The kids loved this part best and even put on explorer hats, knee pads and binoculars. They were super explorers!

I love the whole “adventure” and “explorer” idea because kids need to do stuff that’s a little scary and hard. They need to use their imaginations and have fun dreaming big! I want my kids to do big things for God and I think even these little ideas of discovering new lands and going on adventures will help them see the big dreams God has for them.

Explorers are big at our house because my kids love dressing up as explorers. Right now their faves are Vikings and Laura Ingalls Wilder (she explored the west, right?). And I love it!

Here’s a few explorer and adventure resources for you if your kiddos would like to have a big adventure at home…

Voyage with the Vikings{A short chapter book about some kids use Adventures in Odyssey’s Imagination Station to visit Vikings. We read this over lunch a few weeks ago. The kids really liked it!}

Adventure Bible for Early Readers {This is the Bible Lydia has–it’s a 3rd grade reading level. It has lots of fun extra reading sections and special notes for kids.}

Calendar Connections Explorer Cards {This is really a homeschool supplement–daily trivia about explorers for each calendar day. We did this a few months ago and even though a lot of it was over their head, they loved it! They still talk about Leif Ericson and Eric the Red! Did I mention it’s a FREE DOWNLOAD?}

Jungle Doctor and the Whirlwind {I linked to this on Facebook yesterday–ChristianAudio.com has a few kids’ audiobooks on sale for $5 right now. This one is a true missionary story–I’ve actually never read/listened to it, but I downloaded it because I would love for my kids’ greatest explorer/adventure heroes to be missionaries! I’ll let you know what I think about it soon!}

And last but not least, one more Viking idea for you. (Go ahead. Click it. I’ll wait.) If anyone actually makes that, please let me know so we can come right over to play!

If anyone is in (or near) Atlanta, make sure you visit the Children’s Museum. The Big Adventure exhibit is there until September 9! Your kiddos will love it! (Oooh, and call me, we might wanna go with you!)

Happy exploring, friends!

I was given tickets to the Children’s Museum as a member of the media.

***Impress Your Kids has some new digs at ohAmanda.com! Come visit us there for all the Impress Your Kids archives and all our new posts–including our Easter newsblast with fabulous tips for celebrating a meaningful Easter with your kids!***

Our Summer: Atlanta Botanical Garden

ohAmanda — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Our summer fun has begun! I told you we have tickets to almost every fun thing in Atlanta and we have already started using them. I hope you don’t mind if I show off our adventures. I’ve been thinking a lot about this post from The Nester about her kids’ 18 summers. I want to make sure this summer creates memories and shared experiences that will last forever.

You know, you don’t always have to do a Bible craft, watch a Bible video or tell a Bible story to communicate God’s Love to your kids. Just lovin’ on them does the same thing–hanging out with them, doing what they like and creating a fun family environment shows them Jesus in the flesh.

So, to kick off our Summer o’Fun {is that a great title or what?!} we took my niece to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I don’t know if this is a common thing in other cities, but this giant garden is smack dab in the middle of downtown Atlanta. But when you step inside, you forget your are in the concrete jungle and are immersed into God’s huge garden!

There are tons of mini-gardens (the Southern Season was one of my faves!) for exploring and the kids loved this one with the waterfall best because they discovered mini snails at the water’s edge. I sat on a bench and watched them look at those snails for ages. I finally got up and said, “Can we keep moving?!” They were so totally into them!

The best part of the garden for the kids is the Children’s Garden. There was a dino-digging site, Peter Rabbit’s den, Mr. McGreggor’s Garden, a Native American garden, Grandma’s backporch garden, a frog pond, bumblebee hives and more. Peter Rabbit’s garden was their favorite and they pretended to be Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail the rest of the day! (Seriously, they even told another adult at lunch they were little bunnies.)

After the kids’ garden, we went to the Japanese Garden, the edible garden, the orchid house and even a tropical greenhouse. That was super cool because there animals inside, too.

It was so fun being surrounded by God’s beautiful, fragrant, delicious, exotic and awesome creations! We had a blast looking at everything and experiencing it close up ourselves.

If you have a big botanical-type garden in your city, you must go visit it! If you’re in Atlanta, or close to it, the Atlanta Botanical Garden is a must-see!

Have you ever been to a big garden before?

disclosure: I was provided with the tickets to the ABG as a member of the media.

I Can’t Stop Looking At This Picture

ohAmanda — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:30:13 +0000

We watched Part 1 of Planet Earth yesterday and the kids were completely and totally into it! I started snapping pictures after about 20 minutes because they were so funny. I shared this picture on Instagram yesterday but just felt like the whole world had to see! (You know, since the whole world reads this blog!)

How great are their faces?!

Happy Friday, friends! Don’t forget the Yancy Tour continues through the weekend!

ps–feel free to follow me on Instagram–I’m oohamanda!