Misc. Activities for Kids. . . And Kids’ Activity

Okay, so one item that I missed in the weekend round-up is that kids are invited to paint eggs from Cooper’s Ark Farm at the Schenectady Greenmarket this  Sunday.

Second, I just had to show you one of the castles that we’ll have as centerpieces for our nursery school’s Family Dinner. 

Cute, right? Paper towel and toilet paper tubes, small paper cups, glue, paints, and stickers–a nice, multi-day project that you can do at home.  They are all deeply proud of their creations–J insisted that she felt terrific when I pondered aloud whether she should stay home from school on Wednesday.  I realized later that a) she didn’t actually feel that terrific and b) Wednesday was the day to “add your doors and windows to the castle”.

Oh, and Mo Willems’ Pigeon Party! is at The Egg on Saturday, February 13th.  A lot of the tickets have already sold, so if you want to go, follow the link and buy ’em now.

Finally, I was skimming the newsletter that our school sends to parents of incoming preschoolers, and they had this article about ensuring that your little kids are active.  According to the  National Association for Sport and Physical Education, preschoolers are supposed to have at least 1 hour per day of structured physical activity and then several hours of playtime physical activity.  Now, they said that “structured” could mean simple games, like hopscotch, but really, I just hate the term “”structured”.  I know that they have to learn to follow rules sometime, but  for a preschooler, it seems like the only way to really be structured is to have someone older telling you what to do.  I mean, I have led hours of Mr. Fox, and when the grown-up walks away, the preschoolers just can’t keep themselves organized.   So unless I  have a neighborhood pack of children (not really, especially in the winter) or patient older siblings, am I supposed to be leading my children in games for at least one hour per day?   Because I am not.  I mean, it’s hard to lead a game without a group, and besides, my ideas are lame because I’m Mommy.  Unless it’s tickling. Which causes kicking, flailing, rolling. . . and yet, that’s not structured.  Is this that whole quashing-independent-play-and-forcing-kids-into-organized-activity, or am I getting hung up on the term because I just have a bee in my bonnet about play (don’t get me started)?

And meanwhile, I’m pondering this while getting ready for dinner and J is dancing to Hate on Me from Glee.  Does that count as anything?  She’s following the beat.  Then after dinner, the girls were down in the basement rehearsing for a “show” that included gymnastics, a robot dance, and M doing some serious sister-lifting.  M had written out a program–is that structure enough?