Football Painting

Our final activity during our FOOTBALL themed week, was this easy and fun football painting! I was trying to figure out a way to paint the football so it looked like the leather dots on a real pig-skin football. I originally thought of using bubble-wrap....but we didn't have any. Then I thought of pencil erasers!  LB (2) had so much fun since he loves to paint. 

Prep Work:

• Draw a football shape on a piece of brown construction paper. (or any color you want)
• Gather a handful of pencils and put an elastic band around them to keep them together. This is what your child will "stamp" the football with.

 Here's what you do:

• Pour out a little tempera paint (or finger paint) onto a paper plate.
• Hand your child the bundle of pencils and show them how to stamp the erasers into the paint and onto the football. Have them do it over and over to cover the entire football, or as much as they want. :)

•  Let the paint dry.
• Then cut out the football shape and look at your cool design!

*P.S. The best finger paints around are by Crayola. They are the perfect consistency. Not too runny and not too thick. And best of all they are completely washable--and so easy to wipe off tables, fingers, and wash out of clothes. I HIGHLY recommend them for painting crafts with kids. 
And there is a great deal on Amazon right now to get a nice set of 12 different colors. In big bottles that you can use for a LONG time! Check it out!

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Football Letter Game

Another one of our FOOTBALL themed activities was this Letter Game! It was super easy and fast to create and was really fun way to review letters with LB (2).

Prep:

• Cut off a 2 inch section of green construction paper and glue it onto a big piece of blue construction paper (grass & sky)
• Fold a yellow piece of construction paper in half and cut out a shape of half a football goal post, so that when you open it up, it looks like the whole goal post. Glue it onto your blue paper.
• Write the letters of the alphabet all over the whole picture.
• Cut out a small football shape from brown construction paper and draw laces on it with a white crayon.

Here's what you do:

• Sit down with your child and say a letter of the alphabet. Then have them place the little football on top of the letter.
• When they get it right, yell "TOUCHDOWN!!!" They will love it. :)

• When LM(5) got home from school, I played with him, but this time, I said the sound and had him put the football on the letter. It was really fun!

Football Field Graham Cracker

Growing up, one of my favorite after-school snacks were graham cracker & frosting sandwiches. Yum.

Using those same lovely ingredients, you can also create a simple and fun FOOTBALL FIELD snack! We made these to go along with our FOOTBALL themed week, and the boys LOVED them!!!

Here's what you do:

• Put a few dollops of white frosting into a bowl and add green food coloring.
• Lay out whole graham crackers and spread green frosting all over them.
• Put a big spoonful of white frosting into a ziploc baggie and squeeze to one of the corners. Clip a small hole out of the tip of the corner and squeeze the white frosting out to draw lines and numbers on your football fields.
• Spread some white frosting on each end of the crackers to be the End Zones.
• Get 2 chocolate chips. Wet the bottoms of them and stick them together to make a "mini football," and place it on the field.

Football Laces Counting Game

With Football season in full swing, I thought it would be fun to have our weekly theme be FOOTBALL! 

This activity was incredibly simple to make, and LB(2) had so much fun with it. And I was very impressed with how well he counted!

Prep:

• Using a piece of brown construction paper, cut out 5 football shapes
• Tape or glue them onto the blank side of an index card (or cut out pieces of cardstock)

• Using a white crayon, draw a line down the long way of the footballs, and then cut the football cards in half.
• Next, draw laces on each half of the football starting with 1 and going up to 5, like the picture below:

Here's what you do:

• Lay out all the cut cards and have your child pick 2 and put them together to make a football.
• Show them how to count the laces and then have them do it on their own!

• Since there are so many possible combinations, this is a fun game your child can play over and over to practice counting up to 10!

Y cookies

Our favorite football team had their big rivalry game this weekend. To help cheer them on, we made some Y cookies:

Unfortunately, the cookies weren't enough to send our team to victory. They lost BIG time. So we wallowed in sugar and pity.

Up and Moving--INSIDE

Because THIS (picture below) is how LM would choose to spend his entire day if given the choice, we have had to get a bit creative since the weather has turned cold.

 

One substitute for physical outdoor-play is indoor basketball drills!

Now, don't get the wrong idea or anything.....I don't know much about basketball.

Nor am I attempting to train the next Michael Jordan.

By drills, I mean repetitious patterns of physical movement to get the heart pumping, the blood flowing, and bedtime consequently less boycotted. 

Gratefully, I found this Little Tike Basketball Hoop at a yardsale during the summer to aid in the process.

But really, you could accomplish the same purpose without a hoop. Just get creative and get up and moving!

Here's one drill:

• Set up the Hoop on one end of the house. (We put it by our front door) 
• Grab a ball (or 2, one for each of you!)
• Run to the other end of the house (our back door) and then back to the hoop.
• Shoot the ball until you make it!
• Then run to the other end of the house and back again.
• And again.
• And again.

Here's another one we've done (without the hoop):

• You start at one end of the house, the child starts at the other end.
• One of you carry a ball.
• When you yell, "Ready, Set, Go!," you both run towards each other.
• When you pass each other, you pass the ball (I like to pretend I'm a Quarterback secretly passing the ball for the winning touchdown, but that's just me. And again, I don't know much about football either.)
• You both run to the other end and stop.Then you yell, "Ready, Set, Go!" again and the fun continues.
• Again, 
• And again.
• And again.

 Here's one more we enjoy:

• Grab a ball.
• Both of you start at the same end of the house/room.
• One of you throws/kicks/rolls the ball (Since we have tile all downstairs in our apartment, we use a little bouncy ball.)
• You both run after it and try to be the first one to get it. (YOU, the Mother, of course occasionally pretend that you are running as fast as you can and that your hands mysteriously become a little "buttery" as you attempt to grasp the ball. Other times, it's every man for himself! At least that's how we play. haha.)
• Laugh. (Since we use a little bouncy ball, it goes all over and my aforementioned "pretending" to not be able to get it becomes reality, especially because we are giggling about who can get to it first.)

There are plenty of options of fun drills or games to play. The point is get up and moving!
So, what are you waiting for?
Go grab a ball!