Portland Parents

No Students!

Here’s the last two things we’ve come up with to do this season with your kids. Whatever you do wind up doing, have fun and don’t try to cram so much into your days that you feel overwhelmed.

Activity

Trace your child’s open hand onto a piece of cardstock or cardboard. Then trace this onto a piece of green cardstock or felt 8-10 times, and cut them out. Glue them together on the wrist side, and form a circle with them; you’re making a wreath. Decorate with glitter, sequins, a bow, and write your child’s name on the back. After this season, you can save the wreath for a keepsake.

Source

Event

More than 250 displays over two miles of track. How often do you get to drive your sedan or minivan on an official racetrack? At least once a year. The Winter Wonderland is on again. At fourteen dollars a carload, it’s generally cheaper than the Zoo Lights. However, I always want to get as big a car as I can get in order to show as many kids as I can all these lights. They say over a million lights will be lit up. Go take a look!

Here’s two more things to do this winter break. Enjoy your holidays! (Whatever they may be).

Activity

You knew it was coming, it was just hiding around the next bend. Make “Seasonal Cards” with your kids; if they’re not old enough to draw their own scenes, you can draw for them. Or just let their mood take them. Make sure to let them play with the glitter (the sparkle on your kitchen table will remind you of today for months to come), and the glue, and the double-sided tape.

The traditional method is just to fold a piece of paper over once, but if you fold it twice the card is a little more manageable. Also, see below for a different idea. You can get plenty of designs on the web for inspiration on your drawing.

Event

Did you know that every year the Pittock Mansion gets dressed up for Christmas? This year’s display (sponsored by K103) is themed “Favorite Toys of Christmas.” If you didn’t know before today that K103 is playing non-stop Christmas music, well you do now. At the Pittock Mansion, you’ll see antique horses, handmade dolls, train sets; all the best toys.

Here’s two more things to do this winter break. Enjoy your holidays! (Whatever they may be).

Activity

Salt Dough Ornaments!
Generally speaking, you can make salt dough from things you have around the house. Take equal amounts flour and salt and mix them together. Add as many tablespoons of vegetable oil as you had cups of flour (guess; it’s ok, it’s not a precise science). Add warm water until the dough is the consistency of … dough. Play-dough™ or Fimo™ are good examples. If you really want, you can add some food color to the dough, but I prefer mine white.

Create your decoration. Some easy ones are candy-canes or snowmen. To make detailed flat ones, you can use some good cookie-cutters. When you have it the shape you want it, either let it dry overnight or bake it at 200 degrees (F) until it’s hard. Paint with acrylic paints and use a good varnish, if you like.

For tomorrow’s activity, get together some paper, markers, glue and glitter.

Event

The Christmas Ships are in town!

This year is the 52nd year that the Christmas Fleet has run. Of the up to 50 ships, most nights around 25 each go along the Willamette and the Columbia Rivers; some nights, they team up and go together. Those nights are the more magical, with many floating displays reflected in the river water. Each owner pays their own setup and maintenance (and fuel) fees. Donations cover the required “Event Insurance” fee, so your donation is appreciated.

Here’s two more things to do this winter break. Enjoy your holidays! (Whatever they may be).

Activity

Make wrapping paper!
You’ll need some poster paint, some inexpensive sponges, and some craft paper. We like the brown packaging kind of wrapping paper because it goes so well with raffia, but any kind will do. Take your sponges and cut them up into shapes. You can use a cookie cutter as a template, or draw a pattern out with a permanent marker. We usually have a Fir tree, a snowman and a stocking shape, but you can use your imagination. Here are a few examples, to get you started.

When you have your sponges cut out, dress your younger kids up in your old t-shirts or smocks. Lay out the paper and stamp it with the poster paint and the sponge. You can be as fussy as you want; or just let them go to town. If you “happen” to get some hands and feet on the paper too— grandparents will love it even more. Rip off the paper and let it dry flat before you roll it up to store it until you have something to wrap.

Event

Don’t go to Alpenrose Dairy; their Santa House and Storybook Lane is closed this year (sadly). But you can go to the Zoolights! Most of the animals will be sleeping, but a few will be stirring in their pens. You can wander around part of the zoo, and then when you’re ready, hop on the train ( if you buy the entrance and the zoo train raid together, you’ll save money. Here are the prices).

Over the next few days, we’ll be publishing ten things to do with your kids in the Portland area. Each day, we’ll publish two; one event and one activity.

Today’s list is a pair of easy ones:

Activity

Get out and get pictures. We never get enough pictures of our kids. Get them developed and hang them up, in one of those cute little Christmas Tree frames. Send them to their grandparents, to their foster parents, to your friends. The more happy pictures of happy kids in festive festivities, the better.

Event

Peacock Lane. It’s free, very busy, short, and cheerful. Starting December 15, the houses on Peacock lane will be lit up with literally billions and billions of lights. It’s only about two blocks long, you can up and down it and not get cold- and usually there’s someone out there selling hot chocolate. It’s located in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, about 39th and SouthEast Stark. Follow the traffic. (Or the map).

For tomorrow, get together some cheap kichen sponges; red, white and green poster paint; and a roll of craft paper.

Come out to Mississippi Pizza Saturday December 2nd for singing, dancing, games and fun! Professor Banjo (Local square-dance caller Paul Silveria) plays lively old-time banjo, teaches simple dance figures, and hosts ‘chalk talks’ and guessing games. Traditional Americana that everyone will enjoy!

1. Saturday December 2nd from 4-5pm
2. Mississippi Pizza - 3552 N. Mississippi Ave.
3. Donations gratefully accepted!
4. Visit www.squaredancepaul.com

One of several things you can do with your kids this season is to have them make cards. And if you’ve done this for a few years, you might be getting tired of just folding over the card and having them color the front/write in the middle. Here’s an idea of something you can do a little differently.

Here’s a simple pop-up card example; basically, fold the card in half, cut two parallel cuts in the folded edge (they need to be the same length), fold the middle tab back and forth, and then open the card back up and tuck the tab inside, so that when you open the card, the tab is “up” in the middle. You don’t have to use thirds, but it does need to be wide enough to support your design. If you go to that web page, they’ve got a series of photos for you to see more clearly, if that doesn’t make sense to you.

Then head over to get some template ideas and print them out. Using pretty much any software, you can scale the image to the card size you want. Have your kids color that, and then glue it to the pop-up tab.

When you finish your card, you might want to glue a facade of another piece of cardstock over the front to disguise the pop-up nature of the card.