Beach Week

What a fun week we have planned!! Especially since we are ending the week with a trip to a real beach :) Since we are going to visit family in California the end of this week I thought there would be no better time to do some fun activities that will get the kids excited for surf, sand and sun!

The first activity we are doing is making a Beach in a jar. I have a bunch of cleaned out baby food jars that we are going to fill up with sand, pebbles, shells and grass (seaweed) to look like the beach. Then we glue the lid on and spray paint the tops gold. I think the kids will love shaking these up after and looking at them.

I also bought the biggest pasta shells I could find, and the kids are going to paint these however they want. Then we are going to talk about how just like their shells are all different, no two shells are the same. I am excited to use this activity as a way to reinforce colors with my almost 2-year old.

It's also so fun to talk about some ocean life so aside from going to the aquarium, we are going to do a fun little octopus craft. All you do is put paint on their palm and four fingers, then have them stamp their hand twice to make a cute octopus :) My kids love anything to do with fingerpainting, and it will be fun to work on counting with all the legs.

Now for the most fun part: the treats!! :) Tomorrow we are making beach cups, these are simply clear cups filled up with vanilla pudding dyed blue with food coloring (water) crushed nilla wafers (sand) and gummy fish/sharks. But what I am most excited for is this...



This adorable thing is a cake!!! You simply get a new sand bucket, bake a round cake of your choice. Then you cut it into strips and layer them in the bucket, a layer of cake and then a layer of pudding. Yumm!! Then you top with crushed cookies to look like sand and add some candy shells. Isn't that too fun?! I can't wait to make it for my kids, they will just love it :) Have a great week everyone!