Join our July Art and Play Picassos's with Tropicana Tropics Fruit Stand!

Join us on July 19th from 10am - 11:30am

at Waterloo Park right beside the new free Lions Lagoon!

This event is open to all!  Sign up here!

Art and Play is our flagship monthly event! Based on our educational curriculum and theme of the month, moms and kids will do a craft together, enjoy parachute and circle time, and have some free play time to socialize.

During the summer, Art & Play will incorporate Picassos in the Park, momstown’s famous ‘let’s get messy’ outdoor painting activity.
 
Tropics (From Tropicana) wants to take us on an exotic journey this summer with a refreshing taste of paradise!  And we will be using fruits to make a fruit hat at this fun event.  Come out and sample the new flavours from Tropicana for just 25 cents - all for charity.

Did you know that Tropics is made with 100% juice and puree blend and contains no added sugar?

Fact: Each 250 ml glass of Tropics juice blend provides you with two full servings of fruit (based on Health Canada’s Food Guide). NOTE:  the recommended serving size for children is 125 ml.

 
Enjoy a taste of "Tropics" and let Tropicana take you away!

momstown KW Joins the Circus!

  

This morning cooled off a little and so it was a great morning to be at the park.  Some of us were happy with the relief of cooler temperatures and the splash pad was less distracting today :)

The momstown KW Art and Play program this morning had a fun Circus theme! We started off with painting up our Red Clown Noses, to tie in with our popular summer activity, Picasso's in the Park.  To make our clown noses, we started off with a one-egg section of an egg carton.  Then we just painted it red and strung some string through each side to tie around our head.  Our clown noses were too wet with the gobs of paint still to put them on our noses at photo time..   We loved painting our noses so much that we painted some elephant and tiger faces too. When we held them to our face, we wore half the paint and were thankful to have Huggies Simply Clean Wipes on hand to help clean up!

 So while the noses dried, we started working on our Clown Hats.  Now, according to the instructions we were using as a guide on the momstown.ca Arts & Crafts blog, we should have cut out paper and rolled up to form the triangular hat... BUT, we cheated.  I know how short the attention span of our little ones are so I cut out a few steps and just purchased plain party hats!  And this definitely made the creation of Clown Hats much easier and faster.  With the sight of the swing set and park nearby, I knew our time was short.  We used coloured pom-poms and white cotton balls, for polka dots and lots of curly ribbon to make it colourful & fun for clowning around. 

Now, while both the glue was drying on our hats, and the red globs still drying on our clown noses, we got active and pretended to be tigers.  And not just any tigers, Tigers that jump through hoops, just like at the circus!  We quickly learned that sporting the clown hats make us too tall to jump through hoops.  Good thing these weren't fiery hoops, phew.    After painting like Picasso's, playing with clown hats and playing like animals, we wanted to accomplish one last dangerous circus act, just like Nik Wallenda and pretend to walk the tight rope.  With just a thin Chinese skipping rope, we put our balance skills to work and walked the tight fine line, young and old!  The kids were so proud of themselves and celebrated with some social time at the park (wearing their clown hats)!

momstown KW Families Took the Farm to the Park for our Art & Play

We got lucky, we had a gorgeous day at our June Art and Play event with an On the Farm theme.   momstown Kitchener-Waterloo moms all gathered at Victoria Park in Kitchener for a fun morning of Footprint Tractors, a Farm Animal water sensory bin, a reading of Old MacDonald Had a Farm-puppet style and of course, some fun parachute time!

We started with our Footprint Tractors.  This would give our tractors time to try while we continued on with the fun.  We had kids of all ages that we anxious to make a tractor with their little or big feet :)  In some cases it took a team to get the footprint but we got the job done.  Thank goodness we had lots of Huggies Simply Clean Wipes on hand for the messy clean up of green paint. 

While some of the toddlers & preschoolers were busy manafucturing their Footprint Tractors, the babies were dipping into the Farm Animal sensory bin, filled with water!  They were finding cows, pigs, sheep and ducks too!  The little farmers just loved how the animals were bobbing and that they could just pull them out one by one.  And then put them all back in and try again!

How cute are these tractor pictures that were coming to life?  We used everything around us at the park to customize our "tractor on the farm" creations.  Real grass.....

          .......sticks and pincones........

  .....................flowers..................

    ...........and more flowers and leaves too!

  Then it was time for some animal parachute time!  Everyone brought their farm stuffy's with them to bounce around on the parachute.  Then of course we had to do some singing, shaking, hiding and ring around the rosey, with the parachute. 

Everyone gather on the parachute! It was time to slow down all the activity before we parted, with a finger-puppet version of story-time with Old MacDonald Had a Farm.  (each finger is a different animal).   The children were drawn to this story and the puppet characters.  They were so quiet and attentive, it was obvious they all loved this session. 

I have to be honest, many of the parents really enjoyed this puppet version of Old MacDonald as well.  Thanks a bunch to Scholastic Canada for sending us this great book this month.   After a busy morning of painting, tractors, animal sensory, parachute time and a fun story, all the little farmers were anxious to hit the splash pad to wash up and cool off.  We love being at the park in the summer and its perfect for our Art and Play program!