Raindrops Keep Falling….. 4 Fun Ways to Welcome April Showers
- At April 6, 2011
- By Rori Boyce
- In Toy Story
1
Here comes April!! Sunshine and warmer days replace the gloomy grey of winter. The trees begin budding with new green leaves and the muted colors of the winter landscape are washed away with each April shower. Little girls and boys are antsy to get outside after being cooped up all winter long. Here are five fun ways to celebrate spring and enjoy even the rainiest days April has to offer.
1. Reading and Raindrops
Pick up one of the great books for children about weather, rain, spring, or umbrellas. Raindrop, Plop by Wendy Lewison is a great example. Dress your youngster up in their galoshes and pop open the Dora umbrella or the Thomas the Train Engine umbrella as you read to them. Encourage them to use their imagination and act out the story. For older children, read the book together or have them read it to you.
2. Chart the Weather
Make learning about the weather fun for everyone in the family and create a weather chart by having your children track the weather each day. On rainy days, have them grab their favorite umbrella and set out rain collectors to find out how much rain falls. On sunny days, focus on tracking temperature fluctuations over the course of the day. For older children, they can track the forecast from the meteorologists against the actual weather conditions. By the time May comes to call they may be making their own forecast.
3. Walking in the Rain
Decked out in raincoats and galoshes, take a walk in the rain together. Make sure to bring along enough colorful, cute umbrellas for everyone and encourage puddle jumping. To add another element of fun, sing fun songs about rainy days like “Singing in the Rain” as you walk. Have each person on the walk make up a song or a story about their umbrella. If they have a Tinkerbell Umbrella, they might sing about a fairy that only comes out in the rain. If they have an Iron Man umbrella, they might sign about an action hero who gets stronger when it rains.
4. Play in the Puddles
With a couple hula hoops, two balls and enough umbrellas for all your players, you can invent your own rainy day game called Puddle Ball. Find a spot ripe with puddles and select the biggest ones as your point puddles. Lay a hula hoop around each of the point puddles and split into two teams. Each team gets a ball and the object of the game is to have a tremendous amount of fun while splashing and laughing in the puddles. Make up your own rules to create a custom made game just for your family.
No need to wait for summer to have a ton of fun outside, especially if you have the right equipment on hand. Little ones love umbrellas, especially ones made just for them. Look for umbrellas featuring their favorite characters like Disney’s Cars or Fairies. For the littlest ones, try a Sesame Street umbrella featuring Big Bird or Elmo. Splash away the rainy April days with galoshes, an umbrella and smiles all around.
Dominion Card Game – A Tactical Game for the Whole Family
- At April 5, 2011
- By Kimberly Alexander
- In Board Games
- 0
Dominion is a tactical card game developed by Rio Grande Games. As the ruler of a small kingdom, the objective of the game is to own a larger kingdom with more trees and rivers. Ideal for two to four players, ages eight and up, a typical game will last about 30 to 45 minutes.
Dominion Card Game
In building a larger kingdom, there are small sections of land ruled by anarchical lords. The mission is to bring civilization to them.
With so many possibilities, the Dominion games allow for ever changing game strategies and play.
When expanding your kingdom, there are however, monarchs that have the same ideas as you. These monarchs will have to be fought off in order to gain control of unclaimed land. In order to fight them off, you will have to build up your castle, hire minions, buildings and earn money. The more land that is accumulated, the more victory points are awarded. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game is declared the winner.
The set-up of the game begins with each player having a total of ten cards. Ten action cards are laid out which can be bought by players as the game gets under way. Action cards and initial seed money are used to acquire precious metals which are used to buy land cards for victory points.
Players must be prudent in spending money. It is important to balance out purchases of victory cars, actions cars and money cards. If money is not spent wisely at the right time, you will not be able to build your Dominion.
With 25 different groups of cards, rest assured that every Dominion game is different! There a millions of variations of play. Extensions may be purchased for even more variations!
