March 2020 Wild Kids Magazine

The March 2020 issue of Wild Kids Magazine is up!

For those who are new to the magazine, Wild Kids is a free monthly printable nature-based magazine that I publish as a nonprofit way to put some more good in the world.  Each issue includes ways to learn and play in nature that month, foraging information, a weather tree to track the month’s weather, nature study pages and seasonal poems and activities.  This year, I’m including vintage nature-themed cards each month, too (so far we’ve had butterfly fairies, birds and trees).

You can check out the March issue here.

Have fun!

Kids Can Bowl FREE This Summer All Over the U.S. and Canada

 

Looking for a fun way to spend time with the kids this summer?

KidsBowlFree is offering free bowling throughout the United States and Canada for children under all at participating bowling lanes all summer long.  Even military bowling centers are taking part.

Through the program, kids at or under that bowling center’s cutoff age (typically 15, but sometimes 13 or other ages) are eligible to register for 2 free games each day of the KBF program, all summer long, courtesy of the participating bowling centers and sponsoring schools and organizations.

They say:

Registered Kids Receive 2 FREE GAMES Of Bowling Each Day Of The KBF Program All Summer Long, Valued At Over $500 Per Child!

This program is designed by bowling centers to give back to the community and provide a safe, secure, and fun way for kids to spend time this summer.

Each bowling center has its own rules for things like cutoff ages and whether shoe rental is included.  Head to KidsBowlFree to find a participating center near you.

Have fun!

Let’s Learn About the Weather!

There are some wonderful, whimsical freebies out there to help little ones learn about the weather.

Here are some of my favorites!

Paint on the Ceiling has a Free Printable Weather Chart for Preschoolers.

Mr. Printables offers My Weather Station | Printable Weather Activity.

Fantail Digital Art has “My First Weather Chart” Free Printable

And Stickers and Charts has FREE weather printables, rainbow printables, and weather stickers.

And if you really want to track the weather, PBS lets you go all out here.

Now, here’s some wonderful weather to track!

 

 

Weather Trees!

Weather Tree by Betsy Wetsy on Flickr

I’m in love with weather trees. 

I’ve admired them over the years and always wanted to start one with the kids.

Weathertree.com offers this one for sale from the UK each year…

And they also offer one that focuses on goals (weight loss, exercise completed, eggs laid by chickens and small business profits are some examples!) instead of weather…

And this gorgeous one is available on etsy.

I’ve had several pinned on Pinterest for a while now to inspire me to make my own.

Now with the new year and this free printable weather tree from se7en, we’re all set to go!

Some people just color them with one or two colors for sunny or cloudy, while some color-code the leaves for hot, windy, rainy and so on.  On some calendars, you can see people colored the leaves several colors to show changing weather or various elements of the day’s weather.

We’re going to do the weather (cloudy, rainy, snowy, sunny, etc.) for the main part of the leaf and outline the leaf to show temperature (hot, cold or mild).  Of course, here in Minnesota I think anything above zero counts as mild these days.  🙂

Ours is printed and we’re filling in the first leaf tonight.

Happy 2014!

Download a Delightful Children’s Quotes Mini-Book!

I’m in love with this darling little free printable from Delightful Distractions.

The book can be printed and used in a multitude of ways — you can cut it into strips to make a tiny book for your purse, cut it in half for a medium sized book, keep the pages intact for a binder, or cut each little square out to make little notes for the fridge and such to remember those quotes.

Click here to go print yours!

Rules for Grown Ups (Free Printable)

Here’s a lovely little free printable from Growing Play.  I love it!  Head on over to print out the PDF freebie. 

 

Free Christmas Songs and Art

From now through Christmas, Amazon is giving away free Christmas songs to download every day.  A new song is unveiled each day, and you can also download all of the songs that have been posted up till that day… all free!

So far there have been songs like Chris Isaak’s “Auld Lang Syne,” The Indigo Girls’ “Your Holiday Song” and Point of Grace’s “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

You can listen to samples to see if you want them on each page. We particularly liked “Winter Night.”

Lastly, I got this comment from MaryAnn Kohl the other day.  Normally I don’t pass on this sort of thing, but I adore MaryAnn’s art activity books (I can’t tell you how many late fines I’ve paid to the library because of hanging on to Science Arts just a couple more days and Global Art has been on my wish list for a while!), so I am passing it on…

I follow your blog – it’s one of my favorites. My name is MaryAnn Kohl. I am the author of over 20 books on art for kids.

I am writing because I need your help to win a wonderful education grant, and I hope you can let your blog readers know about the grant competition. It takes votes to win, daily votes if possible.

Specifically, I am nominated for an amazing education grant from Pepsi. If I win, I will travel the USA in 2011 and bring hands-on art workshops to 6000+ teachers whose schools do not have art programs! Ultimately this would impact 150,000+ children who have no art at school.

I am asking that you vote for my project, and I hope you will invite your blog readers to vote too!

There are 3 ways to vote (and you can use all three every day if you want to… “power voting!”

1.) Direct vote at: http://www.refresheverything.com/greatartkids (You have to sign up first with the program to be a verfied voter.)

2.) Text your vote – no sign up needed:
Text these numbers: 104840 To Pepsi’s phone: 73774

3.)  Go to Facebook and vote through the Pepsi Voting App. This is pretty easy.

Note: If you get lost on the Pepsi site, just put MaryAnn Faubion Kohl in the search box and it will take you to my voting page.

Thank you so much for helping me achieve my goal of bringing art to schools all over the USA. I’d love to come to your town!

Thank you for considering posting my need for votes on your blog!
MaryAnn Kohl
maryann@brightring.com

Good luck MaryAnn!

By the way, folks, you can find lots of really fun free art projects at MaryAnn’s web site here.

Happy Wednesday!

Save Our Living Earth & a Freebie

Have you seen this stop animation video by kids?  This was made by four classes of fifth graders at an international school in Brussels.  What an amazing project!

Also, today only — Friday — this African animal math app for wireless devices is being offered for free for families.  We have no wireless devices except old fashioned types so we can’t use it, but it looks neat!

Help Kids With Dolly Donations

Have you heard of this neat site?  Dolly Donations offers free, simple cloth doll patterns and coordinates drives to donate dolls to children in need all over the world.

Magical Mama Sarah, who runs the site, just sent 181 dolls (and a few extras!) off to a Haiti orphanage, one for every child in the orphanage.  She’s already at work making more for local children in need.

The site offers free patterns and tutorials to make cloth dollies with a minimum of fabric.  You can even find patterns to knit or crochet, plus instructions on how to paint faces and add embellishments.

Sarah says visitors are free to use the patterns to make dollies for their own kiddos, but asks for people to make an extra (or more!) for children who could really use them.

What a wonderful idea!

Free Printable Model Motorcycles, Macaws & More

Yamaha has the most amazing models available free for download!  You can find everything from motorcycles to Japanese animals that you can print on heavy paper, cut out and assemble with the kids.  Some of these are really intricate and amazing.  These would be great fun for motorcycle loving daddies (or mamas!) to put together with the kiddos.

The site also gives lots of information about the animals and other models.

Cool stuff!