Activities

A local mom shared a site with me that could prove useful given all the upcoming summer movie screenings. kids-in-mind.com reviews movies and rates their appropriateness for children. I have looked over the reviews of a few movies we have seen recently and they seem to be accurate and thorough.

Summer Family Movie Screenings:

Regal (throughout the US including Ashburn, Alexandria, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Sterling and many other VA locations) See free movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10am. Show up early to get a seat! Click here for Maryland locations, including Frederick.

Tally Ho (Leesburg, VA) $1 Family Classics on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 11am

Please drop us a line if you are aware of other theaters that have similar programs.

ETA: You can also check your local library for summer movie showings. I know LCPL has some scheduled. 

My 3 year old and I think we discovered the inspiration for Hasbro’s game Elefun. We head to a local trail head at least once a week and read books in the shade while my little one finishes her nap in the car. Sometimes he uses his fish net to try to catch bugs, but now that the leaves are changing and starting to fall he is having much more success catching leaves. He works hard, and giggles and smiles and when the wind stops he begs me to throw the leave so he can catch them. I finally tried it, and it is just as fun as he says. I smile and giggle too.

For the record: I have had a very difficult time finding good nets for my kids. The best I found were at a Sports Authority in Northern Virginia and a Walmart in the mountains of North Carolina. I have done numerous searches online and come up with nothing! I will continue to keep my eye out for extras in order to resell to my readers. Contact me if interested.

Jardinains is not good for adults. Jardinains is not good for kids, but man-oh-man is it fun.

Sometimes on a lazy Sunday afternoon the kids pull up a bench to watch and we bounce garden gnomes up and down and listen to them say “ouch!” When we introduced our 5 year old niece she loved it! When we introduced our twenty something siblings they loved it! When we play in front of our one year old daughter she giggles and shouts and then asks for “more games” when we turn it off.

As a bonus they have a Café Press store where you can buy Jardinain apparel. Good times!

Starfall was recommended to me as tool for preschoolers to practice letters and mouse control at the same time. It is a cool site! I appreciate its simplicity, and my almost four year old son has given it his stamp of approval.

The National Geographic website has some fun features. My kids and I love to watch the animal videos. I appreciate that they are short - perfect for a toddlers attention span, and you don’t run the danger of getting sucked into too much screen time! For a warm fuzzy check out the Walrus Hug in the Animal Moms series (found under “Animals” and then “Featured Videos”).

One caveat… although far less frightening than your average Disney movie these don’t sugar coat some of nature’s harsh realities. Baby alligators get eaten and sometimes carnivores eat other animals, so if you have a very sensitive kiddo you might want to pre-screen videos before watching together.

They also have a “WildCam” that features live video streaming from Cameras set up in various natural settings.

Enjoy!