You’ve probably heard the old adage if you live in the US especially, that March either comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, or vice versa. We’re in for lion here (snow, ice, bitter temps) so at least we can look forward to the end of the month and more cuddly temperatures and gentle weather. After the sugar high let down from Valentine’s Day, look forward to a whole month without excessive goodies marketed to you – as long as you stay away from the temptation of Easter candy until it rolls around in 6ish weeks. With the iffiness of the weather, and the yearning of kids for outdoor play, how about some indoor kid fun for the month of March?
Find an awesome lion and lamb printable coloring page set, along with other March inspiration here. We have some craft supplies, but most of the lion and lamb ideas I could find used a paper plate, which we don’t ever use and it seems a waste to buy a whole package for one use. If your child is involved in library programs, day care, or pre-school, they’re likely doing the whole ‘cotton ball with glue’ thing already anyway. Keep it simple this weekend and do some coloring. Find a coloring page for you here and feel like a real artist! Here’s some spring ones for ‘big kids’ to play along and a maze, too. So instead of jumping right into spring cleaning, clear away brunch, turn on your favorite music, and spread out the crayons and colored pencils. Encourage REAL art by letting kids know that sheep can be ANY color and not just white. Add patterns or other details to fill in the page and encourage your little one to ‘color outside the lines’…give them a good ‘brain cobweb’ cleaning if they’re stuck in a coloring rut. Then, flip the pages over and encourage your child to build new skills: Recognizing the letters of their name; writing the letters in March, lion, lamb, spring, rain; or for older kids, writing a phrase and having them see how many words they can make out of it or telling a verbal or written story featuring a lion or lamb and read it out loud. Even the youngest toddlers can ‘baa’ and ‘roar’ with the best of them!
Do you do any lion or lamb activities that take minimal supplies?
If I can teach my daughter that she’s not da Vinci, her crayons aren’t paints, and our walls are not the Sistine Chapel… maybe we can start coloring again.