Day 5: New Year's Eve art

Weather: Sunny, but enough wind to keep the temperature bearable
Kids: Both

I'm trying to get the kids to take responsibility for their own entertainment - this means coming up with ideas themselves and trying not to interfere or take over their activities.  Obviously this works better with the six year old!  But also, I don't think kids should be constantly entertained - they should be supported to be independent and one way to do this is to arrange their own play.  In saying that, the kids butted heads a fair amount today and so I came up with activities to try and reset the mood.

Morning:

• I turned on the hose and let the kids spray stuff while I put some more plants in the garden.  They got bored of this quite quickly, so I put some water and paint in spray bottles and suggested they spray it on paper outside.  It was too windy for this, so they sprayed the trees and grass.  Acrylic paint dries surprisingly quickly on a sunny day - waterblasting half an hour later didn't remove the paint that had dried on the deck all that well.
• We pulled potatoes out of the garden and the children took turns washing them.  They are very protective of their potatoes!
• I put a big bucket of lux soap flakes outside and mixed with a little water to make 'gloop.'  The two year old almost instantly tipped it over.  The six year old then tried to make a lake deliberately and now there is a giant soapy puddle out the back.  I'm hoping it dries out overnight. 

Afternoon:

• My oldest daughter wanted to prepare for New Year's Eve (for here this means Chinese New Year).  She went and got red paper, cut it into strips and made a very long paper chain.  The two year old helped, but mainly through interfering (taking off with the cellotape or paper).
• We copied Chinese characters from the internet and learned a Chinese-New Year song in English.
• The outside bath:  I gave them their Christmas bath bombs, filled the kiddy pool and gave them a bath.  They thought that this was hilarious.