Kid Career Exploration and Recap!

So, much apologies for not posting sooner this week. The festivities of the beginning of the week really threw off my normal schedule and I just haven't been able to get around again until now, so here I am, back again for more sharing fun and I should be back to a more normal routine next week!

Since I am finally now posting this lovely Friday, for this week, I am gonna kinda forgo the normal "fun find" and share what I have planned today, and it will be more of a reflection day and just recapping, and then I still plan on coming back on tomorrow for a lovely "Sun up Saturday" especially since I didn't get one in last month. Again apologies for being inconsistent, I am trying to get better at this, we'll see. . . .
First off I thought I would do a little catch up of how some of these most recent sort of posts/ventures went and then share a little kid career fun, some things you could do with the little kiddos (or big kiddos too) if you are looking for some time fillers this lovely summer.

Remember my Father's Day post? More specifically, the puzzle I got my hubby? well we finally found the time and finished it, here is how it turned out :

I am a little annoyed that after spending $20 on this thing there are two pieces of the puzzle that absolutely do not belong, the two spots that need pieces are lighter looking and the only two left are pretty much black looking. . . so ya, they really don't fit- Yeah walmart, mehh

At least we still enjoyed it, I think my little girl likes it too, what do you think?

Then as promised, here is our little fam, wearing our matchy matchy fourth of July festive shirts

 Silly me, I am blocking both my shirt and my little girls shirt, oops! :0)

 Aren't they just precious!?

Like how is she is pointing to her shirt? I don't think she is doing this on purpose, but we can pretend that she is :)

Now for the Kid Career exploration. The following pictures are of some things I put together for my internship a year ago when I worked in the children's museum. The theme for the month was careers so we put together some things that kids could come in and play with and "explore" a little in that career (I did a little recap about this on my regular family blog HERE, if you care to read about it). The main reason for sharing this is if you have kids or work with kids and you need something fun to fill your time, any or all of these would be great fun and it wouldn't take much work to throw these things together.

 This was the cook's corner, all we did was paint an old cardboard box white and then wrote on the lines with a permanent marker to make it look like a stove. Then I pulled out some old pans we don't use very often, an old apron and a hot pad, this was a big favorite section, maybe because  alot of the kids could relate to cooking from watching their parents at home. And if the kids are older, they might enjoy making/decorating the box stove themselves.

 We were able to get the fire department to let us barrow a fireman outfit. Though this part might not be as easy to do at home, the box car would be. All I did was make the box empty or hallow, put straps on for the sides and then painted it while also adding some paper plate wheels. Depending on the age level of kids you are trying to entertain, they could maybe even paint and do their own thing here too, they might appreciate it more too :-)

Here we had a postal worker section, again we got the post office to let us barrow a mail carrier hand bag and hat, but for at home you could probably do any bag or any hat and they wouldn't really care. Then the actual mailbox we made by using an old cardboard tube that had paper wrapped around it (like an old wrapping paper or even paper towel thing works, depending on how tall you want it), then made a plate form from cardboard, painted black, and the top is just construction paper that we tapped in the round looking shape. With a little different sort of creativity you could use a shoe box instead.

Here was a little construction zone. I got the orange cones from the dollar store, and found the yellow hat and toy saw at the local thrift store for really cheap. I don't know if your local thrift stores are this supplied, but every time I go I usually see one of these hats. Then the construction zone tape is just yellow streamers that I wrote "Caution" on, or "Construction Zone", or you could put whatever you'd like. We weren't able to get it going, but I wanted to bring in some lumber or building blocks, so that the kids could actually "build" in this construction zone- so if this would be something you'd do with your kids, I hope it works out better for you :-)

Here is the little Doctors section, it was really simple, we just put down a white sheet, and then pulled out some basic medical sort of tools. Again I got lucky and found the stethoscope and blood pressure gage really cheap at the thrift store, but you could use other things like the thermoniter, maybe some Popsicles sticks or something of the like (we didn't use these for this because if might have been a little unsanitary at this more public area).

Here is some police box cars, same idea as the fire truck boxes.

We also go the police department to let us barrow their hats, but this wouldn't have to be a necessary part of the set up. But we made this little "Stop/Go" paddle from a ping pong paddle

I know it isn't much, and it only covers a very few amount of careers of the millions out there, but it's a start and it can also give you chance to start thinking and getting creative if you want to do more than some of this more basic stuff. Kids love dressing up and doing dramatic play, it is a great way for them to act things out and make sense of their world and what is normal to them, so even if it isn't career related- have fun doing some kind of dress up with them, I know they'll love it, and you just might too!

Anyway, that's all today, I'll be back tomorrow and thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

Until next time! . . . . .