Fun at the Beach

This past week we were at the beach in California with all our kids and grand kids (that's all 24 of us in one beach house!). It was great fun but even though it was a vacation, we couldn't skip our usual Wednesday "Grandma Day". I went on the Internet before leaving and found some great "beach" crafts to do while we were there. The kids loved them so I thought I would share them with you all in case you are ever at the beach with kids.

Mr. "J" modeling his 2 projects; the visor and water bottle

Before we left we made these two crafts. First was a foam sun visor that they decorated. These foam craft projects are inexpensive, not messy and easy for them to do.

Miss E showing her visor and bottle

The water bottles were also very easy. I got them a water bottle from the store and they decorated them with permanent markers. They picked ribbon that we attached to the bottle with O-rings and dungaree buttons. They used both of these all week and they survived the whole week also.

Miss B and Mr. J putting there memory cans together

On the "official" day (Wednesday), we started the day with a long walk down the beach to find treasures that would remind the kids of the visit to the beach. They included everything rocks, shells (not too many), seaweed, feathers and even some interesting garbage.

Miss G showing off her treasures

After the walk we filled plastic paint cans I got from the craft store with sand and put the "treasure" inside. This one didn't quite work out as the directions suggested.

Mr. S very proud of his beach memory can

They were supposed to fill the cans bit by bit with sand and press the items up against the plastic but it just didn't work. The found items kept getting lost in the sand so instead we just filled the can half way and put the treasures on top of the sand.

Miss E is showing hers here

Before we began our walk, I had the kids paint an inexpensive wooden frame a pretty blue color like the ocean. When we cam back from making the memory cans, the paint was dry. I know that we would never find enough sea shells so I bought a couple of bags from the craft store. They decorated the frames with the shells and leftover items from the walk.

Busy and work being creative!

They had a lot of fun being creative with the materials in decorating the frames. Then we put pictures in them that Grandpa had taken the day before and had developed in the frames and they turned out beautiful!

We left those to dry and went out to the beach for one more activity.



This one was especially easy. We took 10 drinking straws and taped them together with 1 piece of electrical tape. I gave them each a cup with bubbles and the dipped the straws into the bubbles and blew! Many bubbles! It took them a while to figure out not to blow too hard but they all eventually did it and had great fun blowing.

Miss B enjoying the bubbles

Then they had fun trying a variety of blowing bubble tools that I brought from home. One thing that doesn't mix is sand and bubbles. We all got quite messy!

Mr. C's and Miss B's completed projects

It was a great Grandma day and we had a great time together at the beach this week!