Looking for some fun and frugal ideas for crafts with your grandkids? Maybe a fun way to supplement their home schooling program? I’ve got three great resources for you !

Fun-With-Pictures has a website full of fun coloring pages for kids along with other printables and activities. One of my grandkids loves it for its Batman pictures. They also have Pooh, Care Bears, and other “name brand” pix. On top of that they have a lot of plain-Jane pictures such as fairies, cars, trucks, dinosaurs, and more.If you are like me and want to be notified when they add pictures, you can even go to the bottom of the page and click on one of the RSS buttons and you’ll start getting their occasional blog updates.

Uptoten is a very cool site I just discovered, thanks to Stumbleupon (I will definitely be telling you about Stumbleupon in a future post!). It looks like a lot of fun for both the kids and me! I had fun experimenting with their Kaleidoscope and I’m betting my younger grandkids will enjoy it as well. And be thrilled to have something they can “do” on the computer themselves after we push the button.

They have coloring pages where the children do the “painting” online, and then can print out their masterpieces. No mess for me – and lots of fun for them! They have a raft of other goodies and I am looking forward to exploring them with the grandkids.

This is a combination site – it offers a free portion with ads and that’s what I’m going to start with. It also offers a paid-for site which you might want to look into later, if you really enjoy it and want the added protection of no ads and no external links. The paid option reminds me of Webkinz which we really love, but does seem a bit more pricy. It might have more to offer though so I will definitely be checking it out. (If you have tried it, please let us know what you think about it – both the free side and the paid side. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post. We LOVE comments!

Kaleidoscope

Coloring Pages offering pictures you can color online – In that same area, they had several other choices, including a word and color match game.

ReadyMech – This site offers cute patterns for little paper toys that you can print out, cut out, and assemble. You should use matte paper for these projects, and they are only supposed to take a few minutes to assemble. I would think they would be entertaining for all ages, though the younger children will need more help, of course. There are a couple of the patterns I would not care to use with my grandkids – a skull, for example. But the little girl called Jules is adorable and there are some super-hero type ones that boys will like.

CAVEAT – All of these sites look like they are fun, educational, and entertaining. They can be a great addition to a fun playtime with your grandkids and even be great for their online homeschooling. It is important to note, however, that they, along with all other sites on the internet, do require close supervision for your young and not-so-young grandkids. It’s especially vital to note that the first two sites both have ads and links to other sites.

That said, let’s have a safe and fun time giving them a whirl! 

What is your favorite season? Mine is Autumn. It officially starts tomorrow and I can’t wait! I love the cool crisp days and nights. I love the crunchy leaves. I love the sights and sounds and fun times. I love decorating for Harvest Time. I loved it as a newlywed. I loved it when my kids were young. And I love it as a Baby Boomer Generation caregiver. I just plain love Autumn.

I am thrilled that my grandkids all love it as well! Sharing our traditions with them and learning the new traditions they have started is all part of the heritage we are creating for our families.

When my children were young, we collected leaves and put them around the house while singing fall songs together. These were songs I had made up and set to Christmas song tunes.

Some of that has changed – we don’t usually bring the leaves into the house anymore (I have developed allergies). But we love to crunch in them outside and watch as the wind swirls them around for a lovely “Autumn Ballet.” I love to share that imagery with my long-distance grandkids as we enjoy talking about the leaves dancing outside.

When we are discussing our “Autumn Ballet,” it is a great time to talk about God. It provides a powerful picture of Him and how He works in our lives. We may not be able to see the wind, but we see it ruffling the leaves in the trees, carrying them around in the air and skittering them around on the ground. We may not be able to see God, but we see His power at work in our lives when we pray and He answers, when we see Him protect us from an accident on the freeway, and when we read His Word and see it apply directly to our lives.

It’s fun finding autumn pictures for all the grandkids to enjoy coloring and decorating. I keep a close watch on Target’s $1 bin and the local Dollar stores for fun projects for Autumn, Thanksgiving, and harvest time. Last year Target had turkey sticker projects, autumn picture frames to decorate, and Pin the Tail on the Turkey games. Needless to say, I scooped up plenty for all my grandkids. We can incorporate them in their home schooling program, as well as just having fun. These are memories we can all share and enjoy, right now and as they grow older.

Here are some Autumn Coloring Pages Fun for you to share with your grandkids. On a PC, you can right click on each picture, select COPY. Then open a program such as Word and select EDIT, PASTE. You can change the size by selecting the picture, press on the CTRL key with your left hand while pressing the left mouse key, and dragging. This will increase the size proportionally.

Because of health, expenses, etc., it can be hard to visit all your children and grandchildren as often as you like. Fortunately there are lots of fun and creative ways to keep close to them in spite of the distance. One of my ongoing plans for this blog is for us all to share different ways we have discovered that make the distance seem not so far away.

My grandkids who don’t live close love coloring pages. They’d keep their parents printing them out and buying them at stores all day long if they could. Naturally, that’s not an option. But it does create a great opportunity for a grandparent to help in that area.

Periodically I have fun preparing an email of coloring pages and projects for them to enjoy. I use public domain coloring pages I’ve found on the net along with coloring pages I’ve purchased. I’m primarily a computer-oriented grandma, but once in a while, I’ll even prepare a GRANDMA CARES package for the snail mail route. In that, I will usually tuck in stickers, coloring books, activity sheets, and other fun goodies. The Dollar Store is a wonderful help with that, although I am very careful about what I buy for the younger ones because of all the warnings lately about unsafe toys that go into little mouths.

The nice thing about these emails and boxes is that they are as much a gift for my adult kids as my grandkids. They enjoy watching the little ones open the boxes. They also enjoy the peace and quiet that ensues as little ones grab their crayons, scissors, and new coloring pages and get creative. Granted said quiet only lasts a short time, but it’s still sweet.

Some great resources for clipart include: Dover Publications – This company is famous for high-quality artwork that is public domain – free to use and reuse within certain boundaries. I have purchased two of their coloring books with computer disks. The pictures are great and the cds are easy to work with. You can find the books listed in my Amazon Book list for Grandparents on my Favorite Books and Music page (see Resource-full Links on the right) -  You can then print them out or email them to your grandkids to enjoy.

They also offer a wonderful sampler email that comes out every week. This links to their site where you can find great sales and more than a dozen sample pages from different books. Most samples give you two printable, copy-able pages that kids will enjoy coloring as well as some simple mazes, dot-to-dots, etc. Some are black and white, some are color, all are high quality. I especially love the turn-of-the-century colored pictures. They are so cute. Those are great for kids to cut out and glue onto pictures with glue sticks. Old fashioned stickers for free!

A great Christian site is ChristianAnswers.Net’s Kid Explorers . They not only have printable coloring pages, they have online interactive coloring pages, plus a whole bunch of other cool stuff for kids and grandparents to do while learning more about God and His awesome world. For those grandkids who are far away, you can both get on the computer at the same time, look at the same pictures and have a great time comparing colors as you work together, yet separately. You’ll notice I have added them to the sidebar along with the word search option. Now you can check your news, then print out some fun activities to do with your little ones – be they your children or grandchildren.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that the world’s best crayola maker (in my personal opinion ), also has a very snazzy website complete with great coloring pages – both for printing out or for coloring online, along with some other fun activities. You can find all that that at www.crayola.com . Their copyright specifically allows personal use so it should be ok for you to copy and paste these coloring pictures into an email to send your grandkids – and do let them know it’s thanks to Crayola’s great site.

Have a colorfully fun time and leave a comment or send an email to let us know your favorite sites for coloring pages.

Church was great today! The music was wonderful and the sermon was interesting, educational, and funny (I love that combination). We were reminded of the importance of hiding God’s Word in our hearts that we might not sin against God. My memory is not so hot for memorizing any more but as I keep helping grandkids memorize their verses it plants those seeds into my head as well. I love that! I have fun making cute little charts for them with their verses and posting them all around the house. I have one hanging in the guest bedroom, I have one beside the toilet, and another one in the shower. I also keep one in the car for when we’re driving. During the school year, I use Awana’s verses and school verses. Each summer, we work on special projects. This past summer, we memorized The Lord’s Prayer. As soon as they have it totally memorized, we’re headed for Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate! For my grandkids who don’t live as close, I have fun making coloring pages and putting Bible verses on them. I also love singing Bible songs to them on the phone as we chat. It’s a great way to build memories, deepen our relationship, and share God’s love and Word together.

Another way I have found to plant God’s Word in my heart is to Scripture pray for others on a regular basis. I made a chart in Excel and listed over 90 of my favorite verses on it. Each day I pray for all of my beloveds – family, friends, neighbors, and others God brings to mind. (Yup, I have a chart with their names as well – that whole memory thing again J). I pray for various needs I am aware of.  I pray Romans 10:9 for any who are unsaved or not walking with the Lord. Finally, I read through and pray out the three verses I have listed for that particular day. Over the course of the month, I wind up praying 90 verses for all those people, as well as myself.  After doing that for several years, I’m finding many of those verses becoming more and more familiar to me and I trust that if ever it was necessary, God could bring those verses to my mind.

What ways have you discovered to hide God’s Word in your heart? We’d love to hear your ideas!