You're probably aware of this (!) but school starts one short week from today, so this will be our last Kid Kraft Korner for the summer. Additionally, Jennifer Marangos, the very fun mom and Emmaus Patch editor who invented Kid Kraft Korner, is having some extreme fun of her own this week on a well-deserved beach vacation. We miss her.  The good news is that even though the crack research team at Lower Macungie Patch is a grandparent now, she once had bored kids at home during the summer. Indeed, one of my most amusing memories is of the day my Jessica came in from playing outside and told me…

I cannot tell a lie. Screens have become a bit of a crutch in my home over the past few weeks. As a result, this week’s kids’ craft activity evolved from this mom’s desire to wean the kids from their summer-time screen overload and ready them for the rapidly approaching school year. I am quite happy to report that it worked. And – get this – it’s a craft activity that required little involvement from me besides getting it out and setting it on the kitchen table and then operating my iron at the end. Ever heard of perler beads? They are tiny tube-shaped beads in a variety of colors that the …

Believe it or not, the kids and I tie-dye pretty much every summer as school approaches. I know that it might seem like a bizarre end of summer tradition, but to each his own, right? One reason I, as a mom, enjoy the pre-school tie-dye is the chance to breathe some new life into T-shirts that might be needed in the opening weeks of school but don’t quite make the grade for school attire because of a stain or two or a fading decal. Add a bit of tie-dye pizzazz to said shirts and viola, you have some vibrant new duds suitable for the heat of Indian summer, without investing in new T-shirts that…

Calling my house “Kid Craft Central” last week would not be overstating things at all. So long as you do not have a frilly, Martha Stewart, ribbons and bows idea of crafting, that is. The kind of crafting that went on in my house was of the duct tape, twine and cardboard box variety and it went on just about every day. The conventional wisdom about crafting with kids says that such activities will make them better at math, improve their problem-solving skills, etc. The things that went on in my house surely fit that bill. Plus, they provided that added element that always gets a craft project…

My family and I attended a daylong outdoor summer festival in Emmaus on Saturday known as Emmaus Community Day and from start to finish, the event was a lesson in old-fashioned fun. There was the dunk tank and the face painting. There were the hot dogs and the soft pretzels. There was the Old-Timer baseball game and a pretty cool skateboard demo. And, in terms of kids’ crafts, there were a bevy of things for the kids to do that were all simple and offered free of charge. My boys, during the six hours we were in Emmaus Community Park on Saturday, hit pretty much every one of these free craft …

This week’s craft was a complete and total bomb. And, that’s not an exaggeration. In fact, although the jury is still out, it’s entirely possible that this craft will result in scars on one or both of my boys – both physical scars in the way of burn marks on their sensitive young fingertips and emotional scars of the “I-will-never-ever-attempt-to-use-a-hot-glue-gun-again” variety. The project seemed simple enough. Dare I say even somewhat noble? We set out to try to make a bird feeder for the young Cardinal couples flitting about in our yard. You see the bird feeders we currently have are not…

Oddly enough, this week’s craft has been inspired by a trip to the Kutztown Festival. Last week, we took my mother-in-law, who was visiting us from overseas, to the festival on its opening day. Like pretty much any other day of the weeklong outdoor fair, it was HOT the day we went. And because of the heat, we all became fairly intrigued by an item for sale at the festival, a neck cooler, retailing for $6. A woman who sold us a Birch beer was wearing the neck cooler and extolling its virtues. We bought the Birch beer and then backtracked a few stands to where we were told we could find the …

There were a lot of great reasons to take the family to the Allentown Art Museum yesterday, including the wonderfully cool air-conditioning. The free admission to the museum, which included access to the “At the Edge: Art of the Fantastic” exhibition, was certainly a big plus. (Yes, Sundays at the museum are still free. Donations are encouraged.) Anyhow, the no-cost entry probably kept me from completely losing it when my five-year-old decided he had “had enough” of the museum and began running at top speed through the exhibit, using various museum patrons as though they were orange cones on …

Last week’s heat wave presented challenges for moms across the Lehigh Valley. The kids, recently out of school, had not yet settled into any sort of a summer groove, and because of the dangerous heat index, were basically sequestered for 48 hours straight. As I struggled to keep my boys (ages 8 and 5) from pummelling each other while simultaneously entertaining my mother-in-law who has been staying with us for the past few weeks, I had a flash-back to an activity that the kids and I used to do when they were younger – make-your-own playdough. With the invaluable help of Google, I researched …