Indoor Picnic Spread a blanket on the floor under the table. Then give them their picnics to eat. I used the mini muffin tins (the ones with the 12 mini muffins) but you could use the 6 or 8 variety, whatever you have. I put a few bits of picnic type of food in each one - nothing messy, stuff like cubes of cheese, cubes of chicken, strawberries, apple chunks, crackers, a cut up cereal bar...you get the idea. Then we all climbed under the table to eat our picnics. The kids thought it was great! Make Your Own Sandwich Pre-cut the following "ingredients" for each child's "sandwich": •2 cardboard bread slice shapes •1 round disc the size of a slice of bologna from a pink sterilized styro-meat tray •1 square shape the size of a slice of american cheese from a yellow sterilized styro-meat tray •Tacky Glue •A round red disk to represent a slice of tomato from heavy stock tag board or construction paper. (Optional) •Small green oblong shapes to represent sliced pickles from heavy stock tag board or construction paper. (Optional) •A leaf of lettuce made from crumpled green construction paper or shredded paper or crumpled up tissue paper Have the children construct a sandwich with the "ingredients" of their choice. Use a generous amount of tacky glue between each ingredient. Pretend it's mustard or mayo. NOTE: If you don't have all these different materials on hand, you can just use different colours of construction paper cut to the right shapes. I would add the "lettuce" is something a little more bulky though, to give the sandwich a bit of dimension. Then, follow up with having the children REALLY make their own sandwiches for lunch that day! Teddy Bear Picnic Have yourselves a teddy bear picnic. When you have a picnic (either real or pretend), invite your bears to come along. Picnic Memory Game Take your children on an imaginary picnic. Spread out a blanket and place picnic items on the blanket. Then have the children pretend to take a nap and close their eyes. While they are "asleep," take away one of the items. Have the children wake up and guess which item is missing, To make the game more challenging, take more than one object each time. Five Senses Walk Story Take a pretend 'sense walk'. Have all of the children stand up. Have them begin walking in place. Start the story. 'Oh it was a beautiful day. The weather was warm, the wind was blowing slightly, and Tommy and his mother decided to go for a walk to the park. They packed a picnic lunch and began to walk to the park. While they walked they looked (stop and let the children point to their eyes.) For all of the animals, birds, and insects. The neighbor's dog came up the walk toward them. Tommy stopped to pet her. (stop and let the children touch their hands.) Her fur was so soft and silky. On they went to the park. Oh No! Tommy and his mother held their...(Stop and let the children do the same) Guess what they smelled? You're right, they smelled a skunk. They started walking faster to get away from that smell. Soon they were far enough away and they could let go of their noses. They were a little out of breath since they had been walking so fast. They walked a little slower and did not talk for a while, they simply listened for the sounds around them. (stop and let the children point to their ears.) They could hear lots of things. What do you think were some of the sounds they heard? (Let the children answer.)