Homemade Playdough

I can never remember which recipe I like the best for play dough so we always use a different one. :) I found this one via a google search for Best Play Dough Recipe and it gave me Super Crunchy Mamas site. Here is her recipe:

1 cup water

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp cream of tartar

1/2 cup of salt

several drops of food coloring

1 cup of flour

Visit her site to get detailed directions.

Puffy Paint

We did this awhile ago when we did Corn Syrup painting the first time so I decided to introduce this again. The Artful Parent calls it Puffy Paint. He loved it! I didn't mix it very well because chunks of flour or something kept getting stuck in the nozzles. (another thrift store find!) I saved it over the weekend in the refrigerator and he painted again with it today. We just stirred it back up and it was as good as new.

To make you'll need:

• 2/3 cup of flour
• 2/3 cup of salt
• 2/3 cup of water
• 2 squeeze containers from craft store
  
• 1 Tablespoon tempera paint –at least 2 colors

It takes DAYS to fully dry.
Full instructions at The Artful Parent.

The finished dried artwork. You can't tell how much it sparkles!

Today we made an Easter Egg with the Puffy Paint.

Nuts & Bolts

I introduced this a couple weeks ago and he wasn't too interested. I set it out again last week along with the two short and long labeled baskets. In theory he was to screw a nut on the bolt and put it in the long or short basket. I really thought he'd like this activity being crazy about tools and all. I was wrong. He did about three and then just wanted to dump them out and have them attack each other. Maybe I will try again in a few weeks. Luckily they were only a dollar at the dollar store!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I can't take credit for this one. He brought this home from Preschool earlier this week and I was mad I didn't think of it first! ;) After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar they made this project about the life cycle of a butterfly! They used a seed to represent the egg, spiral pasta to represent a caterpillar, shell pasta to represent a cocoon and bow tie pasta to represent the butterfly!

Penny Boat Race

Last night I took the kids to Science Night as the 9 year olds school. I've took them the past couple years and it's always pretty fun. The 4 year olds favorite activity was "Penny Boat Race". Of course this is nothing new and its been on to-do list for awhile. I promisded him we could do it all day today if he wanted and he did do it for a looooong time today. Like, hours, seriously. I started out by making two ships and he made one. Then I made a chart to see how many of each coin ended up sinking the boats. I was very proud of his counting to some very large numbers! :)

Anyone out there have an IPhone? IPod Touch?

If you do you should visit my husbands post about a Free App for the IPhone or IPod Touch. He develops applications for them and he is giving away his first app for free to 15 people! It's a fun little time wasting game called "Hi-Low".

Pretty please go visit his site! :)

Going In Circles

Ok, this is really starting to get on my nerves. I see a project somewhere. I save it either by Starring it in Google Reader or bookmarking or even clipping it using evernote. Now I can't find out where I first saw this project! I've looked everywhere. Oh well. Here is goes anyways...

Easy and fun! I used a left over Styrofoam cup. I cut the bottom off to use as a stamp and then we also used the top as a stamp. They worked great and they were really easy for him to hold.

Idea from here.

Graphing With Trix Cereal

This was our first experience with graphing. The book where I got this idea said to use M&Ms maybe that would have made him more into it. He graphed out as many has colored Trix as his attention would allow and then he counted them up and figured out which color had the most cereal.

Corn Syrup Painting AKA Shiny Paint

Original instructions came from Kinderart. This is the second time we made this type of painting but the first time we did it was over a year ago and he had forgotten all about it.

I put some corn syrup into a cup and had him spread it on the paper with a big paintbrush. This stuff is sticky!

Then I put a few drops of yellow food coloring and a few drops of blue food coloring to start. I gave him two Q-tips and had him mix the colors in the corn syrup to make green. I told him he could use his fingers if he wanted, but he decided not to. Smart boy. Then I put some more colors around for him to mix into new colors. After a few days the painting dried really shiny.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Long

The Weekly Unplugged Project this week was long. We took the noodles/pasta we dyed last week (that will be another post) and I cut a long piece are yarn. We threaded on the colored noodles. I started at one end and he started at the other end and threaded until we thought it was loooong enough.

I have been wanting to make this Snake since I first saw it and I thought today would be a good day since it's also kinda long. And rainbow colored. :)

I had to use a drill for the first time today. I drilled a hole in the bottoms of plastic eggs. Then we strung them together. I pushed the yarn through because my holes weren't very good. Then he pushed them together at the bottom. You use a whole egg with holes drilled through the top and bottom for the ends.

Muffin Tin Monday-Theme: Rainbow

This weeks Muffin Tin Monday theme was Rainbow. Easy, right? We just started making our rainbow jello so it was not near ready to eat, but we had plenty of other foods to make a colorful lunch today.

I love your blog, too!

Lucky me! I just received the I Love Your Blog Award from Lucky Me! Thanks so much! These awards might seem silly to some people but I really appreciate them and they let me know people out there are actually paying attention to what I am posting. Which encourages me to post more. Thank you!



Here are the rules:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

I would like to nominate:

1. Blissfully At Home

2. My Two Happy Homeschoolers

3. Play, Explore and Learn

4. Teaching Tiny Tots

5. Funny Days With Mommy and Maddie

6. A Mommy's Adventures

7. Wilson-Parkes Family Tree

and an extra one ;) The Snails Trail!

Cherry Blossoms

This idea came from Perpetual Preschool. That is one of the first websites I found when searching for art activities for kids a long time ago.

We changed things from what they listed. I used watered down brown paint instead of food coloring.
I used a dropper to drop some of the paint in the bottom corner and had him use a straw to blow OUT and push the paint up and to the left and right to form branches. (Where did all my pictures of him using the straw go??? Oh, well. )
Then he dotted glue along the branch.
He took small squares of dark and light pink tissue paper and balled them up and stuck them on the glue.

I thought his came out so pretty and spring-like that I made one too. :)

Check out more projects for kids at We made It, Showcase Saturday!





More projects at:

The Day After St. Patricks Day

The actual St. Patrick's Day was kinda weird. We had an older brother home sick and the little one can't really concentrate on anything but him when he's around. We did have a Treasure Hunt for some chocolate coins but that's about it. So, Wednesday we did some St. Patrick's Day/Green oriented activities.

I used the green colored cards from my old Phase 10 deck and some green glass stones to have him practice his counting and number order.

We got the colored rice out again and I hid special green coins in it for him to find. He did this for a long time.

We also did another "rainbow" project. I found this nifty "rainbow maker" for $1.75 at the store. It was pretty fun/interesting. The three colored brushes come off so they can be used separately or stuck together to make rainbows. The paint tablet is in the sponge applicator so you just have to dip it in water and paint! He wanted to cover every square inch of his giant piece of paper.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Water

This week Unplugged Project was water. Which just happens to be one of our favorite things to play with. Anything to do with water is usually a hit around here, including taking baths and washing dishes.

The first thing we did was the Montessori based "thermic bottles". I took my thrift store glass bottles again and had him fill up two Ice Cold bottles using a small funnel. I filled up the room temperature and warm ones. Two for each temperature. I was not sure if he'd be able to tell the difference between the warm and room temperature ones but he knew right away that they were different and matched them up after carefully testing each one by wrapping his hand around each one.

We also did water transferring using a dropper. We used cups of Yellow and Blue water and wehn mixed in the flower ice cube tray it turned green. Magic, huh? He kinda lost interest in this about half way through. Using the dropper is way too time consuming for him. I need to find a bigger, better dropper anyways.

The last "water" activity came from Flip Flops and Applesauce. Rainy day splatter painting. I cut out the half circles and had him use the scalloped edge sissocers to trim the bottom edge. Then he glued them onto the paper. After drawing a few handles myself he wanted to do the rest so he did. Then the fun part we used watered down blue and white paint to make light blue and dipped an old toothbrush in it and SPLATTERED it all over the picture to look like rain.

Muffin Tin Monday-Theme: Green

So I had to do my Muffin Tin Monday today which worked out since today is St. Patrick's Day and the theme is Green.

Here's our Muffin Tin!

Top row: Go-Gurt, Sour Cream and Onion chips, Pickles
Bottom Row: Peas, green mac & cheese, green mac & cheese

Rainbows Revisited

Here is another rainbow themed project we did last week. Simple enough and he got to use a stapler which is scary but he really likes it.

He started out by cutting strips of construction paper. We actually used the Roy G. Biv colors this time. Then we just made a paper chain and I held the paper while he stapled. (Scary! ;) ) Then we attached the Pot 'O Gold to the end.

I did not "work" today so I will be making up for it tomorrow. We have to catch up on St Patrick's Day activities, Muffin Tin Monday and The Weekly Unplugged Project. Plus I have a new Rainbow art project to try.

Lemons to Lemonade

After seeing this "award" floating around the blogoshere for awhile I am happy to say I "won" two of them! Thank you so much Momma Snail @Snail Trail and Jennifer @ The Wilson Family Tree for nominating me. :)

The Lemons to Lemonade Award!

The rules of the award are as follows:
1) Put the logo on your blog or post.

2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude.

3) Link to your nominees within your post.

4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

5) Share the love and link to the person from who you received your award.

1. A Mommy's Adventures
2. The Peterson Party
3. Ten Kids and a Dog
4. Adventures of a Flake
5. My Two Happy Homeschoolers
6. Faith and Gasoline
7. ScottChrisCoriCassiCali
8. Play, Explore and Learn
9. A Listmakers Life
10. Our Montessori Story

These are just some of the blogs I have gotten many of my ideas from and you should check them all out for sure. I have also appreciated most of them visiting and supporting my newish blog!

Math.

I have an old deck of Phase 10 cards that are missing a few so I have been wanting to use them in someway. They are so colorful and I couldn't just throw them away! I just set up this Math game using the cards and wrote "plus" and "equal" signs and let him use beans as counters. I showed him the easiest way to get the answer was to look at the first card and count out that many beans and then look at the second card and count out that many beans and then count them all up.

More Practical Life

This idea came from Our Montessori Journey. So easy to set up! Just get a basket of Pom Poms and a hand help dust pan and brush and let the kids go crazy dumping and sweeping. For a kid who has trouble cleaning up after himself and has never sweep anything in his life he really liked it. Sure, he threw the pom poms around the room a few times, but he always picked them up and put them back in the basket. This means he will be cleaning up a lot more of his own spills from now on!

Shamrock Collage

This is a classic activity that can altered for any holiday/season just by changing the colors and shapes.

First you cut out two squares of clear contact paper the same size.
You peel the back off one and lay it face up on the table and let the kids go at it using tissue paper and glitter.
When they are done you peel the back off the second sheet of contact paper and stick on the first one and rub them together.
Then you cut out into the desired shape. I can not free hand draw as you can see with this messed up shamrock.
We did the same thing with Christmas trees around Christmas time and hearts on valentines day.

Orange ya glad I didn't say banana?

I had the same idea as Adventures Of A Flake a couple days ago. I wanted to try using a manual juicer with "Indy". Alas, no one I knew had one. So when I finally made it to the store I found a pretty good one for about 3 bucks. We didn't get much juice but he really enjoyed the process. And the tasting. Then we tasted ours compared to the store bought kind. He said he loved both.

Walking On The Line

I have been researching Montessori and Montessori activities for awhile now and this is one of the first things I found. Walking On the Line, is basically just what it sounds like. First I used duct tape to form an "ellipse" as best as I could! I am sure I didn't do the shape exactly right. He really liked this activity much more than I thought he would. I showed him how to walk slowly and balance while walking on the line. Then I showed him Heel Toe walking. Then we carried a full cup of water while walking and trying now to spill it. And he wanted to carry a box of oranges! Now that was kinda difficult!

More info on Walking On The Line can be found here and here.

Topic: Teeth

This project came from Our Montessori Journey!

What an awesome way to demonstrate why we need to brush our teeth. And why we need to limit our intake of drinks like soda! Our Montessori Journey said they left their egg soaking in soda all night. We only had the patience to let it soak for about an hour and it was already stained brown. Yuck.

So, we then took fluoride toothpaste and a toothbrush and he scrubbed down the egg. It turned white again!

Since we are on the subject here is the chart we use to track his teeth brushing!
I download it from here.

What's that sound?

Last night I made the Sound "Cylinders" I have been wanting to make for a long time. I just didn't have enough of the same type of containers that weren't clear to use. Then I saw this post over at Teaching Tiny Tots. Sound eggs! You can find more information about Montessori Sound Cylinders here.

This project was so easy! I took plastic eggs and found things to fill them with different things that would sound different when shook. Fill two eggs with the same items.
I used:
Glass rocks
Pennies
Beads
Rice
Sugar
Flour
Cotton Balls
Cheerios
Then I taped them shut!

I did not use the same color for the same sound. I thought it would be too easy for him. He worked this out pretty fast without using the same colors!

The Rainbow Connection

I originally read about this activity at My Montessori Journey. Then I began seeing it everywhere! Like at Ten Kids and a Dog and Adventures of a Flake!

I had a problem with the first Styrofoam/foam stuff I used. It was the crumbly soft kind and when I tried to tape it down so it would not stay put! Luckily we had a small Styrofoam ball left over from The Bluebird of Happiness project that I cut in half and taped down. (I wish I would have thought to use play dough like Joann at Ten kids and a Dog!) Eventually I added some cotton balls to make it look like clouds.

So, after getting that worked out I had Indy stick one end of a pipe cleaner in one side then thread on at least 6 beads the same color of the pipe cleaner then stick it in the other side. After he was done I transfered the whole thing to blue paper so we could keep it and admire it forever. ;)

This was another Rainbow project we did last week. It's called "Catch a Rainbow". You can get the details here.



Science Rules.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Happy

This weeks Unplugged Project was Happy easy enough, right? We do things all the time that make us Happy. So I went a little literal and we made a Bluebird of Happiness. (click the link for more detailed instructions.

We painted two Styrofoam balls blue. We let them dry (kinda!) then stuck them together with a piece of a skewer. Then we added the googly eyes, feathers and legs (more pieces of skewers) and a beak (skewer painted orange).

Muffin Tin Monday-Theme: No Theme

No theme this week over at Muffin Tin Monday, so ours is pretty boring!

Back Row L-R: Pickles, Strawberries and Gushers Fruit Snacks
Front Row L-R: Organic Ravioli, Organic Ravioli and Corn

Scavenger Hunt!

Any kind of scavenger hunt is a big hit with both kids here actually. This took about 4 and a half minutes to put together. I did google search for ___ clip art. For example: bird clip art, car clip art, squirrel clip art, etc. Copy and pasted intpo a Word Doc and printed it out and off we went. We took our first walk in MONTHS! First warmish day in a long time. He was really enjoying looking for and crossing out the objects. Until....he tripped and fell. :( He then wanted to go home. We will be doing this again! Next time I will use a small clipboard to make it easier for him to hold and cross off pictures as we walk.

You light up my life....

with Tissue Paper Candle holders! In a green and light green color scheme for St. Patricks Day of course!

I bought three glass containers at the thrift store for 29 cents a piece! Can't get much better than that since we have no need for baby food jars anymore.

This project was a little too time consuming for him though and frustrating when the tissue paper stuck more to his fingers than the glass but I jumped in and helped him and we got three pieces done.

First, he ripped up the tissue paper into small pieces. He then helped me mix the white glue and water. We did equal parts of each.

Then, since we couldn't find the big paintbrush he used the heart sponge from an earlier project to sponge the glue mixture on the glass. Then he stuck on some tissue paper and more glue...etc etc until the glass pieces were covered!

More Shamrock Shenanigans

I am really losing my mind because I know I JUST saw this project somewhere and I can not remember where...again! Sorry, it's a great, cute, EASY idea!

I took a sponge and cut it into a Heart Shape and one piece into a skinny rectangle.
I set out green, green-yellow, and light green paint and had "Indy" dip the heart in and stamp in three times on the paper in a clover shamrock pattern and then used the rectangle for the stem. You could just draw the stem. That's it. So simple and cute!

How many, many feet you meet.

Why didn't I warn him to STAY ON THE PAPER OR WOOD FLOOR??! I turned my back for one minute and he had ran around the room onto the carpet. It was my own fault. I didn't tell him not to.


What am I talking about? THIS!

I rolled out two looong pieces of paper. (I found a roll at the thrift store for like a dollar) And I taped the ends down.
I put paint on a cookie sheet.

Then he went wild walking up and down the paper. It worked better when I actually painted his feet. Plus it tickled.

That was yesterday. Today:

We used some text from The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss and wrote them on the banner/mural. I had him write FEET and FOOT whenever it came up.





Close Ups of the finished product.




I got the words from here. I can not believe we didn't have an actual copy of the book!

St. Patrick's Day Spirit

Yes, even my font is green. Today we started our St. Patrick's Day activities.
I can not remember where I got this idea...Someone lined their shamrocks with buttons. If you are out there let me know so I can credit you! EDIT: I got this idea from ScottChristieCoriCassieCali! Thanks so much!

Anyways, here's our version of it.

I traced 4 hearts onto green construction paper. I put that and a gold pipe cleaner in one basket. I put the tools he would need in the other basket. Glue, Scissors, Glitter and Tape.

He cut the four hearts out. He is so good at cutting! I am so proud of him. He takes his time and follows the line very closely.
Then he arranged them in the Shamrock shape, glued them together, added the stem with tape on the back.

I helped him line it with glue and then he sprinkled green glitter on the outline!




The Finished Product.

A little Late, But We Can Still Celebrate!

Awesome rhyming title because we celebrated Dr. Seuss' Birthday today! (Even though it was yesterday!)

We read a bunch of Dr. Seuss books.

Watched and ate "Green Eggs and Ham". Didn't have any ham so I used Bologna and meatless sausage patty shaped into the letters H-A-M! Sometimes you gotta get creative.

And we made a Cat In The Hat Hat!

These are the awesome sites I got these ideas from:

No Time For Flash Cards- Again!
The Crafty Crow
Story Time and More
VickiBlackwell.com