muddy play – more fun in our mobile mud-pit

You may recall that last year,  after seeing all of the gorgeous mud-kitchens out there in the blogosphere, I used our wheel-barrow to create a portable mud-patch last year for the Hooligans (you can see the original post here).

Well, re-creating that mud-patch has been on my mind for days, and yesterday when my feet hit the floor at 6 a.m., and the air in the house was already thick and muggy, I knew the day to do it had arrived.

When the Hooligans arrived, I hauled out the old wheelbarrow and dumped a generous amount of clean potting soil into it.  Then I called to the Hooligans bring some sand from the sand-box.  They’d been watching me, and were oh-so-curious about what I was doing, so they were only to happy to jump into action. They ran back and forth from the wheel barrow to the sandbox delivering and dumping small pailfuls of sand until we figured we had enough.  Then they stirred it all up with their shovels while I was setting up their water supply.

A water jug with a spigot is without question one of the best things we’ve ever added to our outdoor play-space.  I often see them at our local thrift shop.  We don’t have it ours often (although I suppose we should in this weather), but it comes out on days like these, and the Hooligans LOVE it.  The spigot is a bit stiff and provides a challenge for little hands to manage, (think muscle development and motor control) and they love having complete control over their own tap and water source!

After adding enough water to make a great, sloppy mess, they brought cars, trucks and tractors from the sand box to add to the mud-pit, and  I set up a “baking counter” by placing a long board and some baking utensils and “ingredients” at one end of the wheelbarrow.

What great, messy fun!   At the end of the day, the mud-patch gets wheeled away to the shed, and we can pull it out another day.  

Now what to do with those muddy kids?  Click here to see how they cleaned up.

cloud dough!

This is something I’ve waited all winter to make!  I’ve seen it done on plenty of other blogs, and every one mentions the mess-factor so I was waiting until the weather was good and warm so we could take it outside.

Cloud dough (I think it’s also known as moon dough) is really easy to make (two ingredients), and it is amazing!  It’s so silky and moldable.  The Hooligans absolutely loved it. I’m not kidding when I say it kept them engrossed for well over an hour.  

You’re going to love how easy it is to whip up:

Add one cup of baby oil to 8 cups of flour.  Stir well.  I used a pastry cutter to mix mine, but a spoon or whisk would be fine.  Transfer your dough to a bin or basin (I purchased this kitty litter box at the dollar store, and it’s perfect for sensory activities), and that’s it.  You’re done!

Set out some containers, scoops and molds and let the little ones at it.

There’s something so soothing and relaxing working with this dough.  The Hooligans were so QUIET while they played with it.  

You’ll want to wear old clothing or an apron (you can find my tutorial for my aprons here.  I make them out of the legs of our old jeans).  It’s definitely messy play, and I personally wouldn’t suggest doing this inside.

I had another activity set up as well.  I filled the wagon with warm soapy water, and added containers, spray bottles, sponges and some farm animals.  

The Hooligans went back and forth between the two activities but the Cloud Dough bin was by far the most popular place to be today.Store in an air-tight container for future use.

shaving cream car wash!

It’s been absolutely gorgeous here this week!  Hot and summer-like and it’s only March!  We’ve been spending our days outside, and these temps were the perfect for getting messy and playing with water.

Yesterday we set up a “car-wash”.

I covered the lid of a storage container with shaving cream.  This served as the actual car-wash.

Next to that, I turned over a laundry basket, and set a glass dish on top.  I had a couple of non-slip rubber pads that I put underneath the dish to keep it from sliding around.  I filled the dish with warm water and added a couple of drops of blue food colouring.  This was the rinse-station.

Then a stool with a tea-towel draped over the top served as a place to dry the cars.

The Hooligans played together at the car-wash for an hour: washing, rinsing, drying, and starting all over again.  This little guy was at it for an hour and a half!   I think that’s a sure sign that it was a hit!

Want some more great shaving cream activities?  Check out our marbled hearts and shaving cream and food colouring posts!

rainbow playdough

Raise your hand if you love homemade playdough!  I do!  I do!  It’s so easy to make!  I made up a big batch the other night, and divided into 6 portions, and made each portion a different colour.  I used Wilton’s icing gels, but you can use regular food colouring.

This morning, I put a plastic table-cloth down on the deck, and set the playdough up with an assortment of “tools”: scissors, craft sticks, beads, plastic toothpicks, coloured bowls etc., and told the Hooligans to feel free to mix the colours together as they played.

This is something I used to struggle with before making my own playdough.  It’s expensive, so there was always a desire to keep the colours separate.  When you make your own though, it costs almost nothing, and you can make a new batch whenever you want, so mixing the colours isn’t an issue.  

And it’s SO much more fun when you mix them up!  We had a little candy/cookie/cake shop going on.  The results when you blend the colours together are just beautiful, aren’t they?

If you’re looking for a good playdough recipe, head on over to @the imagination tree.  Anna has some great recipes there.  Nurturestore also has a free downloadable ebook full of playdough recipes!

Mix up a batch and make your little one’s day!

Looking for another neat playdough activity?  Check out our potato head playdough!  So simple and fun!

our Valentine’s candy shoppe

Ok, I am so excited about this post!  Remember the Valentine’s Activity Bin that I put together earlier this week?  Well, I’d tucked it away for a few days, and on Friday, I brought it out and surprised the Hooligans with it.  I wish this photo did a better job of showing how their faces lit up when they saw it.

The smiles were huge.  There were excited ooooh’s and aaaaaaah’s (I mean look at it!  I still want to ooooh and aaaah over it, and I’ve been looking at it for days!),

and there were questions like “where you got this?”  and “what IS it?”,  and “we can take the lids off?”, and then, almost immediately, there was dumping…

and pouring, 

filling,

transferring, and sorting.

They cut

and tweezed,

and made cupcakes

and chocolates,

and created a big beautiful candy shoppe.We turned the plastic bin upside down, and it became a work-station/counter, and the Hooligans took on the roles of chocolatier and customer.

I made extra tweezers by folding drinking straws in half, a brilliant idea that I saw over at   Teach Preschool the other day.  Brilliant aren’t they?  Even Miss 2 was able to manipulate them.

You have no idea what an enormous hit this was.  I’m not kidding; they played with it for almost the entire morning.  Close to lunch we packed it up, and Ohhhhh my goodness, can I tell you how much fun it was to pack up?  It was a adventure in sorting and organizing.  It was awesome!  And then I played around with all of the bits and pieces setting it all up so it was ready to play with again.  Every time I set it up, I make some changes and group things together differently than they were before, to initiate new ways of playing with all it.  

This is easily the best bin we’ve had yet, and I can honestly say that I love setting it all up as much as the Hooligans love playing with it.

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures to give you some ideas for making one for your kiddos.  I’d love to see pictures if you put one of your own together!  Feel free to link up your photos on my Happy Hooligans facebook page!Have Fuuuun!

Valentines activity bin

Last night I set out to make our Valentine’s Sensory Bin, after seeing this one that Growing a Jeweled Rose made for her girls.  Let me say that this was no easy task.  I’m the only female in our home.  Our boys are 11 and 14, so pink items are kind of a scarce commodity around here.  I struggled all evening to pull a bin together, but I just couldn’t round up enough materials to fill the bin with. 

I decided instead to take what I was able to find, and make up several different Pink and Red activities to set into the bin, and you know what?  I love it.  I was tempted to bring it out for the Hooligans today, but we kept busy with other things, so I figured I’d wait on it a little longer.

I want to show you what it looks like though.

I filled a couple of glass jars with red beaded Christmas tree garland.

I had two more large jars with lids, so into one I put white lentils, and pink and red foam pieces.  Into the other, I put that red, stretchy mesh that clementines come packaged in.  I’ve been saving that up for a while, thinking it would be perfect for a Valentine’s craft or activity.

I filled two small jars with pom-poms, and a small spice bottle with pink, red and white buttons.  Beside that, I placed one of those little cases that holds medicine and a scoop for filling it with.  Jars and bottles with lids are great for fine motor development, and little ones love snapping the compartments open and closed on the medicine holder.

I added some pink ice-cube trays, some red foam trays, and some tongs for sorting and organizing.

Lastly, I found some pink paint chips for a cutting activity.  This is a great way to teach little ones how to use scissors.  Encourage your child try to cut along the white lines to chop the strips up.

As an extra activity, (this didn’t fit into the bin) I filled a plastic heart-shaped pan with red and pink markers and crayons, and added some white cardboard hearts for decorating.

I love how pretty and inviting this bin looks.  It makes me think of a candy shop! I think we’re going to have some fun with this!!

What crafts and activities are you doing at your house for Valentine’s Day?  I’d love it if you’d link them up on my Happy Hooligans facebook page!

bringing the snow indoors

I don’t know what weather is like where you are, but Old Man Winter seems to be passing us by this year.

We finally got a decent decent snow-fall Friday, but but by today the temps were mild again, and it was raining.  The snow was disappearing before our eyes, so I decided to bring some inside so we could enjoy it before it was gone again.

This is such a great way to play in the snow when you can’t get outside.  It’s nice to explore the properties of snow in the comforts of your own home too!  The kids just wouldn’t get to explore it in this way if we were outside, all bundled up, with frozen fingers and toes.  

I put a large vinyl table cloth-down, and filled up a couple of clear storage containers with the white stuff.  

We had a little ice cream shop going on in one bin, and and some snow-man building happening in the other.

Scoops, bowls, and tongs are great for ice-cream play.  The Hooligans decorated their creations with beads and corn kernels.  

Badminton birdies make great ice-cream “cones”, and ice-cube trays are fun for all kinds of creating.

For the snowman bin, some buttons, beads and popsicle sticks worked well.  

Hand out some mittens, and let the fun begin.

They were at it for over an hour, and would have stayed at it longer, but we had to stop for lunch.

Other than a few puddles on the table cloth, it’s a really neat and clean activity.  Just keep a small towel handy, and every once in a while wipe up any melting snow on the table cloth.  Clean up is a snap too.  Just rinse off the tools and dishes, open the door, and toss the snow back outside.

What a great way to put in a rainy morning!

ghost mud

Ghost mud was the perfect thing to make today, on this last day of October, to celebrate Hallowe’en.  I first read about ghost mud over at Teacher Tom’s.

Grate a bar of Ivory soap and add it to about 1 cup of hot water.  Stir it around a few times until it’s melty and mushy.

Meanwhile, toss a roll of toilet paper to your little people, and challenge them to get all of the paper off of the roll.  Enjoy the giggling and squealing that follows.

Now, just pile all that t.p. into a large bin or basin, and have the kiddos rip it into a million pieces.  How fun is this activity?  And we haven’t even gotten to the “mud” part yet!

Once your t.p. has been shredded, pour the soapy water into the basin and start mushing and mashing everything all together with your hands.  It feels good, and smells great, and you wind up with this awesome slippery, silky, moldable “dough”.

I’m not sure if ours turned out exactly as it should have.  I’ve heard others say it should have the consistency of cool whip.  I don’t believe ours ever did.  It was pulpier than that, but maybe we didn’t rip our t.p. enough.  You know what though?  It totally didn’t matter.

This stuff was awesome!

ice play on a hot fall day

We are in the midst of a Fall Heat-Wave here.  It’s incredible!  It’s hot!  It’s sticky!  And I’m loving it!  It was 27 degrees here this afternoon!!!  TWENTY-SEVEN DEGREES on the 26th of September!  Unreal!  What’s also kinda strange is that our leaves are just starting turn. Some years, we start seeing tinges of orange in late August, but this year, here we are, almost to October, and we’re just starting to see bits of colour here and there.

I’m not sure what it’s all about, but I’m not complaining.  I am so not ready to bid farewell to our warm, sunny days.  The longer winter stays at bay, the better, in my opinion.

Someone was complaining today though!  This morning, while playing in the yard, Miss Mess asked if we could go INSIDE, because it was “too hot” to play outside!

Fortunately, on the weekend, I ran across this post at Mommy Savers, suggesting coloured ice cubes for bath-time fun.  I didn’t realize today would be as hot as it was, and I didn’t have bath-fun in mind.  I just thought the brilliantly candied-coloured cubes looked awesome, and figured the Hooligans would have fun playing with them in a big bowl of water.  So I put Andrew to work, and had him whip up a couple of batches of them.

It was a fun little exercise in colour mixing for him.  He’s done colour mixing dozens of times, but it never gets old.

I’m so glad I had these in the freezer this morning, because as soon as my little friend complained about the heat this morning, ta-daaa…  Instant chill!  And FUN?  Oh my goodness!  They LOVED it!  We dumped the cubes into a big glass bowl of water, and added tongs, slotted spoons, and small containers.  Our first tray of cubes melted fairly quickly, because the water wasn’t terribly cold.  We dumped the second tray in, along with a tray of normal ice cubes.  These cubes lasted much longer, because the water temp had dropped significantly after the addition of 3 trays of ice.

This probably occupied the Hooligans for about 40 minutes.  When the cubes were gone, they were happy to play in the water with the containers and ice-trays.

What a cool and refreshing activity for a warm day!  We will definitely do this again.  It takes no time to mix up a couple of trays of these, and have them in the freezer for an easy but super-fun activity.  I think they’d be awesome in the tub too!  I wish I’d thought of this when my own boys were younger!

A boy and a box…

One of our little Hooligans is car obsessed.  My older son was the same for the first several years of his life, and I’ve had a couple of Hooligans over the years who were the same.  No matter what toys or activities are laid out and happening, these little guys just gravitate to the things with wheels.  

I love how they line the vehicles up, taking painstaking care to make parking lots, and I especially love how they get their faces right down on the floor, and push the cars slowly, examining how the wheels turn.  They’re just fascinated by those spinning tires.

I had this particular Hooligan in mind when I set up this simple box the other day.  To day that it was a hit with him is an understatement.  He went back to this activity over and over this week.