butterfly magnets

Another cold and gloomy day here!   It seems odd to be doing Spring crafts, and then bundling up with hats and mitts and winter coats for play, but that’s what we did today.

This is a simple little craft.  I got my inspiration here, and we put our own little spin on it.

I set out four dishes with water that I tinted with food colouring.  Each Hooligan got a piece of paper-towel and a paintbrush, and went to town tapping and dabbing until the paper towel was coloured.

It’s a neat activity as they learn about water absorption and colour mixing.

Then they each painted a clothes peg (clipping it to a piece of cardboard makes it easier for little fingers to paint).

We set our stuff by the fire to dry while we had snack, but you could speed up the process with a blow-dryer.

Once dry, cinch the paper towel in the middle, clip it with the clothes-peg, and glue on a couple of googly eyes.

I cut a fridge magnet into strips, and we glued a strip onto the back of each clothes-peg.

That’s it!  Easy-peasy, and super-cute.

 

coloured pasta

We dyed pasta today!  Have you ever done this?  It’s so cool!!

It’s cold and rainy here today so it was the perfect day for an activity like this.  We used the same method to colour the pasta as I did to colour our rainbow rice a few weeks ago.

Here’s what you’re going to need:

• white vinegar
• food colouring (I used icing gels)
• pasta (we used Rigatoni because it’s hollow, and I wanted the Hooligans to make necklaces with the coloured pasta)
• a container with lid for colouring your pasta in (you could use a ziplock bag as well)
• small dish to mix the vinegar/food colouring

We divided our pasta in to 5 piles, and the Hooligans picked out the colours that they wanted: purple, green, blue, pink and orange.

For each colour, we mixed a generous blob of colouring with about a tsp of vinegar.  Ok, see the picture below?  See what we mixed our vinegar/colouring in?  I have to confess that I swipe a few of those little ketchup cups every time I’m at McDonald’s.  They’re handy when it comes to stuff like this.  Anyway, mix your vinegar and food colouring until the gel has dissolved, and make sure you’ve used enough colouring.  You want it to be DARK.  Our first batch of purple pasta turned out way too light, and we had to dye it a second time.  No biggie, just sayin’.

Pour your vinegar/colour over your pasta.  Pop the lid on your container, and shake the heck out of it.

Dump your pasta out onto a plate or something (we used sytrofoam meat trays) and let it dry.  I placed ours in front of the fire, and they were completely dry in about a half an hour.

Now, you have this brilliantly coloured pasta for crafting with!  You could make art with it, or use it for a sorting activity, but we made necklaces with ours.  While I was getting the “needles” and wool ready, the Hooligans were busy exploring the pasta, and within seconds, had their fingers adorned with it.

For the necklaces, I tied a foam letter to the end of the wool so the pasta wouldn’t slide right off, and we used our homemade sewing needles again.

Remember these?

Take a straw (I’m using some rubbermaid straws which will last forever), and make a slit in one end.  Thread your yarn through the straw, secure one end in the slit, and you’re good to go!   Making necklaces is a super exercise in fine motor control.  It quite challenged our youngest crafters.  Just look at the concentration.

And there you have it!  Easy, fun and colourful!  Have fun!!

homemade glue

We go through a lot of glue here.  I usually pick up several bottles of it when I find a good sale, but even so, there are a few issues I have with bottled glue.  First of all, it can be really challenging for little people to use it – the bottles are sometimes really hard to squeeze, they accidentally twist the top closed, and get frustrated, it is tricky for the twos to apply the glue exactly where they want to, and with clear glue the 2′s have a tough time seeing where they’ve applied it.  Now I know all of these challenges provide opportunities for learning, and for fine motor development, and that’s great, but when you’re sitting in a circle of four or five 2′s and 3′s, the frustration can put a bit of a damper on things.

Remember those little bottles of clear, amber glue when we were kids?  The ones with the rubber duck-beak kind of nozzle, that we would simply stamp on our paper to apply the glue?  Can you get those any more?  Man, I’d love some of those.

Anyway, for a while now, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to have a good sized pot of glue that they could just dip craft sticks or paint brushes into to make their crafting a little easier.  I tried making glue a while back with flour and water and a couple of other ingredients, and I stored it in the fridge in a dish soap bottle, but it quickly separated, and I wasn’t thrilled with the consistency.

I found the following recipe the other night, and thought it might be better as it calls for cornstarch (corn flour in the UK) instead of flour.

We tried it out yesterday when we made our Easter eggs with coloured rice, and I’m happy to say it worked really well for that project.

Here’s how you make it:

3/4 cup water

2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 teaspoons white vinegar
1/2 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup cold water

Mix water, syrup and vinegar in small saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil. In small bowl, mix cornstarch and cold water. Add this mixture slowly to first mixture. Stir constantly. Let stand overnight before using.

*I will say that I had a moment of fleeting disappointment when I checked my glue after letting it stand over night.  It had kind of solidified into a thick gel.  I just added a tbsp or so of water, and gave it a stir until it was back to the consistency I was happy with.  Maybe I should have put a lid on it when it sat overnight instead of leaving it uncovered?

I added a bit of blue food colouring, so the youngest Hooligans would be able to tell where they’d applied it, and I thought a bit of colour would look fun.  If you’re going to do this, you don’t need much colour.  I probably added too much, as the colour is still noticeable when the glue dries.  Start with a drop and add more if needed – until your glue is just barely tinted.

I’m storing mine in a little tub with a large opening so it’s easy to dip into with a craft stick.  When we used our glue yesterday, to decorate some eggs with our rainbow rice.  It had been about 4 days since I’d made the glue, and the consistency was still great.  I just shook the tub before I opened it.  This glue doesn’t dry as quickly as store bought glue, but we always craft in the morning here, and it was dry by afternoon, so that works for us.

*I’m sorry that I can’t tell you how long this will keep for.  I would recommend keeping it in the fridge to prevent it from going mouldy.  Someone mentioned to me that it should keep 6 months if you refrigerate it, but I don’t know for sure.  I do know that within a week of keeping mine at room temperature, mould developed around the lid, so I’m refrigerating my next batch.

 

playing with rainbow water

I don’t know how many warm days we have left, so I figured I’d best squeeze another water activity while the sun shines.  

This is such a simple activity to pull together, and FUN?  Ok, the Hooligans were at it for about an hour straight, until a couple of them ventured off to play in the yard.  I left the activity set up for another hour though, and there was always someone (or more than one) at the table.

Here’s what we did:

I gathered up a variety of empty containers (body wash & shampoo bottles, a dish detergent bottle, an energy drink bottle etc.), and we filled them with warm water (they feel soooo nice when they’re filled with warm water).  We added food colouring to each bottle, and also added glitter to some, and a drop or two of dish soap to some.

Then we headed outside with some glass (Pyrex) baking dishes, a few glass jars and some wooden spoons.  I chose the glassware for a couple of reasons: A) I wanted to use containers that were clear so the Hooligans could really see the colours they were working with, and B) I thought plastic containers would be too light and might be easily tipped over if knocked into or leaned on.

Set out the bottles of coloured water, and let the fun begin!

This proved to be much more than just water play, or a lesson in colour mixing.  Because all of the bottles were different, the lids all opened in different ways: some were pop tops, some were flip tops, some were easy to open, and others were challenging for little fingers.

Some bottles poured quickly, and some required squeezing.  One bottle was particularly hard to squeeze (a Heinz ketchup bottle).  The older children really had to work to get the water out of it, and the younger ones required my help.  

And getting their aim right was tricky for the younger ones when filling the smaller jars.  It was neat watching them figure it all out.

It took a bit of time for them to drain all the bottles, but when they did, I had a couple of pitchers of warm water standing by, for re-fills.  It was just a matter of adding a couple more drops of food colouring.  Also, if someone’s glass dish was full, and the colour wasn’t too muddied, I just poured that into a bottle that had been emptied.  

I have to say, this was hands down, one of the best EASY activities that we’ve ever done here.

There you go!  Gather up your empty containers, and get playing!!

 

hair gel sun-catchers

There are lots of ideas floating around these days that call for filling a ziplock bag with paint, or hair-gel, or slime, and I thought they looked like fun.  We made some today, and put a bit of a different spin on them, turning them into Hallowe’en/Fall Sun Catchers.   

We just used no-name sandwich bags, which really aren’t terribly durable.  If you’re planning on using yours for lots of play, I’d recommend using a name brand baggie that can take a bit of abuse, and perhaps also taping the top shut to prevent possible leaks. We didn’t tape ours shut.  We like living on the edge sometimes.

Here’s what we did:

Put a generous squirt of hair gel into a ziplock bag.  

Add a drop or two of food colouring, zip up the bag, and have the little ones mash that all around to tint the gel.

Open the bag and drop your add-ins into the gel.  We made an orange bag, and added orange lentils and black styro cut-outs to make a pumpkin face.  Another bag we tinted green, and added googly eyes,, purple glitter, black beans, and a piece of soft, black wire, hoping it would look like Frankenstein.  It doesn’t really, but they still loved it.  The third bag, we tinted yellowy-orange, and added fall leaves and orange lentils (it’s my favourite).

The Hooligans had a great time with the face bags, trying to create and re-create the jack-o-lantern, and Frankenstein.  The leaf bag didn’t work quite as well, as the leaves didn’t really want to budge in the gel.  

It did however, make a pretty sun-catcher, which made me think to tape them all to the window (tape them low enough that they can still be played with).

Cute?  I think so!!

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!

shaving cream and glitter

So, the shaving cream and food colouring was a bit hit last week (even though it was dollar store shaving cream, and absolutely horrible, drippy,sloppy stuff).  You can see the pics here.

This week, we tried again with a much better brand of shaving cream.  Ooooooh, so light and fluffy!!!  And for some extra fun, we added glitter!  Little Miss Mess had a super time playing with the farm animals and the Little People in her bucket of glittery foam!

Mmm-hmmmm…. I think we’ll be doing this again!

painting with coloured ice

Check it out!!  We painted with coloured ice today!  I saw lots of posts about this over the the summer, and now I know why it was such a popular activity!  You have to try it.  It’s so awesome!I

The ages of the kids here today ranged from 1 to 5, and they all loved doing this.  The colours are vibrant, the “paint” slides across the page beautifully, and the results are really pretty!  They look like watercolour paintings.

This is super-easy to prepare.  I used what I’m assuming is an egg holder (or possibly an egg mold), to make my coloured ice, but you can use ice cube trays, paper cups, popsicle molds etc.  You can even paint with real popsicles, but I’m thinking the sticky-factor might be a  bit of a put-off, especially if you’re planning on keeping your little one’s art-work.  Not to mention pricey (and wasteful).

So here’s what we did:

I found the lovely pink egg holder at a thrift shop a couple of weeks ago.  It looks like the yellow one that we take camping, except this one has holes on top, so maybe it is actually an egg mold of some sort.  Regardless, when I saw those holes in the top, I knew exactly what I’d be using this baby for.

I filled the “eggs” to the halfway point, and then added some food colouring (I used the gel kind for cake decorating, which made for beautifully vibrant ice-eggs), snapped the case shut, and finished filling the eggs through the hole on top.  There was a bit of leaking, as the case didn’t shut quite right, but I secured the two halves together with the caps of a couple of pens (I know, Einstein or what?).

I dropped the popsicle sticks through the holes, and placed the case in the freezer (and totally forgot about it until today).

I popped the whole thing into a bucket of warmish water for a couple of seconds so the ice-eggs would come out easily. I couldn’t belive THE COLOURS when I opened it up.  Hello, my pretties!

One of the Hooligans’ Gramma’s brings us loads of thin white cardboard (a little thicker than Bristol Board) so that’s what we used as our canvases.   You could paint on anything really, but I suspect regular paper would get a fairly soggy if your ice was melting quickly (which ours was today, as it was a super hot afternoon).

Isn’t it pretty?  I was so excited!  This was way better than I ever imagined it would be!  The colours were gorgeous.  My advice would be to quit while you’re ahead though, because some of the paintings became really wet with all the melting, and the colours kind of blurred together, which was pretty, but not quite as interesting as the lines and squiggles that were so clear at the beginning.

This actually used up very little of the ice-eggs, so I popped them all back in the case and put them back in the freezer.  We’ll be able to do this several more times, before they run out.  Ok, seriously?  I can’t WAIT to do this again tomorrow!

Big hit!  So easy, so beautiful!  Give it a try, and let us know how it works out for you!Want to see some other nifty things we’ve done with ice?  Check here, here and here!

shaving cream and food colouring

We finally did it!!  For weeks, I’ve been reading about all the shaving cream and food colouring play going on out there, but my Hooligans were all on summer break, so I’ve had to patiently wait for their return.

Today was the day!  This activity was an enormous hit with the two hooligans who participated.  I had a baby who was too young to take part, and two 1 year olds who had no interest in it what-so-ever.  I invited them to join in several times, but they said “no”, and carried on with what they were doing.  Maybe the mess factor put them off?

Anyway, I have to say, we’ll definitely be doing this again.  Quite likely as soon as tomorrow, it was that much fun.

The only problem was: I cheaped out and bought my shaving cream at the dollar store, which is unfortunate because it had the consistency of runny whipped cream (you can probably tell in the first pics).  It kind of pathetically dribbled and oozed out of the can.  I was expecting big, foamy piles of airy fluff.  Not so, but it was still a ton of fun.  I’ll pick up a better brand of shaving cream on the weekend.  I think this will be a fairly regular activity here, so I’ll start watching for sales.

We started with the bin of shaving cream and a few drops of red, blue, green and yellow food colouring.  The mixture soon turned the shaving cream to grey, but that didn’t bother anyone.  They had a great time smooshing their hands around in it, and played that way for quite a while.

Then I moved them over to the fence and got out some paint brushes.  This was a lot of fun too, and then someone decided that there were more exciting things to paint (like cheeks, arms, shirts etc.)

At one point I turned away to talk to another little one, and when I turned back, she had moved the bin onto the ground and climbed into it.  All I could do was laugh, because this particular little Hooligan does nothing “half-way”.  She throws her whole body into everything she does.  And I figured, hey, it’s just soap.  It’s all going to come out in the wash, so why not have as much fun as you can with it.

I’m pretty sure she did.  I think they both did actually.  If you haven’t tried this yet, do it!  I knew it was going to be cool, but it went over even better than I’d imagined it would.  It’s such a great sensory activity, but to the kids it’s just awesome, messy fun!

For more shaving cream play ideas, check out our shaving cream with glitter and our shaving cream car wash posts!