Volcano!

One Saturday morning, we were bored by 7 am. So, we decided to make the famous volcano - I had actually never done it before. It was great fun and because it involved a variety of activities, it lasted about an hour , which is huge. 

First, we had to make the mountain. I took a plastic bottle and cut it down. We then made home made play dough out of a mixture of salt, flour and water. The ratio of flour to salt is 2 to 1 and I've found that water needs vary. I just add enough water until the consistency is correct. 

I put a mixture of water, baking soda and a drop of soap into the bottle- and food coloring. We built the volcano around the bottle and then painted it. Without waiting for anything to dry, we added the vinegar (several times!). It was great fun. 

Fruit Roll Ups

We recently went peach picking and I decided to try to make fruit roll ups with the very ripe peaches. My 3 yr old helped but mainly just ate the peaches.  

Relatively simple recipe: chop up fruit, blend fully, simmer for about 30 min to get out excess water, then spread the mixture on a cooking sheet layered with parchment paper or nonstick foil (hard part is getting it even, which is very important to the cooking process) and cook for around 3 hrs at 170 degrees.  Let cool. Remove from foil and put on wax paper. Cut with scissors and roll up.

It obviously didn't turn out perfectly because I didn't spread the mixture out evenly - but it tastes wonderful and reminds me of the fruit leather my mom used to buy for me. Not sure my kiddo loved it but she had never had a fruit roll up before so the texture was different. Also, some recipes call for added sugar - the peaches were so ripe they didn't need sugar but I could imagine sugar may be needed with less ripe fruit. 

Flower Garden

 

This was a fun project, although took a bit more mom-help than I had thought. We've been keeping old popsicle sticks and decided to make flowers. Easy enough - construction paper and glue stick.  I had hoped my 3 year old would do the cutting but she got frustrated w the shapes she made and I ended up doing all the cutting. She also got frustrated w the shapes I made - the grass was originally a tulip but she didn't like the shape so I fashioned together a holder using construction paper and tape and put the grass along the bottom. I 

We also made lollipops and colored the handles: 

Ring Toss

This game was a big hit - to play and to make.  I cut out the center of paper plates and my 3 yr old happily painted them different colors. While she was doing that, I taped an old paper towel roll to the back of a paper plate. We also made a few "rings" with marker rather than paint so we could play right away. My kiddo wasn't a fan of the markers, though, as they came out funny with the ridges. 

The game itself was fun - simply toss the ring on the paper towel roll. It also doubles as a noise maker with all the rings on the roll. Amazingly, the roll stayed attached while my kiddo was shaking it vigorously. I used packing tape and I would recommend that over scotch tape. 

The Internet Makes Life Easy

I don't know how our parents survived without the Internet. One of the easiest - and funnest - things I will do is download pictures for my daughter to color.  It's great because she can pick whatever theme she wants and is into that day. This morning, it was Strawberry Shortcake. To make things even cooler, agkidzone.com had cut out stick figures of all the characters. I didn't have any wooden Popsicle sticks but my 3 yr old was way ahead of me and brought out the plastic popsicle sticks that we use to make homemade popsicles with.  Great fun!!

Soap Clouds

How have I lived 35 years without ever hearing about how awesome it is to microwave a bar of ivory soap?  It grows into a huge cloud (deflated in the picture). I imagine you could take the cloud and add water and make bath crayons but for now, our soap clouds are sitting magnificently on the counter.  

Cutting and Pasting

My 3 year old came up with this activity on her own and it distracted her for all of ten minutes. But, it gave me time to wash dishes and I'm hopeful she will try it again:

What you need: old magazine, kids scissors and glue stick and a piece of paper. 

She happily cut out pictures she liked and glued them to a large piece of paper. It may be a better activity for slightly older kids as she had some trouble with cutting - chopped the heads off people a few times (and thus ended her enjoyment of the activity). 

Banana Popsicles (healthy and easy)

I had three very ripe bananas and not a lot of time.  I mashed them up and added a half cup of full fat milk.  Made six delicious Popsicles - healthy too with no added sugar and about 70 calories each.  They were a hit!

Dora Party

My daughter just turned 3 and she LOVES Dora!

So, we had a Dora-themed party, complete with a treasure hunt.  The treasure hunt was great - I used the tunnel from her tunnel/tent set, blew up a camping mattress for the kids to jump on and over (crocodile lake) and then scattered party favors all around the yard.  We first decorated plain, white party bags, and then I explained that Swiper had swiped all of the party favors - so, with Map in hand, I explained they had to go through the tunnel, over crocodile lake and to the tree with the party favors. 

For the food, I kept it simple.  I made cards by finding an image on the internet and pasting it into word and adding a title - so, we had Dora's Drinks, Diego's Animal Rescue Crackers, Boots' Bananas, Swiper's Strawberries, Tico's Tortilla Chips and Salsa, and Benny's Cheese. 

Cupcakes were fairly easy too - my 3 year old helped me make them and we used purple and pink (store bought) frosting and added little cupcake toppers that I found on amazon. 

Balloons were of course a big hit - we kept with a Dora-color theme, pink, purple and orange.  I am not good at this type of thing and I think we pulled it off pretty well!

 

Bath Crayons

Bath Crayons

This was a super easy project that my 3 year old and I did Monday morning, before work. 

Simply take a bar of ivory soap and grate it (very easy to do - I thought this might be difficult, but my 3 year old managed to do some of the grating).  Add a little bit of hot water - just enough to make a paste - and then add food coloring.  Put the mix into a mold (we used play d'oh molds, but cookie cutters would work too).  Freeze for 30 minutes and pop out.  Let dry for 24 hours.

I Should Have...:  Only added a little bit of hot water at a time.  By the time we got to the last color, the mixture was starting to harden.

I'm Glad I...: Mixed the color in plastic cups.  Clean up was really easy, as I simply threw the cups out.  Not great for the environment, but helped us get out the door on time.