Salt Painting

This activity is interesting for all ages including mommas! It is great for working on colors, color mixing (yellow and blue make green), and creative experimenting.

QUICK DIRECTIONS:

I recommend using white construction paper so you can see the colors mix.
Make a design on the paper with glue. I just squirted it straight out of the bottle in a design.
Sprinkle salt generously on top of the glue and then shake the excess. Yup, just like with glitter.
Dab your paint brush in watered down food coloring.
Gently touch the brush onto the salt design and lift quickly.
You will see the color immediately spread.
If you want to practice color mixing, simply dab the two colors close to one another.
The colors will run together and mix.
So fun!

SUPPLIES:
salt, food coloring (mixed with water), paintbrush, and white construction paper.

Considering you can buy salt for 33cents a container, you could do this activities endlessly.

Emmy's first sewing project

A while back, I found a small embroidery hoop and used a piece of cloth from my fabric stash to show Emmy how to sew. Embroidery needles are blunt tipped so there's no threat of poking themselves with a sharp needle.

Octopus Spaghetti

We never have any problems getting Emmy to eat spaghetti, or any other pasta for that matter. We found this fun idea for Octopus Spaghetti and thought we'd give it a try.

Split the dry uncooked spaghetti noodles in half. Push the noodles through the meatball. Don't bunch the noodles all together or it will split the meatball or crack it as the noodles will obviously expand as they cook. But, as you can tell from the following picture, it's so easy, a baby could do it ;)

Just like this....

Yes honey, that IS the way it's supposed to look.

Now show how proud you are of yourself!

Now you just throw the noodle meatballs into boiling water and cook until the noodles are done.

Toss in spaghetti sauce and eat up.

Yes baby, I PROMISE, that is what it's supposed to look like. Hehe.

Now giggle like crazy when the noodles tickle your chin when you eat your Octopus Spaghetti.

Going on a bug hunt

We picked up this little bug set at the dollar store. The container and set of tongs came together and we bought the bugs separately. I hid the bugs in the yard and let Emmy come out and find them (getting more practice at the tongs.)

A Paint brush by any other name...

For the life of me, I cannot remember where I saw this. I promise, I'll look for the link. It is from a company that does clinics for teachers (public, homeschool, daycare teachers, etc) on different ways to do art with children. It basically teaches you to think outside the box and look at everything you see as a potential tool for painting, science, and experiments. With that said, I'll get on with the post.

For paint brushes, I used old crayola markers that had dried out. left the cap on and used duct tape to tape on things like strands of rubber bands, q-tips, and strands of a mop head. These were very quick and easy and a very green project. Though not in these pictures, I have done fly swatter painting in the past as well as painting with turkey basters.

I also used old nylon stockings (you can get these for like 33cents at walmart in little plastic eggs at the end of the aisle in the women's sock section.) I put popcorn kernels inside and tied it up. It becomes very "slinky" and leaves a great design. A funny note about this one is that we finished painting and I washed the stocking w/corn clean of paint and set it in a pot on the back patio because we were going to use it again soon. Sure enough, I forgot about it. A week or so ago, I found it and it had TONS growing in it. We were growing corn! How funny! The strange part is that it obviously wasn't being watered and we are in a drought. The stocking was too thick for the corn to be able to push through so it on kept growing and stretching the stocking. I wish I had taken a picture of it. The growths were all about 5 inches long at least and only about 10-15 of the kernels hadn't "bloomed."

Colorful Volcano in a Cup

This kept Emilee occupied for so long! It was fun for all of us-Mommy included. Simply take a cup and put some cornstarch in. I rarely measure things, but in the small cups we used, I believe we probably put about 2 TBS of cornstarch in. You could put 1 TBS and it would work just fine. We ended up pouring in the same cup several times. So, put the cornstarch in the cup and then add a drop or two of food coloring on top. Next, give the little one a small cup of vinegar and let them pour the vinegar on top and watch the bubbling commence! I did the first "volcano" as an example and then walked Emmy through doing everything on her own. She was a pro from the get go!

QUICK REVIEW THERE:

1-2 TBS CORNSTARCH IN CUP
FEW DROPS OF FOOD COLORING ON TOP OF THAT
POUR ENOUGH VINEGAR IN CUP TO GET THE COLORFUL EXPLOSION GOING.


And I just have to share this picture because it was from the same afternoon. The sprinkler is always a fun way to clean off the messy fun! The real reason I'm sharing this is to share the Emilee calls the water coming out of the sprinkler, "POPCORN!!" I love the mind of a child and as many years as I have looked at a sprinkler, I never took that away from it. It really does look like popcorn popping out of the top.

Watermelon Waffles

I saw these the other day (I'll have to find a link) and wanted to make them. Watermelon waffles! They turned out cute, but need some perfecting. We'll make them again. The reason I really made them was because I wanted to try out the idea that you can substitute yogurt whey for buttermilk in baking. Buttermilk waffles it was, because I do like killing two birds with one stone. Wow! Did you ever notice what an awful saying that is? lol. We make our own yogurt (crockpot yogurt) and we like it thick so we drain it and there is always a ton of whey. I was throwing it away before (for shame!) The verdict is in and the whey was a fine substitute for the buttermilk. Hubby said it tasted like a regular waffle, so even he couldn't tell the difference. We did move on and make some waffles with peanut butter chips and chocolate chips in them and they were delicious!!