Puffy Paint!

Wow, this one was exciting, let me tell you.

I found this idea via Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning's blog, here http://www.playbasedlearning.com.au/2011/05/puffy-paint-pictures/

What I love MOST about it is how easy it is, not to mention great fun!

The basic idea is you mix some paint, paint a picture, then microwave said picture.
Ready?

Here we go!

Recipe:

• 1 Tbsp Self Raising Flour
• 1 Tbsp salt
• Food colouring (we used only red, blue and yellow with fantastic results)
• enough water to make a thick gloopy pastey paint

We used plain white paper for a lack of better options. However, I think that white cardboard would have worked better and warped less... 

 ingredients

 mixa-mixing

 We found that big gloopy globs of paint worked best!

Once you've finished painting all your masterpieces, simply trot them on over to the microwave and zap them for 30 seconds. We did find that some of the more paint-heavy pieces needed a bit longer, we just kept giving them 10-20 second bursts if bits were still damp....

 WOW! Waiting for the finished products to cool down (only takes a few seconds)

 Lovely to touch! Very tactile....

Biscuit's verdict: "It's very puffy. Very lovely"

The finished product is hard and puffy. I was pleased to find it doesn't deflate! I assume the salt also keeps the whole thing from turning a bit fungified within a day or so. 

I can't recommend this one enough! Definitely a hit! And BONUS - not too messy either :)

Bad Blogger! Great Links!

Hello Everyone!

Much to my shock, my visitor counter says that some people have still been visiting this blog, even though I haven't updated since January!

There is a good (or at the very least, decent) reason for this. As most of you know, I'm pregnant again! Yay! Very exciting. Even more exciting, I'm now out of the first trimester and

a) don't wish to die from the constant nausea

b) seem to have recovered from what my friend calls "first trimester narcolepsy".

I usually update my blogs when Biscuit is asleep, but I can assure you for the last 3 months, whenever she's been asleep, so have I!

Anyway, before I go on and post about our latest funtimes, I thought I'd share with you some amazing blogs I've found! I had no idea there were so many of these out there! So, here you go....


http://www.playbasedlearning.com.au/

http://childcentralstation.blogspot.com/

http://jadaroo.blogspot.com/

http://quirkymomma.com/

http://progressiveearlychildhoodeducation.blogspot.com/

http://www.theimaginationtree.com/

http://handsonaswegrow.com

http://messypreschoolers.blogspot.com/

I've discovered that one blog links to another, and another, and another.... you could get lost! So glad to have found so many excellent ideas!

Thanks for hanging around. Hopefully there'll be a lot more soon... :)

Soapy Glass Door Fingerpaint

This idea came from my new kindle ebook, First Art.

It spoke of a magical soapy paint that self-cleaned, and suggested that the children paint it directly onto a glass sliding door. Then, because it's made partly from soap, it washes itself off! Magic!

The actual recipe is for 1/2 cup of liquid tempera paint, and 1tsp of liquid soap. However, we only had powdered tempera paint (similar to this http://www.kidsart.com/store/tempset.html) so I just mixed 1Tbsp of tempera powder to 2Tbsp liquid soap. It worked well, but if you can get the liquid stuff that might work better. We got ours from a stationery store here in PNG, and I was pretty impressed to find even that here!  

As you can see, we invited a friend over to play. They both had an outstanding time!

Cleanup was a little bit tricky without a hose...problematic since we live in an apartment with no backyard! So, we employed a trick we learned from the cleaners and used the fire hose from the stairwell! 

I'm sure I looked quite amusing hauling and pulling to get it up the stairs and out onto the balcony. A few blasts with that cleaned the whole thing up. We then hosed the kids off in the shower, then mopped the floors inside (from them traipsing it all into the house) and it was all done! 

Definitely having another mum around was a massive help, probably wouldn't try this solo. 

Judging from the facebook feedback a lot of people think I need my head read for trying this out, but it really wasn't all that bad. Give it a go! 

Bread dough that's so good, I'd serve it at a dinner party

...if I ever had dinner parties, of course!

More excitingly, this is from a NEW BOOK!

This book, to be precise: "First Art - Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos" by MaryAnn Kohl

I have downloaded it to my Kindle (which I love love love), and we have been burning through the activities this week.

Anyway, this would be a brilliant activity to do if you'd run out of bread - good enough  to use to make bread rolls for lunch - YUM! This was also helped by the fact that the beautiful year-round tropical humidity in Pt Moresby means that bread rises beautifully if left outside on the balcony. OK, here it is...

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp (7g) sugar
• 1 T (20g) yeast
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 T oil

With your child's help, mix the water, sugar and yeast in a bowl until the yeast softens (2-3 mins) ... I have no idea what she means by that, but we did it anyway. Then add half the flour, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Biscuit loved getting to "mix mix mix!". Add the oil, salt and the rest of the flour.

Here you're supposed to pour it out onto a floured board and knead the dough. We cheated and chucked it in the food processor with the dough hook attachment. Anyway, the official directive is to "knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth, elastic and satiny. It should bounce back if a finger is poked into it".

Then put the dough into an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and a clean teatowel and leave it to rise in a warm area for about 45 minutes. (Ours was GINORMOUS!)

Punch it down and work into a smooth ball, then play with it as you would playdough...
You can make marks in the dough with forks, skewers, knives etc...

At around this time, you can preheat the oven to 200C (400F)

Biscuit and Mary... we covered her usual activity table with a clean tablecloth...

Biscuit helping decorate Mummy's shapes...

Biscuit's sculpture

 Now place your sculptures on a baking tray in the lower part of the oven and bake for 15-20 mins (larger sculptures may take longer!).

Fresh out of the oven.  Smells delicious!

Picnic time!!

Delicious hot with butter and jam!

 This really was the activity that kept on giving. Firstly, we had fun mixing the dough, watching it rise up. Then we got to play with the dough, have fun making shapes, squeezing, squishing, mashing it with forks. Then we got to watch the bread rise while it was baking in the oven, and smell delicious dough smells. Finally, we got to eat our little hot rolls for morning tea with yummy butter and jam.

Brilliant. Just brilliant!

Soapy Shower Fingerpaint

This one is again from 350+ Free Activities For Toddlers.

We actually did this activity late last year, and the pics are all from then.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup pure soap flakes (we used Lux)
3/4 cup water
electric mixer (or wire whisk)
Food colouring (optional)
Paintbrush
Spray bottle or shower hose

Method:

Use an electric mixer to mix the soap flakes, water and food colouring together until it's the texture of shaving cream. Then sit them in the bath or shower and let them go  nuts, painting and then squirting the foam off the walls.

CAUTION: You may want to investigate whether or not the food colouring will stain the grout! We only used very little pink, and it was fine, but you could hardly tell it was coloured.

This was great fun! A fantastic way to cool down on a hot Port Moresby afternoon, after running around outside!

Before....

.....after whipping it (whip it good)

 So as you can see, lots of fun was had. She stayed there quite happily for about 45 minutes painting the tiles, her bath book, herself....

Great activity!

Keeping Biscuit Busy Out and About - Part 1

Hello! Sorry for the absence of late! We've been back in Australia, catching up with family and friends.

Which leads into the theme of this post.

When we're out, say having lunch or a coffee at a restaurant, Biscuit wants to be marauding all over the place and causing general havoc.

My friend Lou put me on to the wonders of stickers...

We bought a few stickerbooks at the $2 shop, each had a few hundred stickers of varying shapes, sizes and themes (fish, trucks, planes, faces, flowers).

Then when we go out we bring a notepad, some crayons (not as messy as textas) and all our stickers.
Biscuit can't quite get the stickers off the page by herself yet, so we peel them off and line them up on the highchair or the table's edge.

Good times with stickers

Biscuit-eye view

Well behaved Biscuit at breakfast

*I may note that these stickers were the very last ones left in the book, and hence are not of the most entertaining variety. More were purchased following this breakfast...

So, through this simple magic we had many enjoyable get-togethers over the christmas/ new year break.

This is definitely not rocket science, but I'm not much of a planner, so it is at times shocking to me how a little planning like this can prevent chaos!

A few good links...

Hi! Sorry, I've been terrible at keeping this updated! But we have been doing stuff!
I promise I'll get around to it soon.

In the meantime, here's a great link on children's playspaces.

http://www.threesisterstoys.com/t-playspace.aspx

Some of my favourite ideas are...

"Establish a "New & Exciting Box" - If you notice your child isn't playing with a certain toy, put it away in a box. If you child is given a gift you don't particularly want them to play with on a regular basis, put it in this box as well. Store the box in a closet. Pull it out on those days when your child has run out of play ideas, rainy days, or days you feel like you're losing your sanity! These "new and exciting" toys may do the trick!"

"Create Theme Areas - Think back to the "centers" of your own kindergarten classroom. You can also do this at home! Some examples are a housekeeping area with a play kitchen and/or ironing board, an art area with an easel, apron and paints. How about a story corner complete with a bean bag and your child's favorite books?"

Another website I just found had some good tips... http://sewliberated.typepad.com/sew_liberated/2010/11/a-different-kind-of-black-friday-low-cost-big-gifts-for-children.html

"Organize a spectacular dress-up area. Keep your eyes peeled for fun hats, shoes and outfits during thrifting excursions, or make your own. Dedicate a space for dress up in your home - set up one of those cheap wall mirrors next to a peg shelf. Add ribbon loops to all shirts and pants so they can be hung from the peg shelf, assuring that they are easily accessible to children and don't get lost in a bottomless toy chest. Place shoes and accessories in bins below the peg shelf. Remember to rotate the items on occasion to maintain the child's interest."
(that link to the spectacular dress up area also has some great ideas!)

Just some stuff to think about.... :)