Shaving Cream Art

 This is a simple, easy, and  easy to clean up activity. From 18 months and on, developmentally motor skills are soaring. Tegan has been perfecting her use of pipets over this time period. Water color activities help strengthen her dexterity and focus!

This is a two part activity: first we set up primary water color (using liquid water colors diluted in water) to "paint" a scene into the shaving cream set in a container.

Droppers are perfect for this "painting," as you can see Tegan has a Learning Resources dropper (The bigger one, which is easier to hold and squeeze), and more adult droppers that require more skill. The Learning Resources droppers are great for beginners and as they improve their skills you can move on. If you child is having difficulty using the droppers, I suggest putting a tiny amount of colors into small containers and letting them "dump" the colors onto the cream.

This was also our first time using liquid watercolor concentrate instead of food coloring or washable markers for "diy" watercolor. I am impressed! The colors were much more vibrant, and no staining of the hands!

Now after they finish, you simply take a thicker piece of paper and put it on top of the cream. You have to squish it down and move a bit. I then "scrape" the cream off using the side of the pan.

Here are our prints!

Afterwards, I put water beads into the shaving cream because it is one of the most interesting tactile activities! So really, we go three types of play out of this activity, using a $1 can of shaving cream!

Sudsy Goop

Here in Arizona, it can simply be too hot to play outside. Even at 7am, it can already be in the 90's. However, I try to encourage Tegan to get out even if it is a little bit and she happily obligates, especially if water fun is involved.

Sudsy Goop is a fun activity using only four ingredients, cornstarch, kool aid, soap, and water. I used a bottle of dollar store baby shampoo for this particular time. Kool aid is for color and smell.

When you add water slowly to cornstarch, it creates a slime that can be solid in your fist and then "melts." Adding soap makes the goop a little more runny, and when you swish it dissolves and creates long lasting bubbles.

The best part is I love it when Tegan "Decorates" our patio. Kool aid and Cornstarch is a easy way to make chalk! So when she poured/flung the goop, it will actually dry like chalk.

I have left it out all day, and she has come back to it several times

This is from this afternoon:

It was easy, cheap, and a really fun activity that cleaned up well. And I am loving the dried art created from it! 

Exploring Oil and Paint

We did this activity a few days ago, but I promised myself I would start updating my blog again! So I want to review one of our favorite activities from this week.

I like to allow art everyday; I keep supplies always open and available to Tegan. Let art happen naturally through drawing and paint. Sometimes since she is so young (2) she does need invitations to create and encouragement from myself as well.

I decided to take a little guidance with our art this day by exploring density. While she was too young to understand ( I think, you never know!) I explained that the oil in the bag was reacting to the tempura paint differently because the liquids were different in density.

We simply used one bottle of canola oil (use different oils, such as coconut, baby oil, ect for more experimenting!)

Tempura paints

2 ziplock bags-You might want to add tape to the top if you have a especially strong toddler.

We first poked, prodded, and squished the bags. Then Tegan took to vigorously shaking them! What was interesting is the lighter color bag mixed differently than the darker colors. For older children it would be a interesting lesson to research on why!

I ended up not being able to take photos, but we then poured the oil and paint into containers and panting with them. The oil saturated our plain paper pretty badly, next time I will use card stock so we can keep our creations!

We continued our "Oil" lesson with density by combining baby oil, glitter, and ice. The oil and glitter create and amazing glistening look while getting the ice "Slick." As the ice melts, the density of the water and oil repel each other, and the glitter stayed with the oil. Fascinating! We made ours into a "arctic" scene.

One of the biggest benefits of this lesson was to really use a different texture of oil. We have not done too many art or bin activities with oil. I am really interested in using oil and water beads in our next "oil" activity! Stayed tune for updates :)

Planting Flowers Play Dough

Happy Earth Day! As you know, we've been celebrating all month and we will be continuing to celebrate all month! Today we did two activities, but the craft I will be posting later (busy mom!)

We had a simple activity using Tegan's favorite medium, play dough. I got to dye the dough black which was fun for me for whatever reason-I am so used to natural or bright colors doing something dark was interesting!

Again I used my basic recipe, but with black food dye added:

• 2 Cups of Flour
• 2 Tbsp of Oil
• 1/2 Cup of Salt
• 2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 Cup Boiling Water

I had to use coconut oil this time as I was out of my dough oil I keep on hand-and I would have added less oil. When it cooled I had to had more flour because it was oily!

I let Tegan use her imagination on where she wanted to take this activity, which to my dismay wasn't the flowers. She only played with them for a short time, then continued to play with the dough as she normally would. 

Don't mind the strawberry yogurt all over her face LOL she would not let me clean her up! 

We read a few Earth day books, but I unfortunately didn't have any age appropriate garden ones! Hopefully next year I will. We did read a few flower books and tree books.

Happy Earth Day everyone! What did you guys do?

 

Sticky Earth

For our Earth Month theme, we did a simple activity we often do that is a lot of fun and also educational. We simply use contact paper (clear) and a type of medium to practice our fine motor skills sticking our medium to the contact paper.

I simply cut a circle shape (kinda, lol!) out of our contact paper (I got mine at Target-in the home aisles) and cut blue foil as well as blue and green foam shapes. 

Again, I just let her put the colors wherever, but it might be fun to see if you could do a replica Earth from your head! 

And our finished project:

The best part, the foam pieces are reusable so its something they can come back to throughout the day!

Sprinkle Play Dough-two ways!

Play Dough is the king here, probably more than water beads! In fact, Tegan has started to say "Play dough" in the most adorable way a 19 month old can!!

We like to create new doughs to keep her interested and express fine motor skills. Most of these are really simple and cheap ideas.

Today I made a basic dough-no coloring-and let Tegan shake out sprinkles I simply got from the dollar store. I didn't realize it would be such a huge hit!

I made my dough using the basic recipe: 

• 2 Cups of Flour
• 2 Tbsp of Oil
• 1/2 Cup of Salt
• 2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 Cup Boiling Water

You would add your color if need be, but there wasn't for this activity! After mixing all together, I still like to put it in a warm pan on the stove and mix until it forms a tight ball. I feel it gets a better consistency. 

I simply then let her at it!

Since this was a "sweet" dough, we decided to add cupcake liners. I think scenting it with vanilla next time would be a great idea!

I store all my play dough in either recycled plastic containers (like yogurt or such) or if I am out, plastic baggies. To my wonderful delight, a few days later we pulled the dough out again to play and the sprinkles had MELTED! It made the dough look like a confetti dough!

I added some foam shapes to press into, but what she really liked was making "popsicles" 

What a great way to get to activities out of one dough!

Quinoa Breakfest Bake

I am 24 weeks pregnant (going on 25 soon) and this second pregnancy has been really hard on my health. I am still nursing Tegan (19 months) on a regular schedule as well; Not only does she nurse to sleep and awake for bedtime and her nap, but we will have 2-3 (at least) feeding in between. I under estimated the toll both being pregnant and lactating was having on my body. Despite a healthy diet (with treats of course!), and good supplements (fermented cod liver oil, magnesium) I have had a stomach bug/food poisoning twice, a severe sinus infection, and general feeling like blah. Of course, we can chop the blah to just being pregnant, but after being sick so many times (which is very unusual for me) I decided I needed to up my nutrition.

I have already gained roughly 32 lbs this pregnancy. I gained 70+ with Tegan, and I thought this pregnancy I would gain less, but that has not been the case. However, I am NOT worried! I am producing milk and a baby! Weight is JUST a number and I am focused on being healthy and happy! We are SUPER active too, regularly taking hikes, walks, and what not on a weekly basis so I know I am in charge of my health. Some of my recipes *are* caloric dense as well, but for all my pregnant/breastfeeding/tandem moms, this is a good thing!

I am really excited to share this recipe with you guys. It is very versatile and extremely delicious. You can easily add substitutions which I will mention.  This is easy to make 100% vegan and gluten free too, if that is what you wish!

Quinoa Breakfast Bake 

Serves 2

1 medium Banana-ripe or unripe (see substitutions)*

1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or milk of choice)

1 cup of Quinoa Flakes

2 tablespoons of Greek Yogurt plain (or non dairy yogurt)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 cup of Walnuts or nut of choice 

2 scoops of Collagen Polypeptide Powder**

Dash of Himalayan Salt

Cinn/Nutmeg  

*I used a banana in this recipe, and it came out like a banana bread. It was delicious, but there are tons of substitutions! Try using apple sauce, or for pregnant mamas trying to get dates in you can easily substitiute date paste. The substitution would be 1/2 cup- you could probably do more date paste as it is thick and not runny (like applesauce) if you like it to be sweeter. 

**I love my Collagen Powder. I get mine through a co op (here it is online, Vital Proteins) and it packs a whooping 18 grams of protein per 2 scoops. It is a easily digestible and absorbable protein, more so than many protein powders. It is also low in calories compared to protein powders. The blue lid is the non gelling form and you can add it to anything-baking, smoothies, yogurt, ect. 

I simply mixed all ingredients together with a hand mixer, and baked in my convection oven at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes. 

I plugged in the info into myfittnesspal app, which I have a love hate relationship with, and these were the stats on one serving:

LOOK AT THAT IRON LADIES! Were else are you going to get 28% of your daily intake of iron like this? And the protein! I strive for 100 grams a day and this is 25% of my daily intake! This is such a super house for pregnant/lactating women! 

And best of all? It was DELICIOUS!!!