Shaving Cream and Water Beads Sensory Play

I've read tons of blogs talking about water beads and wish I purchased these little guys earlier. If you are not familiar with water beads they come as tiny balls (look at balls in center of picture below) and after sitting in a bowl of water for a few hours they expand to about the size of a marble.

Watching them grow is pretty cool, but their texture is the best part. They have a smooth and gelatinous texture. I got a ridiculously big bag of them from Amazon for around $13.00. They will last us a lifetime.

The water beads are fun to play with just as they are. Throw them into a bucket or water table and have kids run the beads through their hands. Squishing them is fun too.

I filled an aluminum tray with shaving cream and threw some water beads in.

The girls had fun searching through the cream to find the beads and spooning them out into cups. 

 

This can be turned into a science lesson on dehydration. If you leave the water beads out in the sun they will begin to shrink. When you soak them in water they will grow again.

Wild Card Wednesday: Homemade Finger paint and Sensory Exploration

Found this recipe for homemade finger paint on Pinterest:

The creator of the recipe did mention that the texture might be lumpy if you add too much cornstarch and advised to thin with water.

My paint did come out lumpy:

So I thinned with water, but still not satisfied, I ran my immersion blender through it. 

Sooo much better:

We had fun doing some plain old finger painting:

 Some arm painting:

 I then put out a piece of aluminum foil and bubble wrap to contrast painting on smooth vs bumpy surfaces.

Wild Card Wednesday: Ice balls

I originally saw this idea posted on QueenVannaCreations.

I altered the recipe by using Crayola Washable Tempera Paint instead of food coloring. 

You will need:

1. Balloons- any latex kind

2. Washable paint

3. Kitchen faucet

4. Freezer

To do:

1. squeeze a little paint into the balloon

2. stretch neck of balloon over faucet and slowly fill with water

3. Once the size of a grapefruit, turn off water and tie balloon

4 Place balloon in freezer overnight.

5. Once frozen, cut balloon and peel off

What you do with your frozen creations is up to you:

play soccer, bowling, hide little trinkets in them before freezing or just watch them melt in the bath tub like we did:

Wild Card Wednesday: Play Dough Brain

In preparing for our upcoming unit on human anatomy, I created a play dough brain.

Using the recipe I blogged about here, I made a really quick and simple no bake homemade playdough. Just add more flour if texture is too sticky.

 Started out by covering a ramekin with play dough

 Roll dough into long snake like ropes and loop them in sections across one half of brain.

Continue same process on the other side and your brain is ready to go. 

I froze our brain so that it would harden and the kids could play with it without mushing it. Check back on Sunday for our investigation into the brain's functions.

Wild Card Wednesday: DIY Light Table and Magna Tiles

Our kids love playing with the light table at our local children's museum so we tried to replicate it at home.

To make our low budget light table you will need a clear storage bin with cover. We used  the Rubbermaid 41qt storage bin with cover (about $13.00 at Target):

I then lined it with black paper to keep the light reflected in the box, although my husband just told me that white paper would have been a better choice. 

 Place any LED light  in the box. These were the ones we had used for our Winter Onederland Party.

I lined the cover with parchment paper so the light wouldn't be too bright for the girls' eyes.

 Here is the light table all ready to go.

Our Magna Tiles look pretty cool on the light box. 

By the way, Magna Tiles are AWESOME, but rather pricey. $120 on Amazon for a set of 100 pieces. I still can't get over how much we spent on this toy, but the possibilities are endless and it will easily grow with my kids for many years to come.

Great for little ones- it's a very low frustration toy. The pieces hold together well, unlike blocks and come apart easily, unlike Legos.

As kids grow, their imaginations can take them anywhere with this open ended toy.

I also played around with putting my black light in the storage bin:

The results were equally fun. The green MagnaTiles glowed the best. We made different configurations with glow sticks (don't crack them) and just for fun we put our highlighter water on the table. 

 Next time I might follow the suggestion found here to cover the table with contact paper and have kids stick glow sticks and other fluorescent items onto the contact paper for some sticky fun.

Wild Card Wednesday: Popping good time

So if you haven't noticed, I'm trying to blog daily following a specific theme per day. So far we've got Science Sunday, Math Monday, Torah Tuesday and today is Wild Card Wednesday, where I will blog about random things that might repeat a theme or not--its WILD! Stay Tuned for what Thursday and Friday's themes will bring.

Fun with Pop Rocks inspired by Growing a Jeweled Rose:

We made a popping volcano and popping paint.

We started with some home made playdough. Seems like most recipes asked for cream of tartar, not something I had on hand. So I  followed this recipe: 

1/4 cup salt 
1 cup flour 
1/2 cup water 

Next we wrapped a cup with tin foil to shape it into a volcano and then carefully covered it with rolled out play dough.

We poured baking soda, red food coloring, and Pop Rocks into the cup and had the girls pour vinegar over it. Hear the popping in action:

We also made glow in the dark popping paint. You will need:

1. Pop Rocks added to fluorescent paint 

2. A black light

3. Black construction paper to paint on 

 Look at that glow!

Watch this video to hear the paint pop:

Bottom line: add Pop Rocks to anything that contains a liquid and good times will ensue.