Christmas Presents

We started working on Christmas presents every once in awhile. I enjoy (and he does too) having Kadin make presents for people as opposed to just buying everything. He has a lot of fun doing it and picking what he wants to make for different people. I think it teaches him more about giving then just taking him to the store.

Today we worked on crayons for his birthday party and for his cousins for Christmas. Ridiculously easy and a great way to reuse all those broken crayon pieces. We went through his crayons and found all the ones that had broken or the tips were broken off and he helped me chop them up into smaller pieces.

 Then he put them in heart tray and we cooked them at 230° for 15 minutes and let them cool.

 This is what they look like out of the oven.

 All ready for the goody bags. 

 Next we worked on some candles. It's an idea I've had floating around in my head and figured we may as well try it. We brought some sand home from the beach one night just for these. 

We started with a container filled with damp sand. We used another container to make the hole. And then heated the wax. We used soy beans, but there are other kinds that would work. Just make sure they don't have to be poured into a glass container as some do. You can heat them in the microwave, but my microwave decided to kill itself half way through so we used a double-boiler type thing. (Meaning I let my small container of soy beans float around in a pot of water until it was melted. Don't laugh it worked lol.)

Let it cool completely. Time will depend on the size, but small ones do not take long. And remove it carefully from the sand. Brush off any excess sand and trim the wick. Super easy project. This was the first one we did and it came out great!

Playing with Ice

Kadin has really liked sensory activities recently. So I've been trying to do some seasonal activities with him. And winter has been a pretty easy one to do so far. This time we used ice. 

This is what we started with. I froze a bin about half full of water. I gave him a cup; that had hot water in it; a medicine dropper and a spray bottle, that also had hot water in it and added a few drops of food coloring to it. He went and got a sheep, a cow and Buzz so they could ice skate. 

Kadin what are they doing? Ice skating. Why are they laying down? Mommy, they're not good at ice skating. Too cute.

Mommy, it's raining on Buzz!

Spraying the toxic (green) "rain" on his toys and the ice.

He started to notice the bubbles that formed underneath as the ice melted, so he went and got a spoon so he could pop them. So fun to watch his mind work and figure out how to do different things. 

He had me turn on the black light and added his water beads to the mix.

The now green ice is back in the freezer so he can play more with it today. He said he wants different colors to make it pretty. :)

Playing with "Snow"

I've been trying to do more sensory type activities with Kadin and thought this would be a fun one. The idea came from Play at Home Mom. They are amazing! <3 them, definitely check them out if you haven't yet. 

I gave him the bucket of poly-fil pellets and he asked to put them on his light table. He played with it with his hands for a few minutes and then used the cups to pour it. 

Then decided his blocks wanted to play in the snow too. He buried them in the snow and used them to make imprints. The dinosaur got to play lots of hide and seek too. 

Then he asked for his "purple" light. The black light added a great new aspect to it. 

Lots of fun and it will be fun to incorporate the "snow" into other activities this winter.

Pre-School

Sort of preschool anyway. ;) Kadin has started showing more of an interest in going to school. Mainly because he know all of his uncles go to school so he probably thinks he gets to hang out with them all day. :) Anyway I decided to make parts of our day more preschool-like. So each week (or most weeks) will have a theme and projects, books and any trips will be based around that theme. Each week will also have a letter or number and a color.

This weeks theme is cows. By the end of the week his board will be completely filled up. We went to the library yesterday and he picked out books about cows. And then today he colored a picture of a cow and an A. We also have poems and songs about cows. 

Cutting out and coloring his cow picture. 

 

Gluing his pictures to his board.

 

Such a goober.

  

Playing with his dyed rice.

Painting

The kids are always asking to paint. It's kind of our go to activity if the weather's bad or they're cranky. I decided to change up their painting a little bit. So they used a couple long sheets of paper and tempera paint.

Rather than just using paint brushes I gave them a few different things to see what they would do with them. In addition to paint brushes they used apples, q-tips and of course their hands (and then feet). 

They were both pretty intrigued with being able to paint with different things. The apples were a hit and they liked being able to make different designs with them. 

And then they started painting the apples. And ended up with some great designs and colors. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the feet painting. They were quickly making a huge mess and needed to be thrown in the tub. ;)

Glow Play doh

So I'm kind of in love with the black light. It adds a great new dimension to something that can get somewhat boring. So first we made playdoh using this recipe (from Play at Home Mom):

1 c. flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T. cooking oil
1 T. cream of tartar
1 c. water
Food coloring of your choice
Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)

I subbed 2 T of white vinegar for the cream of tartar and I used neon tempera paint instead of food coloring so it would glow with the black light. I made 2 batches. The first I made all blue and the second I split in half and made pink and green. 

Very easy. You mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients to it. Then you heat it over medium high heat (or very high as my stove only has 2 temperatures that it will cook at :P). Stir it constantly. It only takes a few minutes and it will form into a ball. Knead it for a few minutes when it's done and it's good to go. Oh and definitely use a non stick pan ;)

Here  it is divided up so the 2 kids could each have their own. It does make quite a bit and each batch could easily be divided to make at least 2 different colors.

I purposely didn't bring them any toys to play with the play doh with. They are far more creative than I am and I wanted to see what they would come up with on their own. They didn't waste any time and ran and got themselves toys. So fun to watch their minds work. 

Some of the favorites were duplo blocks, a wooden knife, a bouncy ball, a hammer, a screwdriver, trains and plastic animals. All way more fun than the cookie cutters I probably would have handed them. ;) They had a blast and already have plans for the next batch of play doh. I believe I heard glitter was going in the next one.