DIY: Bath Paints & Playdough

Jashley and I had fun with our colorful activities yesterday. This is what I love about holidays I get to spend a whole day of play with my daughter. Daddy went to office that day so we had the whole day to ourselves.

We did first an activity that is part of our "Letter A Activities" but I'm going to show it on a separate post as soon as we finished all the activities that are lined up for the letter A.

After we finished that activity, it was time for her bath so I decided to make a bath paints to make her bath time even more fun, after all its been months now since our last bath play.

Let's begin with the things you'll need:

1.5 cup of water
5 tablespoons of corn starch
washable paints (I used the Crayola brand)/food coloring (alternative)
a container
paint brushes

And here’s how to make it:

Dissolve cornstarch in a half cup water. In a medium cooking pan bring to boil the remaining 1 cup of water. Gently pour the water and corn starch mixture into the boiling water while continiously stirring it. You may add more corn starch if you want a more thick consistency, enough to stick to the wall. Take your containers and evenly distribute the mixture. Add a different color of washable paints in each mixture, you may use coloring food if you don't have washable paints. Now grab those paint brushes and let your little one have fun painting.

Reminder: Don't forget to test the paint first and see if it won't stain your toilet walls.

I can't tell the excitement she felt after I invited her and saw the paint pots I set up inside the bathroom. She exclaimed "Wow! What's that Mommy?" Since she already can identify colors I just explain to her what paint is and how to use it. After a little demo I let her experience it.

"Look Mommy I made an H"

Of course it wasn’t long before the paint brush was discarded and the hand painting began.  

I thought it's a perfect time to teach her the secondary colors, so while she is submerging her little hand into each of the bath paints container. I explained to her that yellow & red makes orange, blue & yellow makes green, red and blue makes violet. 

The cleaning part was fun for her too. Look how easily the paint washes off.

I love that my little girl was not only squeaky clean after this but also pretty much had her art class inside the bath. 

After bathing we had our lunch and I set her for her afternoon nap. While she was taking her nap I prepare another activity.

On our recent grocery trip Jashley saw a set of play-dough at the toy section and asked us to buy one. But Hubby didn't allow us to buy because of an incident happen before. She was a year and a half old back then when she put a piece of play-dough on her mouth and chew it while playing with a friend's kids play-dough, luckily Mommy was fast enough to remove it in her mouth before she was able to swallow it. So since then we always put on hold any activity that involves play-dough.

But because she was now getting curious about this play-dough that she saw on toy reviews on YouTube and always  asking me if I can buy play-dough for her, I wonder if I can make an edible one or at least something that is not toxic compare to those commercially available ones. I searched online for recipes, there were a lot of them, and I actually wanted to do the no cook recipe, but most of the recipes that says "best homemade play-dough" always requires to be cooked. So I decided to make the cooked one.

Here's the materials you'll need:

1 cup of water
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt
1 tablespoon of oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
food coloring
a cooking pan and a spoon

Here's how to do it:

1. Combine water, flour, salt, oil, & cream of tartar in the cooking pan.
2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens and begin to gather around the spoon.

3. Remove from the stove and let it cool.
4  Divide it evenly depends on how many colors you wanted to make.
4. Knead it and add a drop of food coloring. You may sprinkle more flour while kneading if it is a little sticky.

Take out your cookie cutters and plastic/toy knife and your now ready to play.

Here's my Little Lady Bug excited for her homemade play-dough.

After a demo, there she is looking like an expert in kneading her dough.

Cutting with the cookie cutters.

Mommy's bunny and Jashley's bear and elephant.

Cutting using her plastic toy knife.

She made a birthday cake for Mommy too. 

Beside the fun that it gives the child, this activity is great for developing strength in the hands and fingers and is perfect for building those fine motor skills too.

I guess she love this activity so much that she asked mo to play with it again this weekend

So that's how we spend our colorful and fun holiday. Till next time.

DIY: Dot Dabbers

I've been on a hunt for a Do-A-Dot Marker or a Dot Dabber for months now, it is not widely available on stores here in our country, and when I finally found it on one bookstore, the price is way out of my budget. I checked online stores too but it's expensive as well. So I wonder if I could possibly make my own Dot Marker. I'm looking for an empty bingo dauber bottles online but most of them requires a minimum pieces of order, since I only need a few pieces for this project buying from them is not practical. Until I found a bottle of clear glue which has a sponge like applicator head at the school/office supplies store near my workplace for 10 php each. Good thing the bottle caps comes with 3 different colors that is perfect for this project, I bought 3 pieces of it as I was planning to make the primary colors only.

Aside from the bottle with sponge tip you'll be needing paint also, I have left over poster paint that was use during the children ministry activity on our church. It is a washable poster paint that is perfect for toddlers.

I mix half part of paint to 1 part of the clear glue, yes, I used the clear glue that comes with bottle. You can use water if you want, I tried mixing it with water but the consistency was too watery, so I decided to make use of the clear glue instead.

Mix it up and pour back the solution on the glue bottle, screw back the sponge tip applicator, do the same with the other colors and your DIY Dot Markers are now ready to use.

My Li'l Lady Bug immediately tested it with the printable Do-A-Dot worksheets we found from these generous sites.

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/12/a-z-do-a-dot-worksheets.html
http://overthebigmoon.com/full-alphabet-letter-identification-printables/

I think the consistency was still runny that if you will hold it in an upside down position for a long time the solution is coming out of the sponge tip even without squeezing it. So I'm thinking of either changing the solution's recipe or do something with the sponge tip. If you have other ideas regarding this, please comment away. I'd love to hear from you.

DIY Math Manipulative: Geoboard

I recently discovered Geoboard while I was searching for an activities I can prepare for Jashley, I'd never saw or even heard of a Geoboard before. I got curious and started googling about it.

What is Geoboard?

A geoboard is a manipulative tool used to explore basic concepts in geometry such as area, perimeter, triangles and other polygons. It is great in developing early mathematical skills of children that will help them with problem solving, critical thinking, and learning spatial awareness.

As a child I grew up hating Math because I find it difficult to understand, well aside from the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I don't want Jashley to be like that, I want her to love Mathematics, that's why as early as now I am finding ways on how can I help her develop a positive mindset towards Math.

So when I discover about this Math Manipulative, I knew I had to get one, or rather make one. I asked my FIL (father-in-law) and Hubby for their help in preparing the wooden board and pushing the pins into the board, but when they found out that I was going to use push pins for the Geoboards grid, they didn't approved it thinking that it will not be safe for our toddler if the push pin accidentally detached from the wood. So I looked for an alternative for the push pins. I remember I saw a wooden pegs on a bookstore near my work. Then I draw the grids on Auto-cad with approximately 1" apart and printed it on A3 size paper.

I attached the grid print-out on the wooden board and I asked Hubby to drill the wooden board that FIL prepared.

He then cut the wooden pegs into two (because it is too long) and grind a portion of its on one end so he could easily insert it on the holes of the wooden board.

After putting up all the pegs our Geoboard is now ready for play. I took out the colorful elastic band I intentionally bought for this projects.

Here are a few of the things we did with our DIY Geoboard:

We made different shapes.

We create some letters too.

She liked stretching the elastic bands like this.

Look at Daddy's hand there, I bet he had fun creating some patterns too.

I saw a lot of printable Geoboard patterns over the net and thinking about making some Geoboard pattern cards that Jashley can recreate on the Geoboard. But I think that can wait until she's a little older, for now I let her experience the Geoboard first and allow her to create whatever shapes she wanted to make.

That's it, I hope you like our DIY Geoboard and somehow inspires you in making your own too.

DIY: Pasta Beads

I have been planning this beading project for weeks now, I have already accumulated all the materials needed but can't find time to do it because we're pretty busy at work now plus all the stuffs and preparations we need to do for our Christmas party. Finally I was able to do it last week since I was on my 1 week Christmas leave.

These pasta beads are actually easy to make, but will need several hours to let them fully dry.

Materials:
-macaroni pasta
-food coloring
-plastics/ziplocks

Steps:
Put about a half cup of macaroni pasta (uncooked) inside a plastic, one for each color you want to make. Add 10-15 drops of food coloring, or you may mix alcohol with the food coloring first before pouring into the macaroni, I guess it will be easier to dye the pasta this way.

Seal your plastic and shake until all pasta is fully dyed. Yo may ass more dye if you want a brighter color.

Open the plastic and allow them to sit for  awhile.

Then lay them out on a tray lined with plastic to let them dry fully.

Beading activity is a great fine motor skill activity. I have been engaging Jashley with this kind of activities lately to help her refine her movement. I love that even her concentration skill is developing with this activity.

We use colorful fuzzy pipe cleaners with these DIY beads for our beading activity, you may use strings or ribbons tied on one end for older kids.

We have used this also on one of our sorting and counting activity, that will help her building her math skills.

That's it for now. We're looking forward for more activities using these colorful pasta beads.

Jashley's Second Trick-or-Treat Experience

As I have mentioned on my previous post, our office organized a Haloween Party last friday, there is actually no plan for that at first, original plan is to just held a room decorating contest among the Teams. It just happened that almost all of the project that we were working on was due for client submission on the day before the event which is thursday. And that means we will have a very light work load or no work load at all until the client send a comments/revisions for those projects. And since it was friday also, our UAE offices are closed for weekend, In that case we will not going to receive any work load from them on that day. So the management in our office here in Manila decided (a last minute decision which is 3 days prior to the event) to have a simple party on that day, there were no program actually, just a simple snack, a trick or treat activity for the kids, a mini fashion show to flaunt each and everyones Halloween costumes.

So let's now move on to the day of the event, I'll just have a brief description on some photos and  just let the pictures tell the happenings on that day.

Our Design Concept was Graveyard

This is the entrance to our room we made it look like you were entering a cave graveyard. 

Upon entering you will be greeted by this Happy Halloween sign with our trick or treat candies for kids.

Here's the closer look of our sweet goodies for the kids. (Will make a separate post regarding this another DIY of mine)

Bats are flying everywhere.

Look who visits Mommy's workplace that day.

Playing with the bat cutouts.

Future Architect like Mommy.

Mommy can I have one please?

Showing her monster mallows.

Say hi to my little cutie clown. I made her costume the night before the event (lets talk about that costume on a separate post.)

 

Mommy and  and her little cutie clown.

 

I let her take a nap before the trick or treat activity

starts.

I took the opprtunity of taking some photos with my colleagues while my little clown is taking her nap. She doesn't want to come out of our room kasi because she's afraid with others costume and decorations.

Trick or treating alone, since she was still sleeping when the other kids started the activity.

 

Her bag full of treat that she cannot carry anymore.

 

Enjoying some of her received treats.

 

Jashley's take home loot bag.

Happy little girl with all her goodies.