DIY: Glue Foam

While I was researching on web the other day I stumble upon a blogpost about glue sponges, I got curious so I continue reading to know what it is for. After learning that it will be helpful in preventing a big mess and waste of glue in doing arts and crafts with kids, I decided to make one, And it is so timely because I am planning to do a lot of arts & crafts with Lady Bug in our letter activities.

Here are the materials you'll be needing:

 -white glue or school glue
-water
-sponge
-sealable container

I was about to buy a sponge and a container when I saw in our kitchen that empty dish washing paste container with the sponge that comes with it, which we didn't use because were using a different sponge in washing our dishes. I thought that this would be perfect for this project. But since this container is small it will only helpful on dipping small pieces of paper so a larger container is much better if you are doing bigger arts and crafts. Will try to make a bigger one later on if this will be a hit for us.

I just pour out half of the contents of this bottle of glue on the bottom of the container, add a small amount of water.

Put in the sponge, and pour the remaining glue on top of it.

Cover the container to prevent it from drying up. Then allow the sponges to sit for a few hours (1 day for bigger and thicker sponges), so that the glue can soak in. You may also need to spray it with water & flip the sponges from time to time to prevent them from drying out. That’s it, your glue sponge is ready to go!

You may check our DIY glue sponge in action for the first time in this post.

I notice that Lady Bug was a little reluctant in dipping her piece of paper on the glue sponge bacause her hand always touches those glue on the sides of the container whenever she dip her paper. So I think I need to add another layer or 2 of these sponges so it will be close to the height of the container or will try to make a larger version of this.

But for the meantime this worked fine for us. Ciao!

Letter "Aa" Activities

I'll be sharing with you the activities we did for Letter "A".The aim of these activities is to learn more about a particular letter. To identify what a particular letter looks like (both uppercase and lowercase letters), what sound it makes, and how to use it to make up a word. And ofcourse in a fun and exciting way.

Lets begin.

Letter Identification.

Identifying capital and small letter "A" using this Alphabet Letter Identification Printable I got from this site  and with our DIY Do-A-Dot Marker. We're now focusing more on the lowercase letters as she's already familiar with the uppercase letters.

Pre-Writing.

Tracing the Letter A using cork board and toothpicks. For older kids you may use pushpins instead of toothpick. This is a great pre-writing activity.

Another pre-writing activity is this letter tracing using a cotton swab and washable paint. My toddler love this activity so much because of the cotton swab dipping part, that she asked for another set of letters to be traced.

Forming letter Aa using clay. This is also a great fine motor skills activity.

Arts and Crafts.

A is for Alligator and a is for apple craft. This activity is also an opportunity to practice her cutting and pasting skills.

Bible Story.

We have this very nice Kid Bible App on her tablet that we love to read. We read about Noah's Ark.

We built a miniature Ark using her empty milk carton, and wrap it with packaging tape, and put a window and door.

 Then I asked her to help the animals enter the ark. We were singing the arky arky song while doing this.

 not an instagram worthy project but I tell you she had enjoyed this diy ark alot.

Letter "A" book

For our letter A book we read about this Ant family who had their picnic on the hill.

Other Activities

A is for Animals. We also did various activities about animals such as this wooden animal puzzle, that is a great cognitive development activity, and this mother and baby animals matching activity.

So that's it. I hope you had fun as much as we had fun in doing those activities.

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.