Day: February 7, 2017

Handprint and Footprint Hearts

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We kicked off our Valentine’s Day projects today! As with the handprint wreath we made for Christmas, I love holiday projects that incorporate the current size of your child’s hands – they serve as an adorable reminder as years go by. For this craft, we added in feet, too!

Let your child paint one hand (preferably in red or pink), and then help him or her paint the other hand.

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Press the hands onto white paper like a stamp, and ideally you’ll get a heart shape. Travis didn’t exactly keep his hands still, which meant our “heart” is open to interpretation in this one!

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The feet, believe it or not, turned out better. While he sat on a stool, I painted the bottoms of his feet red – which he loved, giggling the whole time. We then pressed the feet down one at a time for a very successful “heart.”

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Once the paint dries, cut a heart shape around your hand or foot prints. Scalloped scissors make a nice decorative edge. Travis helped glue these onto larger pieces of pink and red construction paper as backing. I then trimmed these into a final, largest heart.

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As a finishing touch, you can write your child’s name and the date.

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Volcano for Toddlers

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Big kids can purchase D.I.Y. volcano models and witness a bubbling eruption at home, but why should big kids have all the fun? All you need to make a version that will delight your toddler is a little but of playdough (as long as you don’t mind sacrificing that particular portion of playdough), baking soda, and vinegar.

Shape your playdough into a roughly conic shape resembling a volcano, and place in a tray. Hollow out a small portion in the center of your volcano for the crater.

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Travis was intrigued as I worked, and couldn’t wait to help spoon baking soda into the center of the crater, already excited about what reaction might occur.

We then spooned in a small amount of red food coloring to make our volcano look like real bubbling lava, although this step isn’t necessary.

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Finally, I poured on vinegar – any kind will work, and I used rice vinegar since that was all I had at home. Now enjoy the bubbling!

 

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Travis wanted to do this again and again, which we proceeded to do until my baking soda and vinegar ran out. He even took over dumping on the vinegar himself.

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Once our ingredients were gone, he played with the leftover lava “goop” in the pan for quite some time, shoveling rivulets down the sides of our volcano, and breaking the playdough volcano into small pieces. So half the fun was in the mess we created!

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