Pool Noodle Sprinkler

June 19, 2020Leave a comment

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Here was the perfect project for a day that hit 90 degrees even before noon: turn a pool noodle into a sprinkler to cool off!

We’ve been having lots of fun with pool noodles the past few days, but this was the first time we added water to the mix. Travis loved helping with the set up. Use a sharpie to make dots on a long pool noodle, spaced about 5 or 6 inches apart. Poke through with a skewer.

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Cut a small piece of foam from a second pool noodle to plug up one end of the long pool noodle. Leave the other end open.

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Now it was time to get wet! We headed outside and hooked up a garden hose to the faucet, and inserted it into the noodle. Turn the hose on gently and increase the flow as needed.

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Both kids loved it right away!

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Our sprinkler turned out to be better for getting hands and feet wet than for running through, but they both seemed just fine with that.

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The “sprinkler” was also a little faulty; too little pressure and the water wouldn’t rise up through the holes. Too much and the plug on the other end flew out! (You can help avoid this risk if you use a zip-tie to secure the plug, but we had skipped that step).

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Nonetheless, the kids loved it, even when the hose came out wildly and added to the splashy fun. One thing is for sure: we’ll be using this sprinkler again as the hot summer continues!

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Salt Painting, Two Ways

June 19, 2020Leave a comment

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Today Veronika made art with salt! We tried two variations on this project, and I definitely preferred the former. But test them both out and see which one your child enjoys more!

For the first, you’ll need small empty spice containers, or any similar container with small holes in the lid. In each jar, I combined a little bit of salt with a little bit of powdered paint. Put the lid on securely and shake to combine.

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Veronika then helped squeeze glue onto dark construction paper. Squeezing glue bottles is great for strengthening little hands, so resist the urge to help out too much!

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Once we had a nice gluey canvas, I showed her how to shake the containers. Not only did they make a great noise, but she loved watching the colored salt sprinkle down.

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She liberally poured, but it was easy to tip the paper and shake off the excess when it was time to set her masterpiece aside to dry.

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Now on to version number two! This time, we made big blobs of glue on the paper. Instead of colored salt, we poured on regular salt.

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Then we added little pools of food coloring for her to swirl through with a paintbrush.

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Unfortunately this project got goopy very quickly. I would use less glue and less food coloring next time! But she enjoyed the messy process, and seemed very curious about the thick mixture tangled in the bristles of her paintbrush.

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Which one did your family like best? Please share in the comments!

Kindergarten Home School Week 14: Thursday

June 18, 20202 Comments

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We did it! My son is a Kindergarten graduate and I successfully taught seventy days of home school. There were tears and smiles, tantrums and triumphs, and lots of learning along the way for everyone involved. Thank you to the readers who have followed along on this journey, something I never intended to do or blog!

It would have been cruel to make it a full school day for Travis, knowing that summer was mere hours away. So here’s a quick rundown of the morning.

9-9.30: Workbook pages. Travis had only a few pages left in his workbook, including: ELA (adjectives and a poem), math (addition), and social studies (map reading). He zipped through them and put all the final stickers on his progress poster.

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9.30-9.45: Math. We got in exercise and math by skip-counting as we tossed a ball. We did this by both 10’s and 5’s to 100, a perfect review before summer!

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9.45-10: Specials. Travis recorded himself singing his favorite song from Music this year. He then watched a final story in Spanish (The Three Little Pigs) and an Adios song.

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10-10.30: Snack/storytime. Travis’s teacher had sent links to 2 final books to watch: Mrs. Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten and This Year Was Different.

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Well how about that! We needed to celebrate with vegan ice cream, of course.

Pool Noodle Ball Games

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020Leave a comment

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After making marshmallow launchers with pool noodles, today we got even craftier with them, setting up two silly sports: a Ball Toss and a Golf Game.

For the former, you’ll need to first make the “hoop”. Fold three long pool noodles into a circle and secure with Duct tape. Travis was so proud helping me with this step, definitely a two person job. Repeat two times, for three rings total.

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Use garden Velcro strips to attach the three rings together in sort of a triangle, as shown.

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To make the ball, cut a pool noodle in half vertically. Tie each half into a knot, and fold the ends in.

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It was a bit tricky to get the knot tight, but the tighter it is, the rounder your ball.

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Time to slam dunk!

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This game would of course be awesome to play in a pool, but we loved it even on dry land.

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As you can probably guess, the ball and rings alone were great fun to play with, even when we weren’t keeping score.

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Then we repurposed the pool noodles to set up the latter game outside. Highlights magazine billed this as golf, but it looked more like croquet to me! For your wickets, fold a pool noodle into an arc and anchor into the ground using two wooden skewers.

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For a club, cut a notch near the bottom of one long pool noodle. Bend and secure with duct tape to hold the curvature in place. Travis thought this was fun, but then declared it too easy! We’ll have to think of ways to make it trickier.

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Looking for other ways to get moving at home this summer? Check out some of the simple “sports” we set up last week.

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Feather Painting

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020Leave a comment

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It’s fun to give toddlers something other than a paint brush to paint with, whether a cotton ball, an ice cube, or even just their fingers. Today, Veronika got to try painting with feathers, plus a few other items from nature!

I had some brightly colored feathers from the craft store that were perfect for this activity. To set up, I filled three cups with different colors of paint and added a little glue to each, making the mixture slightly sticky.

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Veronika loved dipping the tips of the feathers in the cups…

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…and then transferring over to her paper. She loves to say “dot dot dot!” as she paints and watches the color appear. The feathers themselves fascinated her, too.

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Whenever one became too limp and saturated with paint, we simply added it to the painting and grabbed a fresh “brush”. As the gluey paint dries, the feathers will stick and become part of the final masterpiece.

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We then decided to try the activity with other items, this time truly from nature and not a craft store. In the yard, we found “brushes” from pine needles and leaves.

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Time to repeat the process! Dip the edges in the paint, use them as your brush, and whenever one gets too painty, it becomes part of the artwork!

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These turned out so pretty! I loved that the tactile feel of the different nature items was just much a part of the activity as the paint was.

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Washing Toys Water Activity

June 18, 2020Leave a comment

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Here’s one of the simplest yet best ways to keep a toddler happy: washing his or her own toys. Yup: between water, favorite toys, splashing, and imitating you the grown-up, this activity has it all!

And it couldn’t be easier. This morning while I needed to keep Veronika busy, I simply set out two basins, one with clean water and one with a tiny bit of soap added, along with a towel underneath to catch inevitable sloshing.

Then I added a few favorite toys that can get wet, including trucks, animals, and a dinosaur. Plus her unicorn, otherwise known around here as Sparkly Neigh.

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She immediately fell to washing them. I had given her a tiny bristles brush meant to clean out straws, and this was a perfect for giving cow and sheep and Neigh a good scrubbing.

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In between washing the toys, she also just loved splashing her hands in the water.

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When she seemed about to tire of the game, I handed her a cloth, and she lovingly fell to drying everyone off!

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Beyond just the fun of cleaning the toys, toddlers love games like this where they can feel like a little helper. As long as you don’t mind a little water on the floor, this is a great way to keep your toddler busy.

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Kindergarten Home School Week 14: Wednesday

June 17, 2020Leave a comment

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It’s the second-to-last day of school! With an emphasis on tying up loose ends and having fun, here’s what we tackled today:

9-9.30: ELA. Travis filled out a page in his workbook with word tic-tac-toe, along with a page about punctuation marks like question marks and exclamation points. We finished with a real game of tic-tac-toe!

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9.30-10: Math. Travis rocked his math lesson today, a workbook page counting penguins and then filling in ice cubes with numbers up to 100.

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I surprised him with a break-the-ice board game (going along with the theme) after, which he absolutely adored.

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10-10.30: Snack/recess. Little sister got artsy with mud while Travis played.

10.30-11: STEM. Travis watched a read-aloud of Bartholomew and the Ooblek before we made it hands-on with the classic experiment of making ooblek. We mixed together 1 cup water and 2 cups cornstarch for some of our best homemade ooblek to date.

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Of course it needed to be green. Travis was unafraid to get his hands in, then filled out a worksheet describing it with all his senses.

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11-11.30: Craft. We had fun with pool noodles!

11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Class Zoom. For the final online session with his class, his teacher shared a slideshow of the year. What memories!

For evening storytime, we not only watched his teacher’s final read-aloud online (Only One You), but also took time to make shadow puppets.

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Travis filled out a worksheet page drawing animals on provided shadow puppet templates before we tried our hand (ha!) at making our own. Travis was particularly proud of his spider!

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Pool Noodle Marshmallow Poppers

June 17, 2020June 17, 2020Leave a comment

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Travis’s latest issue of Highlights magazine featured tons of ways to craft with pool noodles. With summer mere days away, we decided to test out the first of the lot: a marshmallow launcher! This is similar to a project we made in the past using a cup, but the pool noodle makes a much sturdier version.

To start, cut 3-inch pieces of pool noodle, one for each popper.

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Tie a knot in a balloon, then cut off the top end of the balloon. Stretch over one end of a pool noodle piece.

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Secure with duct tape, and add other strips of tape for fun pops of color, if desired. Now fill the cavity of the pool noodle with mini marshmallow (we love Dandies of course!). Pull down on the knot of the balloon and… launch!

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In addition to great fun trying to catch the marshmallows and eat them, the poppers led to lots of silly marshmallow wars. Travis loved being pelted with them, or pelting me with them, or hiding around the corner waiting to ambush each other.

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You might just find yourself acting like a kid right alongside your kid! This craft is sure to add a sweet note to any summer day.

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Mud Painting

June 17, 2020Leave a comment

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Instead of getting your patio or driveway messy with paint that needs to be washed off, stick with nature and paint with… mud instead!

The first thing you’ll need to do for this project is make the mud, which in and of itself was a delight for Veronika. She took my hand and toddled over to the trees with me to scoop some dirt into a bucket.

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Once back on the patio, we added water to the bucket and stirred with a craft stick until the mixture was very muddy. If it gets too thin and watery, just add a little more dirt.

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Then I provided Veronika with paintbrushes and thick paper, treating the mud like it was real paint.

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At first, stirring the mixture in the bucket was such a joy that she focused on that. But then I showed her how to move her paintbrush over the paper, and soon she was happily swirling and dotting with her brown “paint”.

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She eventually discovered she could use the craft sticks to scoop out thicker globs of mud from the bottom of the bucket and smear onto the canvas.

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In fact when I moved one sheet of “painted” paper aside to dry in the sun, she started carrying blobs of dirt over to it to carefully balanced on her craft stick. Clearly the artist wasn’t done!

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This kept her so busy in the sunshine for quite a while. Perfectly dirty and messy fun!

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Bathtub Fingerpainting

June 17, 2020June 18, 2020Leave a comment

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If your toddler loves to fingerpaint but you worry about the mess, here’s the perfect solution: Get messy exactly where you’re going to clean off afterwards!

To wit, I stripped Veronika down to her diaper and sat her in a dry bathtub, then squirted generous amounts of fingerpaint on the tub walls. I used blue, yellow and green, which meant we had the possibility of playing with all three separately, or watching the blue and yellow combine into a new green.

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Veronika was hesitant at first, but the colors soon proved irresistible. Once her hands were messy, she began making big smears on the walls. She loved making a big mess with it…

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