Hiking on an Ant Trail

August 20, 2017August 20, 20171 Comment

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This adorable idea came to us from Barefoot Books’ Kids’ Garden kit. All you need is a 3-foot length of string, magnifying glasses and your imagination to have a magical moment.

Our new home has a patch of grass – a novelty after years with a balcony that overlooked a dumpster – so when I asked Travis if he wanted to pretend to be an ant outside just after breakfast, the answer was an enthusiastic yes!

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I cut a length of string about three feet long and we placed it in the grass with a few loops and coils. Using our magnifying glasses as we walked, we went inch by careful inch to try and see the world from an ant’s point of view.

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Some of our best finds were little roots of a bush:

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Tiny plants popping up from the soil:

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and dew drops sparkling on a spiderweb.

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It was fantastically fun to slow down and move so carefully, especially in this fast-paced world of ours.

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Do your child and yourself a favor and try this game soon!

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Night Sky Mobile

August 18, 2017August 18, 20171 Comment

How perfect that our September issue of High Five magazine included this decoration for a child’s bedroom – we’ve just moved to a new home, and making this craft not only made Travis so proud to decorate his new space, but also feel safer at night in the unfamiliar setting.

To start, I drew a crescent moon and two stars on white craft foam and cut them out.

No pinterest worthy shapes here, but Travis didn’t mind an askew star or two, plus wanted to try doodling his own!

Then came the novelty factor of the project: glow-in-the-dark paint! The only non-toxic version I could find was actually face paint, but it seemed to do the trick.

Travis loved painting on a layer before we let the shapes dry, and then repeated with a second layer.

In fact, he thought the paint was so neat that he wanted to make a glow-in-the-dark picture before we put it away.

Next up was punching a hole in the top of each shape once they were dry.

I mostly did the final assembly solo, threading string through each shape and attaching to the perfect stick we had found on a walk in the new neighborhood. This step would be great knot-tying practice for little fingers.

Finally, tie a long piece of string to both ends of the stick, and hang from a peg in your child’s room. Ideally, it will be some place that the sun hits during the day, for optimal glowing at night.

Sweet dreams!

Rainbow Coloring

August 12, 2017August 12, 20172 Comments

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We’ve always loved rainbows around here, but now Travis is really starting to latch on to the idea that there is a rainbow order, instead of a random array of beautiful colors. This easy crayon trick will help your child remember which order the colors are in!

Ready for how easy the set up is? Adults: Use masking tape to make 2 batches of crayons – one red/orange/yellow and the second green/blue/purple.

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That’s all there is to it! Now use the red batch on top and the green batch on the bottom to make a beautiful arced rainbow.

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Travis loved the novelty of the crayons, which are also simply great for drawing pretty pictures and squiggles.

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Balloon Painting

August 9, 20171 Comment

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When plain old paints and paintbrushes have grown a bit stale, look no further than this novel project! This time around, a balloon itself is your “brush.”

To start, blow up balloons just slightly (you want your little one’s hand to be able to grab on).

I set Travis up with the balloons and several colors of paint on a well-covered surface. You can stick to a color palate (we used various shades of green), or go wild with vibrant primary colors or any shade in between.

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It was neat to see the different effects we could produce with the balloon as our brush, whether making big blobs by pressing or streaks from rolling.

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The marks almost looked feathery at times, very neat!

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In complete honesty, Travis decided he didn’t like the activity much, since the balloon got his hand very messy with paint. His favorite part though was looking at the dried painting afterward, and discussing how we had made it!

Balloon Paint (4) For kids who do love making a mess (and being a mess), this is sure to be a huge hit.

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Marshmallow Launcher

August 7, 2017August 7, 2017Leave a comment

Marshmallow Launcher (5)

After a full day in the car, I wanted to do something for Travis that was pure joy. This project is sure to earn you cool parent points!

Cut the bottom from a disposable cup – kids can help with this step if you have paper cups on hand, but since ours were plastic, I did the scissor work myself.

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Next, knot the ends of several uninflated balloons and snip off the tops.

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Fit a balloon snugly over the cut end of each cup (you can add an elastic band for extra security). Now it’s time to load up your marshmallow ammo!

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One to two marshmallows at a time will work best (more than that and it’s really too heavy). Travis couldn’t get enough of seeing the marshmallows fly toward the ceiling!

Or of the slightly-verboten ability to eat the marshmallows off the floor after they landed.

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He wanted to see if his launcher would work with pennies as well. (Hint: Yes, it will – just not as yummy an experiment!) Needless to say, the project involved lots of hearty giggles and tons of fun.

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String Roller Print

August 5, 20171 Comment

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You can upcycle your empty toilet paper tubes and enjoy some messy fun with this project.

To create the rollers for our prints, first squeeze glue onto a disposable plate or tray. Add pieces of string and have fun squishing the string through the glue until coated.

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Travis was actually a bit squeamish about this step, so my fingers got good and messy; I finally cajoled him into winding some of the gluey strings around our two empty toilet paper tubes.

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We set the tubes aside to dry – nap-time was the perfect pause.

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To make our prints, I splattered several colors of paint onto parchment paper. First we needed to swirl them together a bit with a paintbrush.

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Then it was time to roll through our rollers. The whole project was neat because it made me think of roll printing on fabric.

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Travis was a little hesitant about getting his fingers covered in paint, but soon the rollers were rolling about on a piece of poster board.

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He decided to add a few brushstrokes with the paintbrush to finish his creation. Overall, very Jackson Pollock-esque!

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How Strong Is Paper?

August 4, 2017August 4, 20171 Comment

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This quick lesson on engineering was an absolute delight, for kids and grown ups both. A lot of Travis’s toys are packed up due to an upcoming move to a new home, but we still have items to play with. To wit, all we needed for this experiment was computer paper and books. The question was: just how strong was our paper?

First, I asked Travis simply to fold a couple of sheets of paper into a tent shape – could that hold up a book?

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No way! Immediate collapse.

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Now we needed to try something more structurally sound. Wrap three sheets of paper around cans, and tape to seal. Slide out the cans.

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Set up the three sheets of paper like columns (those ancient Greeks were onto something…). I asked Travis to start piling on the books, and to his absolute delight, the paper remained standing. We couldn’t believe how big our pile grew – 3 books, 4 books, 5 books…

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We had laid on about 15 of slender volumes when we decided to really test things.

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It wasn’t until we added a fat hardcover book that the paper buckled and the whole pile collapsed – to Travis’s delight!

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Needless to say, even I was impressed with how much weight the paper held. This activity is guaranteed fun, whether or not your little engineer grasps all of the concepts involved.

Shaving Cream Prints

August 3, 2017August 3, 20171 Comment

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There is definite WOW factor to this project, even for grown ups!

To begin, squirt a healthy dose of shaving cream onto a baking sheet or tray. Ooh, already this project is exciting!

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Now add a few drops of liquid watercolor to the shaving cream. Travis loved seeing the color appear against the white background, after which I instructed him to swirl the colors through the shaving cream with a skewer.

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Next, press heavy card stock or poster board onto the mixture, one piece at a time. Travis loved helping to gently press the paper on, and lift it up for the big reveal.

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Wipe the excess shaving cream from each piece with an old towel, and set aside to dry – what a gorgeous marbled effect!

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The secret is that the soap in the shaving cream pushes the color away, so it is left behind after the cream is wiped off. It also leaves the paper with a velvety texture that feels amazing!

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This paper is so pretty that you’ll definitely want to use it for gifts – perhaps bookmarks:

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Or thank you cards:

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Or simply hang in a prominent place to display your child’s work of art!

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Numbered Balloon Hide and Go Seek

July 29, 20174 Comments

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This was possibly the best game ever for a rainy morning! Not only did we play multiple rounds of it, but that was just the beginning – read on!

To start, you’ll need to blow up 10 balloons. Number them 1 through 10 with a sharpie. Balloons for no special occasion at all? Already this game was fun!

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Next, hide the balloons around the house. For a 3 year old, I kept the hiding places fairly obvious. Where might those balloons be lurking? In kitchen cabinets?

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In drawers?

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The trick now is that your child needs to find them in numbered order. If they find number 3 before 2, for example, 3 has to stay in its place until 2 has been located. Parents, keep track of where you put each number, or you’ll be scrambling alongside your little seeker!

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Ooh, found one!

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Travis was surprisingly great about leaving balloons be when he found them out of order; I had been afraid he’d just snatch up each one as he went, but he was really into the counting aspect of the game!

Needless to say, we had to play again. On one of our rounds, number 8 was hidden so well that we enlisted a full family search to dig it up. You wouldn’t think you could lose something as large as a balloon, but I promise we did.

Because he had seen me use the sharpie, Travis also wanted to try his hand at drawing on the balloons. He made lines on each balloon up to the correct number – his first tally marks!

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Rounds of balloon tap and balloon kick followed of course, so with this one activity, you can easily help fill a rainy day!

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Fruit Ice Cream

July 28, 2017July 28, 20171 Comment

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With just-picked fresh fruit from a recent pick-your-own-berries excursion, we made fruit ice cream! Any fresh berry would work well here, and we tried both blueberries and strawberries.

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