Springtime Rainbows!

 With the coming of spring we have turned our attention to the science and beauty of... rainbows!

    Our first rainbow craft was a watercolor wind catcher. I prepared rainbow outlines for Rosie and me to fill in with watercolors, then cut out and attach raindrops with strings.

    Only instead of regular watercolors we made our own by adding a few drops of food coloring to little dishes of water! That made creating AND cleanup super easy!

    (Besides, Rosie is pretty much the food coloring Queen!)

Of course, craft time is not quite complete without tea and a snack, so while our tea was brewing (compliments of Rosie) we made an edible rainbow snack!

To make this fun rainbow-y treat, mix a couple drops food coloring in separate dishes of milk. Stir in a pinch of sugar, and paint onto a piece of bread! (We used clean Q-tips instead of paintbrushes)

Once your edible painting is finished, you can toast it lightly or enjoy as is!

Here is Rosie's beautiful Flower Garden with a Blue Sky!

And my Rainbow...

See how toasting brings out the colors?

Now... back to tea & craft time! After our paintings dry we can cut them out and assemble them.

    And here they are! The food-coloring watercolors have a really beautiful effect. I especially love water-based art for things like rainbows because they are made from water in real life.

Next, we tried another project Rosie had had her eye on... 

Edible finger paints!

These are literally just cool whip with food coloring added.

As you can see, we used a muffin tin for a pallet. 

What a fun, sunny day to make crafts outside!

    Painting our fingernails makes it "edible fingernail polish"!

Happy Learning!

<3 ~ Mama & Rosie

Sunny Day Playin'

Most of the ground is still covered in snow, and temperatures are generally pretty chilly, but there was some sun shining on our back patio this morning, which thankfully had been shoveled earlier and was quite dry. The sun was warming up the air so the kids & I headed out for a few minutes of fresh air.  The warmth gave us almost that free summer feeling; as you will see, Fynn went barefooted!

We busted out a tub of "chocolate dirt" that we had made earlier in Fall, and Rowan and I drove Lightning McQueen, Mack The Truck, and Red The Firetruck around in it. We also used the cars to make tracks in the snow.

Chocolate Dirt is a really fun sensory toy. It's mostly baking soda  and some cocoa powder, enough vegetable oil to give it a moist sand texture, and a sprinkle of glitter. It smells good, feels good and tastes terrible! We've had that same tub sitting outside with the lid since early fall and it's still good. As long as water doesn't get in it it should last even longer.

We also colored with chalk for the first time since Summer! Rowan and I drew a solar system together, and Fynn drew one of his own.  Fynn also made a model of Horsetooth Rock (a natural landmark here in Fort Collins) out of chocolate dirt.

These are planets he drew in the dirt.

The snow had been hardened by melting and freezing and Fynn was thrilled to walk on top of the snow instead of sinking into it.  However, the kids both wanted it to be more moldable so they could make snow planets. I told them I had a recipe for play snow and would they like to try it? "Oh yeah!" they said. So I got a salad tub from the kitchen and some baking soda, tea tree shampoo, peppermint oil and glitter and we mixed it all together.

Rowan and I tried to make a few planets, but the next thing they wanted to do was mix it with the chocolate dirt.  So they mixed and mixed, added snow and water, making "Hot Wash" and Hot Chocolate.

An orange kitty also came to visit us for the morning, but I failed to get a pic of him.
Cheers!
~Beth

Homemade Playdough Adventures

For the past month or so, the kids and I have been experimenting with as much playdough as possible.  They've been loving it even more than I expected, and I've become quite obsessed... new flavors to try keep coming to mind faster than we can keep up with!

 Lately I've really been thinking of how pleasant sensory experiences really make a person feel better... everything from chicken soup to a clean cozy house, to an herby epsom salt bath to the little lavender sachet pillow that Rowan carries around... There was always that voice in the back of my head that said those things don't matter, but they DO! They really do, and they lead to a calm and more peaceful life.  Peace of mind.

When I look at my kids and I look back on my own childhood, I see how sensory experiences made the most  impression on me.  Especially if it had to do with food. And nature plays a big part as well. The smell of the apple orchard in fall, a strawberry scented doll... kids love that stuff.  And grown-ups do too!

Rowan mostly has been teaching me this, because he is such a sensory oriented boy.  He loves to smell things, and he loves soft things... he has replaced his lavender sachet with 2 different balls of playdough ~ these he now takes everywhere with him! Rowan and Fynn spend a lot of time pulling out their collections of playdough "cookies" and saying, "Here, smell this one. Now smell this one..."

I had tried homemade playdough before, but it mostly turned out terrible or okay.  But finally I found a recipe on this site: http://www.learnplayimagine.com/2013/04/playdough-recipe-lemon.html

It was so simple and took about 5 minutes to make and turned out wonderful! So I use that recipe for the basis of everything I make.  Pictured above is the first batch I made with that recipe.  I used tempera paint to color them. 3 batches; red, yellow and blue. I was so excited! And so were the kids!

I think the next idea I had was to do one chocolate batch and one vanilla batch.  They smelled delicious! For chocolate, I just added cocoa powder (1/4 C. I think), and for vanilla just added 2 or so tsps of vanilla.  We colored some amaranth seeds with food coloring and used them for sprinkles.  Fun! That was when we began rolling out cookies for Mama Whale.

This is what we called Minty Ocean Playdough.  Instead of tempera paint I colored it with a few drops blue and one or so green food coloring.  I scented it with peppermint oil.  I put out blue glass beads and some weird salt we got from a discount health food store years ago that we never used because it had a lot of sand in it.  I thought the kids would like to play "ocean" (like they usually do) but really they just wanted to make peppermint cookies for Mama Whale.  That's fine!

For old time's sake, I thought to make these Hershey Kiss shaped Mints... one of my childhood passions!

And here comes the Licorice (Anise) Playdough...  Black tempera and anise oil are what make this one special.

We got black licorice to chew on 'cause we knew we'd be craving it!

It just smells sooo good!

Here's a plate of vanilla and chocolate "cookies".  One looks like a Saltine cracker.

Here is a Pumpkin Pie Spice Playdough that Rowan and I made one afternoon out of some leftover red and yellow primary playdoughs.  He's become accustomed to pulling them out of the cupboard on his own saying, "Can I have this playdough?"  We just mixed the colors together, then added cinnamon, ginger, cloves and a lot of nutmeg.  Yum!

Fynn came out and happily joined us.  That's my favorite kind of afternoon.  With some snacks and coffee and "tea and honey and cream" too. :)

I'm sure there will be more posts on playdough in the future.  It's now past my bedtime, but I'll leave you with my basic playdough recipe.

1 C. flour
1/4 C. salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 C. tempera paint
1/2 C. boiling water (or use 3/4 C. water if not using paint)
few drops of essential oils or flavoring (optional)
flour for dusting

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly.  Add boiling water, tempera, oil, and mix well.  Add essential oils, and add more flour 1/8 of a cup at a time and knead together till playdough no longer sticks to your fingers.  Store in an airtight container till ready to use.  Have fun!

~Beth