Painting With Water

Temperatures have been warming up the past couple of days, so we decided to go outside a play with water.  My daughter's teacher in her mommy and me class always has a fresh bucket of water and paintbrushes for the kids to play with, and so I bought some supplies for us to play with at home.  This will be an activity we'll definitely be repeating into the summer!

Supplies:
-Bucket
-Paint Roller Tray
-Paint brushes (different sizes)
-Roller brushes

Directions:

First fill some buckets up with water.

Then dip your paint brush or paint rollers into the water.

And start painting away!

Drawing with a paintbrush can be fun...

But the paint rollers were even a bigger hit with the kids.

Time to refill our buckets with water!

Painting away...

My daughter was happily painting the concrete...

but then she had a bright idea.....she decided it would be fun to paint mommy!  I captured her sneaky little smile as she was running up to me with her paint brush.

Weekly Kids Co-op: Come and play! {#6}

     

Happy Friday everyone!  What an awesome week of activities, ideas and advice we had last week!  What were your favorites?  There were too many fabulous ideas...that it was hard to choose our top favorites...but here are the three we chose:


I love how Love and Lollipops created this Air Traffic Control Tower by up-cycling various boxes and  containers.

These DIY bubble wands by Happy Whimsical Hearts are so colorful and fun, that it would make a great party favor at any party!

Everyone loves the dollar stores....here's a great list that Growing a Jeweled Rose compiled, with over 100 play ideas using stuff purchased at the dollar store!

Now check out all the fun ideas that have linked up so far below!  Have a great weekend everyone!

Pinkalicious Playdough Cupcakes

Creekside Learning recently did an entire post on "learning with Pinkalicious".  It inspired me to have some Pinkalicious fun with my daughter since it is one of her favorite books.  I decided to have her make Pinkalicious cupcakes with playdough just like Creekside Learning did...but we took it a step further and added some fun embellishments.

Supplies:

For playdough recipe:

-1 cup white flour

-1/2 cup salt

-2 tablespoon cream of tartar (find it in the spice section)

-1 tablespoon oil

-1 cup water

-pink food coloring

For Pinkalicious cupcakes:

-Craft pom poms

-Glitter

-Curly ribbon

-Cupcake liners

Directions:

First mix 1 cup of white flour, 1/2 cup of salt, 2 tablespoons cream of tartar and 1 tablespoon oil in a pan. Then add 1 cup of water and mix well.  Add pink food coloring...I think we added about 7 drops. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3 – 5 minutes. Dough will become difficult to stir and form a “clump”.  Remove from stove and knead for 5 minutes.  

My daughter has her Pinkalicious book for inspiration on how to make her cupcakes.

I must warn you...my daughter loved the glitter and I probably gave her more than she needed.  So our  playdough really sparkles. ;-)

We put some cupcake liners in a cupcake pan and added some pink playdough "cupcakes" to them.  Then we added a craft pom pom for the "cherry".

Add some "sprinkles" (glitter) to the top of the cupcake.

Okay...maybe we will generously apply some "sprinkles" to the cupcake. ;-)

Then add a curly ribbon for the fancy "icing" decor.

Arrange them nicely on a platter....

Then serve them to your special guests and hope they don't turn PINK!

Aren't they cute?

After your child is done playing....you'll have some glittery playdough to play with later. You can store it for a long time by putting it in a covered plastic container or plastic sandwich bag.

Candy Factory

We had quite a bit of fun today creating our own homemade lollipops, which I found on a guest post written for a blog called Mess for Less.

Supplies:
-Hard candy (Dum Dums, Life Savers, Jolly Ranchers)
-Zip lock bags
-Meat mallet
-Parchment paper
-Baking sheet
-Lollipop sticks

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Have the kids unwrap the candies and place them into ziplock bags according to color.

Next give them a meat mallet and have them crush the candies

Separate the crushed candies by color. 

Place some parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Then place a cookie cutter on top of it.  We used a star cookie cutter here...but really the candies won't hold their shape when it starts melting, so it's just best to use a circle or egg shaped cookie cutter.

Have your child add a variety of colors inside each cookie cutter. You'll want to layer your candies about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.  When finished remove the cookie cutter.  We also took some Jolly Rancher candies and lined them up.  You can do the same with Lifesaver candies.

Tip: I had my kids place the cookie cutter where they wanted on our first tray here...but in the end...my advice is to guide them where to place each one on the tray.  You will need to have room to place a lollipop stick when these come out of the oven.

Put them in the oven for about 5-7 minutes.   Once you take these out of the oven, immediately place a lollipop stick into each one. Carefully twist the stick into the melted candy to cover the entire stick.  Carefully twist the stick to cover the end with the melted candy. Please don't let the kids do this as they might burn their fingers.  If you want, you can also add some sprinkles at this time. Let them cool till they are completely hardened.

 This is my daughter's face after I let her pick out a lollipop.

Too bad I didn't take a video of this...here she is telling me:  "Mom I LOVE the candy factory"!

Pipe Cleaner Rings

For my daughter's 3rd birthday, she had a princess themed party and for one of the crafts we made these cute pipe cleanser rings that I found on a site called Glitter Goods. They are super quick and easy to make.  So I decided to make them again when my daughter had her friend over for a play date the other day, and they were playing dress up.

Supplies:

-Pipe cleaners 

-Jewel (I found these cute little button gems in the sticker aisle at Michaels)

-Glue gun (the other blogger used fast grab tacky glue)

-Scissors

Directions:

Wrap the pipecleaner around your child's finger and twist a couple times so you can get the right "ring" size.

Then take the two ends and twist them around....

And around....

Then trim it. (There is no right length on where to trim it...it's totally up to you and how big you want this platform that the jewel will sit on).

It should look something like this.

Next, using your hot glue gun, put a little dab of glue in the center of the ring.

And place the jewel on top of the glue.

These dry and set pretty quickly for the girls to enjoy playing dress-up.

They were being silly and didn't want their picture taken....but they loved showing off their beautiful rings!

Weekly Kids Co-op: Come and play! {#5}

We're back for our weekly Friday play date!  There were 200 fun activities posted last week!   Here are a few that caught our eye...

What a fun sensory bin for kids to explore the life cycle of a frog by Play Create Explore

These edible crayons by Cheerios & Lattes would make a super cute treat to pass out to your child's class!




The Iowa Farmer's Wife has some great screen-free activity ideas!



We hope you were inspired by all the wonderful activities!  Here's hoping you and your family have a wonderful and fun filled weekend!