Painting with Jars

Today we tried a new medium to paint with.....Jars!  My kids loved it.  I like to challenge the kids by putting out unusual items to paint with.  We have used rocks, jelly beans, Lego's, and ice.  It allows the children to use their problem solving skills, imagination, fine motor and many other benefits. 

 

this jar had ridges on the bottom and the kids figured out that if

they dragged the jar it would make this print

 

I just love how these jar paintings came out. 

*As always, when children are using anything breakable, close supervision is required. 







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Using Ice for Pre-Writing Skills

I am always amazed how the simplest things can keep children engaged for so long.  The kids in my care love, love, love to use the pipettes (or those little medicine droppers).  It is so great for strengthening those little muscles needed for writing, cutting and all those other fine motor skills they will use so much in Kindergarten.  All I did was put out some ice trays, colored water, and a tub of ice cubes.  They mixed colors, learned about volume, cause and effect, sharing, and loads of language!  So simple and so many skills being used!

 



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Yummy Play Dough

Have you seen these Duncan Hines frosting flavors?  You can add them to frosting to create your own flavor of icing.  Well, I had picked up a couple different flavors (they are .99 at our local grocery store).  While making play dough for class one morning, I remember them sitting unused in the pantry and I imagined the yummy scent they would add to it.   Simply mix into your favorite play dough recipe.  It was a huge hit.  Use any flavor you wish, I didn't even add coloring to this batch.  

 

 

Here is my absolute favorite recipe....

 

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

4 tsp cream of tartar

Duncan Hines Frosting Creations packet

2 tsp cooking oil

1 1/2 cups of boiling water

a few drops of glycerin

 

 

Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the boiling water and oil

Mix it all until it forms a ball, you may need to add flour or more water as needed.

When it is all mixed, add a few drops of glycerin (you can find it in the medicine aisle at the grocery store, makes a huge difference in your play dough!  I highly recommend using it)

 

This play dough will last a long time.  Keep it in an airtight container, I use a zip lock bag!



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Golf Ball Paintings

This is a different version of the tried and true "marble painting".  We used golf balls.  The kids had a "ball"!  We used a deep tub, placed a piece of paper in, let the kids squirt in their colors, toss in the balls and roll away!  Great for cause and effect, problem solving, color mixing, creativity and large motor coordinations

 

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Mail Call



We have been discussing Community Helpers in class. Here is a simple, easy, and fun way to let the kids practice their organizing, counting, and number recognition skills.  I have saved these cool boxes that single paper towels come in (by Kleenex).  I knew they would make a great mailbox.  I wrote numbers on cards and taped them to the front of the box.  Then I used foam numbers and drew dots to correspond to the numbers on the boxes.  The kids came to the table and sorted the mail into the correct boxes.  They loved it is an understatement.  They sorted, emptied and sorted again! 

 

 

 

We continued our unit on Mail Carriers by writing cards to ourselves and taking a walk to the mailbox.  The kids were very excited to come back to school with their delivered card!

 

 

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Target Practice with Wet Sponges

We had so much fun with this activity.  First we soaked a couple sponges in a tub of water.  The kids drew their own targets on the fence with chalk.  Then, they took aim and threw the wet sponges at their target.  They problem solved the best angle to throw the sponge so it would stick to the fence.  This is great for hand/eye coordination, problem solving, fine motor skills, large motor skills, not to mention, a fun way to stay cool on a hot day (it didn't take long before the kids were using each other for targets).  All in good fun, of course! 



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Cork Boats

Have you visited A Little Learning for Two? If not, you should.  I saw these cork boats on her blog and thought they look super fun.  I borrowed a couple corks from our fabulous neighbors (along with their kids, thanks Kylea and Justin!).  The kids had a terrific time designing and creating their boats.  Here is what we used to make them.

-corks

-toothpicks

-craft sticks

-hot glue

-craft foam sheets

-screw in hooks

-yarn

I placed everything out on the table and invited the kids to design their boat using the materials on the table.  They did an amazing job.  I didn't provide them with any type of model, they came up with the design by working together and problem solving their way through the construction. 

We used hot glue to glue the sticks to the corks.

Screwed the hook into the front of the boat,

Here is one finished, they cut out their sails however they wanted.then I showed them how to fold it in half and push the toothpick in.  They did need a little help pushing the toothpick into the cork to hold the sails up.

Here is one that the girls designed.  I love it.  All about balance!

Here it is floating away in the little pool.

They even gave them a ride down the slide.

T designed his as a pirate ship.

They were a great hit, from start to finish! These were great for a warm summer day.  Now to go get some more corks (wink wink).



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Babba Box Review and Giveaway

Have you heard of Babbaco?  I just discovered this wonderful company. They offer a monthly subscription fun filled, play box for kids ages 3-6 (but I had tons of fun with it and I think any age would like it),  The boxes include theme based activities and projects, books and a code for digital downloads and online content.  It includes EVERYTHING you need to do all the projects, including instruction cards to help you out. They were so gracious to send us a box to try out.  SWEET!  I just had to share this amazing company with you.  They even offered to give a FREE box to one of my readers!  How great is that!  Let me show you what our box had in it.  Truly amazing. 

We received the Rainbow Theme Box. (Every month its a different theme)

We found this prism inside along with an instruction card on how to make rainbows with it

We chased rainbows all over the room trying to catch them. My son carried around the prism for days, trying to make rainbows everywhere. He liked it so much, he slept with it!

The box included a bubble wand filled with bubbles, and pipe cleaners so we were able to create our own too

A shape sheet, so you can make your own shaped bubble wands

And they worked very well

The next project was dying a sun hat, which was also included.  There was only one, so the kids each decorated one side.

The tissue paper and spray bottle were included to complete the project.

 The finished result.  She did the front and he did the back!

 

Since I'm not good at letting things go unused, we used the remainder of the tissue paper and made a rainbow on paper, using the same technique as the hat.

 

We read a book "A Rainbow of  My Own" which was included in our box too!

Themed coloring sheets

Once again, I can't resist a good quality box either.  We taped some paper down, added rainbow colors

toss in some marbles

Gave it couple of good shakes...

and our colorful results!!

A bright, sunny umbrella was also inside our lovely box.  My daughter loves it!


Isn't that an amazing idea?  Everything you need all in one spot.  They also have a code to go online and do some extension activities, but we have just been having way to much fun with the other wonderful activities and haven't had a chance to look at the online content. 

I was not compensated for this review by Babbabox, however, I did receive a free box to review.
  All comments  and opinions are my own.

So now it's your chance to WIN a box.  All you need to do is go LIKE Babbaco and Time for Play, on Facebook.
Leave a comment here telling me you have done so, along with your name and email so I can contact you if your the winner.  You can enter until July 31st. This giveaway is only for USA residents.
If you can't wait, or don't win, Babbaco has a special code just for my readers.  You can receive 20% off your first box with the code TFP20OFF. They are also running a Back to School special.  You can recieve 33% off your 1st 3 month membership, that's 20.00 a box (regulaly 29.99).  You all know I'm all about a bargin, gotta love it!  Go to their website Babbaco, and enter TFP33BTS in the Promotion Code Box. 
 So go ahead and enter, someone's gonna win, might as well be YOU!

And our winner is....Melissa Hoang!  Congratulations! You are going to love your FREE Babba Box.

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