Sticker Lightning Bugs

(4 1/2 Years)

Last Christmas, Bella (our Elf on the Shelf) gave Little Miss and Wild One a going away present.  It was a three-month gift to Kiwi Crate.  These little gift box gems are PERFECT for those times when you want (or need- you know those times) a project that they can work on semi-independently.  Today was the day; we painted, we built, we played with the kinetic sand, we made the volcano erupt- again, and it was only 10:30!  Out came the kit with everything in it.  I handed the kids their bottles, and colored stickers, and let them have fun decorating.

Quick!  Throw in a load of wash, load the dishwasher, start organizing the craft area (again!).  

It took less than ten minutes for them to decorate their bottles.  I thought it was going 

to take two or three minutes, but I saw how carefully they were working and I 

seized the opportunity to get a few chores done.

Wild One created a collage of color, overlapping some stickers.  Whereas, Little Miss 

created rows of the same color, making sure to space them apart ever so slightly.  Twins.

 I love how proud she is of her work!

 I helped them attach the straw, wings and feet.  They added the goggly eyes.

All finished!

 Time to make them fly.

Let's do it again!

 Experimenting the differing rates of speed if the string is held at a steeper decline.  

They loved this.  I did too!  

Easy Erupting Volcanos Using Homemade Play Dough

(4 1/2 Years)

This project is quick to put together, the kids love it and you probably already have everything in the house!  Look at that SMILE!

A few weeks ago we played with paper mache for the first time.   We made these craft bowls to hold our crayons, markers, scissors and glue sticks.  They are surprisingly sturdy.

I was going to have them help me create a paper mache volcano, but I think that maybe overreaching.   The bowls took a lot of dexterity, mainly from squeegeeing the paper and flour mixture through their fingers.  I had visions of Little Miss and Wild One eagerly beginning the project and then their interest go from waning to ending within ten minutes, I'd then be the one working on this project.

Instead, we created a homemade play dough volcano.  I found my inspiration on Pinterest, it's from Ashley West at Education.com.

Materials needed:
A tray with sides (we bought ours at The Dollar Tree)
A plastic water bottle or a small thin flower vase
Playdough (we used some of our old homemade play dough, this stuff stays soft for months- we used the brown play dough from Thanksgiving 2013!  Here 's the recipe.)
Baking soda - 1 Tablespoon
Red food coloring - 3 drops
Dish soap - 3 drops
Vinegar - 1/4 cup (a Pyrex measuring cup makes pouring easy)
Dinosaurs (not essential, but the kids thought it was hilarious that they were getting buried by the lava- hmmm, I'll have to look into that dark side later)

While the kids were busy creating pink Olaf snowmen and smashing rolled play dough letters (can you guess who was doing what?), I started placing the play dough around the water bottle, on top of the tray.  Wild One began helping, asking if he can put the dinosaurs next to the volcano.  Building a volcano out of play dough takes less than five minutes, it takes longer than that just to prepare to build a paper mache volcano.

Once we were all satisfied with our little volcano and dinosaurs.  We began adding the ingredients for our lava.

One tablespoon of baking soda.

Three drops of red food dye.

Three drops of dish soap.

Now the fun part, quickly add the 1/4 cup of white vinegar.

After Little Miss saw how much fun her brother had, she decided that she wanted a turn at pouring in the vinegar.  Take two!

While I was cleaning up our experiment (all I did was pour out the vinegar solution from the tray, and now we can do this again another day), the kidabunks took out their crayons and science journals and began drawing what we did, "Just like Sid the Science Kid Mom!"

Quick, easy, engaging, most of all fun!  Learning through play is really the best way!

UPDATE 8/13/14
We have now recreated this experiment four times!  The dinosaurs are actually stuck in the "lava" (the dried play dough).  Each time we do this, they are still amazed at how quickly the baking soda reacts with the vinegar.  They have experimented with adding extra baking soda, pouring the vinegar fast vs slow, adding baking soda to the outside of the volcano as well as the inside of the volcano.  They discuss their hypotheses before we do the experiment, and then the result of the actual reaction. I love how much fun homeschool preschool is!

Preschool Paper Mache

(4 Years)

Paper mache!  It screams childhood.  Ripping paper.  Mixing flour and water.  Putting your hands in a goopy solution.  Painting the dried creation.  Fun!  Making a paper mache project is a great way to work on so many skills at once, in a playful way of course: ripping in strips (it's harder than it looks for a four-year old),  following directions, hand-eye coordination, measuring, pouring, mixing, transferring, using a paint brush (great practice for writing with a pencil), color mixing, and of course developing those fine motor skills.

They liked the fact that they got to rip paper.  We haven't ripped paper (other than wrapping paper) in a long time.

Look at that smile!  That's right my little one, rip the paper, develop your pincer grip to prepare you for writing.

Measuring the flour and pouring in the water.  We used a 1:1 ratio.  We also added in a teaspoon of salt, it's supposed to make the mixture resistant to mold- at least that's what I was told in school.

Wild One getting wild mixing his solution together.  

I think he thinks that he is one of the kid chefs on Master Chef Jr.  

"It's fun to mix fast.  Do you want to try it?"

"No.  I like mixing slow."

Twins?  Really?

I wrapped a small glass bowl in plastic cling wrap.  Turned it over and modeled how to dip in the strip of paper, squeeze it out between two fingers and then place and smooth the strip down on the bowl, and they were off! 

Look at that concentration!  Wild One is squeezing it out perfectly.  

Little Miss found a short strip of paper to begin with, she loves tiny things.

Goopy!

Ta da!  On the left is the one Little Miss created, on the right is Wild One's. There was about three coats of strips on their bowls.  Let them air dry for two days.

Carefully, pull the cling wrap until the paper mache bowl starts to release.  If the inside of the bowl feels damp, continue to let dry.  Ours was ready after the two days.  I grabbed 

our Dollar Tree muffin tin, some paint, paint brushes and called the kiddos over.

Little Miss was stunned that the paper hardened into a bowl.  She loves painting.  If you don't want to see any of the newsprint, I'd recommend spray painting the bowl a base color first.  

 At first Wild One didn't want to paint.  He changed his mind a few minutes later.

She is painting the rim of her bowl a contrasting color.

Wild One is excited because he created gray.  

He's holding his paint brush like a magic wand.

We let our painted bowls dry and then I sprayed them with a clear coat of spray paint.  Now we have beautiful handmade catch-alls to hold some of most-used art supplies.  They are remarkably sturdy.  I thought we would have to be careful with these, but they dry into a pretty rigid bowl.

When they saw how beautiful they turned out, they asked to do this again.  Yay!  

I just love zero-added cost projects, don't you?