Ooblek!

When I taught second grade, we did this activity when we learned about matter. When you make Ooblek, you can pick up chunks of it and put it in your hand and then it will "melt" and drip between your fingers. Is it a solid? Is it a liquid?

I let my kids explore with craft sticks at first and then they were loving getting their hands in it. One of our favorite things to do was put our whole hand, palm down, in the middle of the pie plate and have the Ooblek suck your hand down and then it was hard to get your hand back out.

I threw some buttons from our last snowman craft (can you believe that I hadn't cleaned up yet ;) ) in the Ooblek, pushed them down so they were covered, and had them have a treasure hunt. They had a ton of fun.

Ooblek

1 cup corn starch

2/3 cup water

you can add food coloring in as well if you want

This is a VERY MESSY activity. My suggestion is to do it right before you plan on cleaning anyways HAHA!

The Snowman Melted

My son did this activity at preschool and thought it was hilarious, so he wanted to do it again with his little sister. You get some wax paper and make a puddle of glue in the middle. Then you place googley eyes, yarn for a scarf, orange pipe cleaner for nose, sticks for arms, felt or construction paper for a hat, buttons etc in the puddle. Wait a few days for it to dry and peel off of the wax paper. You can fool your friends by tossing it places and pretending it is an actual melted snowman. Such a HOOT! Ours haven't dried yet, but you get the idea.

Supplies needed:

wax paper

glue

orange pipe cleaner

buttons

felt

construction paper

googley eyes

yarn

Our Plan Might Be Working!!

Look what is happening right now...SNOW! I don't have the heart to tell the kids that we are supposed to get less than half an inch. They are so excited though. :)

Glittery Snow flakes

Do you see a theme with our crafts lately? The kids are dying for some significant snowfall here. We decided to make some snowflakes made out of glue and glitter. I outlined a snowflake in glue on some wax paper and we glittered the heck out of it. Again we waited until the next day for it to dry and I gently peeled it off of the wax paper. I actually dabbed a bit of glue from the hot glue gun and glued it to our kitchen window, but couldn't get a good picture of them to save my life. So close your eyes and imagine a sparkling, clean window with some beautiful glittered snowflakes. HA! If we can't have snow and snowmen outside, we'll make our own inside. :)

Supplies needed:

glue

glitter

wax paper

Puffy Snowmen

We made 2 dimensional snowmen yesterday and today we decorated them. The snowmen are made out of:

1/3 cup salt
1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup water

you can also add paint if you want it colored

We used brushes and a mustard bottle (from my son's football birthday party) to put it on the poster board and we let it dry overnight. Today we used play doh for carrot noses (we made them yesterday so they could harden as well), felt, googley eyes and sticks from our bushes outside for arms. They turned out really well and the kids really enjoyed making them! The salt even makes them glitter.

Supplies Needed:

puffy paint for snowmen (see recipe above)

play doh

googley eyes

felt

sticks

Our very own printing press :)

All you need to do is use a bunch of foam stickers on a piece of cardboard and then use a roller (the small foam craft size) or a foam brush to brush on some white paint and then put a sheet of paper over it and press all over with your hands. I think we will use hearts for Valentine's Day. Note to self...try making wrapping paper with it next Christmas. It turned out so cute!

Supplies needed:

paint

foam stickers

cardboard

foam brush or roller

Setting the Table...

The kids love to help set the table. In an effort to not have a pile of utensils and napkins on the table, I figured they should learn to do it properly. We now each have placemats that show where everything goes. I used a manilla file folder to cut out the pattern for the utensils, plates, cup, and napkin and could then just trace them and cut them out. We used foam sheets as the placemats and colored paper/scrapbook paper. I then used my label maker to identify what everything is in words (who knew a discussion about the why the word knife starts with kn- instead of n- could go on so long ;) ) Then we covered everything with contact paper. This way we can actually eat on them and they will be a snap to wipe up.

supplies needed:

foam sheets

colored paper/scrapbook paper

scissors

manilla folder to trace the things

contact paper

Patterned bird feeder

While my son was with my husband at the Home Depot kid's clinic this morning, my daughter and I decided to make a snack for the birds with her Fruity Cheerios cereal. We put her cereal on pipe cleaners and then put them on the branches of our tree by our deck so we could also enjoy some bird watching. We put the cereal in the pipe cleaners in simple patterns and she loved it. She also loved having a snack herself. :)

Supplies needed:

cereal with holes
pipe cleaners

Crazy faces!!

I gathered some catalogues and magazines a few days ago and cut out some hair, eyes, noses, mouths, and ears. These parts were from people, animals and cartoon characters. We put piles of these parts on our table and the kids made their own crazy faces. They thought it was hilarious!

Supplies needed:

magazines and catalogues

scissors

glue sticks

paper

The best lights display!!

We finally went to see the lights at our local zoo. They start right after Thanksgiving and run until January 3rd. There are over 1 million lights and, I must say, I would definitely not want to be one of the ones to take them all down. :)

They had a train display and around the lake they had an animated musical lights display. The kids LOVED it. The animated musical lights display was a huge hit!!

New Aprons for the Kids

I meant to make these and put them in their stockings. Had I known how little time they took, I would have done it one evening after they went to bed. From pulling out my sewing machine to cleaning up my scraps, it took about 30 minutes to do both of them. I got the idea from Family Fun. I bought 2 dish towels at Target and threw these together. The kids really needed them as they both tend to wipe off their hands on their shirts starting at the neck and then down to their knees. :)

New Years Eve craft--My noise makers make noise makers :)

We made noise makers out of empty water bottles. The first thing we did was cover the bottle with glue and then put white tissue paper squares all over it. Then we covered the tissue paper with a coating of glue and let it dry. We used a funnel to put the beans inside that we used to make our bean bags and glued the cap on the bottle. Then we used colored tissue paper to decorate it more and let that dry with yet another coat of glue on the top of it all. We used ribbon to tie around the top as streamers and tied a few jingle bells to them. :) I have told the kids that they won't be dry until Wednesday, just in time for their New Year's party. hee hee

Supplies needed:

empty water bottle

tissue paper

glue

beans or rice

funnel

ribbons

jingle bells

Chocolate kiss pretzels

All of the Christmas candy was on sale at the grocery store for half off so I picked up a bag of the silver, red, and green Hershey kisses. We put one kiss on one pretzel. We used the traditional small pretzels because we had them already, but the woven square ones would work well too. You can put them in the oven on low at 170 degrees for 4-6 minutes or put them in the microwave for a minute. Then we pushed the tops of the kisses down to flatten them, put sprinkles on them them and then popped in the fridge to cool and harden. These are also very good with chocolate and caramel rolos.....yummy.

Christmas cookies for Santa!!

I needed a new sugar cookie recipe because I was unhappy with the one I usually used, so my friend Jenn offered hers up and boy are they delicious!!

Jenn's Cookie recipe

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 t vanilla extract

1.) in medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt, set aside. In large bowl with electric mixer at high speed beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. At low speed, gradually beat in reserved flour mixture just until incorporated. Divide dough in half; shape each half into a disk. Wrap disks tightly in wax paper. Refrigerate about 1 hour, or until firm enough to roll out.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees lightly grease baking sheets

3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes


Basic Icing:
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup heavy cream or milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Santa will surely be happy to stop at this house to have a nice snack and a glass of milk. I hope he likes sprinkles... ;)

Craft Stick Christmas tree

Christmas tree season will soon be over, so we had to hurry and get this craft in before the big guy in red came. I was inspired by this Christmas tree craft from this site. First we glued some craft sicks to make the tree. I cut the craft sticks with a pair of scissors to make them shorter. Then we colored the tree with markers and glued sequins on them and a yellow pom pom for the star. How festive!

Supplies needed:

craft sticks

markers

glue

scissors

yellow pom pom

sequins

Happy Birthday to me!

Look at how crafty my husband is. This is the cake he made for my birthday today. Yes, that is LuckyMe! on the computer screen. :) Ahhh, the joys of a fondant computer.

Home made wrapping paper

Both of my kids are getting each other presents for Christmas and they wanted to make their own wrapping paper this year. We drew a squiggley line across a 4 foot piece of easel paper and we used sponges cut out as Christmas lights and giant ink pads to decorate the paper. It looks so cute!!

Supplies needed:

sponges

sharp scissors

easel paper

ink pads

Reindeer food

Adding to the magic of Christmas, we made reindeer food with oatmeal and glitter. We used Christmas stamps and decorated a white bag and mixed the oatmeal and glitter inside. We will throw it on the front lawn on Christmas eve. Here is a cute little poem for it too...

The Reindeer Food we made today will help Rudolph and the others find their way!

Just sprinkle it on the lawn and throw some in the air,

And Santa's sleigh will soon be there!

The oats are a snack for the reindeer to eat,

And the glitter will guide them right to your street!

Supplies needed:

Oatmeal

glitter

bag

Fun with Foam Stickers!!

We have been reading a different Christmas or winter themed book every night before bed for the month of December. All of these books have snow involved in some way. The kids have been talking about snow all the time and they can't wait until it finally happens. Today, we played with a couple of foam sticker sets. And they made snowman door hangers for their bedrooms and a winter scene on foam sheets. They had a ball with these. I can tell this because of the huge mess it made HAHA...

It was pretty funny to watch though because my 5 year old was telling a winter story as he was putting his winter scene together..."This penguin lives in the igloo and he must be in the Antarctic because that is where penguins live."

Hopefully this has satisfied their desire for snow at least for a little while...

Supplies needed:

Foam sheets

foam stickers

Painted glass ornaments 2

I finally convinced my children that you didn't always need to use brushes when we have paint. I had my kids pick 2 colors of paint and then we put a puddle of each color inside the glass ornament and they had to tilt the ornament all over in order to have the paint cover the entire inside. My son decided that his looked like the earth. :) They all look really cool.

supplies needed:

paint (I used tempera)

clear glass ornaments (I got mine from Michael's)