Jelly painting

This week we tried painting with jelly crystals! I wasn't sure how this activity was going to turn out but activities involving things we can eat always seem to be successful around here! I grabbed a few different coloured boxes of jelly crystals from the supermarket (Homebrand ones were about 40 cents each so it worked out to be quite a cheap activity in the end) and then mixed about half of each packet with a small amount of water. Then I let the kids loose! They could choose whether they wanted to use paintbrushes or their hands to do the painting. The paint left little crystals on the paper which the kids found interesting. I would have saved the drawings so we could check if they smelt nice when dry but alas the ants got to them first ;)

Esme started out by using the paintbursh to draw on the paper...

But it didn't take long for her to figure out that this 'paint' was quite tasty and painting was quickly abandoned in favour of licking the paintbrush and fingers!

Jacob tried dipping his fingers in and making dots on the paper

It took him a little longer than Esme to work out the 'paint' was edible but then all he wanted to do was eat it!

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Finger Painting

We opted for an easy tactile activity this week - good old fashioned finger paint! It's really easy to cook up and takes no time at all. I got the kids to mix in some colouring when it was all made. They both really enjoyed the actual painting but got a little funny about having the paint on their hands so I had to provide a bowl of water for them to dip their hands into every so often (hence why the finger paint got a little watered down!!)

Esme looks a little uncertain about getting her hands into the paint!

Jacob got right into it all, as per usual, making lots of swirls and dots with his hands

We made lots of different coloured paint - red, blue, yellow and green.

And of course, we had to take prints off the paint when we were all done :)

Fingerpaint

Ingredients
1 cup cornflour
cold water
3 cups boiling water
food colouring

Method
Blend cornflour with a little cold water. Add boiling water. Boil for 1 minute until clear - make sure you stir though, our fingerpaint got a little lumpy! Add food colouring.

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Coffee filter painting

I recently read on another blog about painting on coffee filters. It sounded so interesting that we had to give it a go! Our experimentations did not yield exactly the same results but we had a lot of fun trying! I didn't realise at the time but the coffee filters I bought were brown so the results are not quite as vivid as they should be!

The paint - we started off with water with food colours added but that wasn't really bright enough so we swapped to powdered tempera paints

Jacob enjoyed painting with all the different colours

The end result. - Mummy ended up joining in so that's why some of them look a little different!!

As always, we had lots of fun! And that's what it's all about - even if it didn't exactly turn out quite as expected!

Science experiments with Daddy

Last week we visited Daddy at work and conducted some special science experiments with him. Daddy works in a chemistry lab at a university. It's always an exciting experience to visit him at work as we usually only go a couple of times a year (usually when it's school holidays and we don't have as much to do!) It's a bit of a novelty for the kids to go into the city. They are constructing a new building next to Daddy's at the moment too and the kids love watching all the machinery working.

We got some lunch from the bakery and took it to a local park to eat. When we got back to the lab after lunch it was time to do some experiments! We made slime (a different slime to the one we made a few weeks ago) and watched a sugar volcano.

SLIME

Lots of fun was had making this slime (and putting it all over everything at home when we came home!) First we added all our ingredients and then the kids helped to mix it all up. It was interesting seeing the reactions taking place. It went from a liquid to a solid as we mixed it. The best part though was getting to feel it - as you can see by Jacob's face!

Slime (the scientific way!)

Ingredients

50 mL 6% PVA
10mL 4% borax
food colouring

Method

Mix the PVA and 3-4 drops of food colouring in a glass container (the slime will stick to plastic!) then add the borax and start stirring. When the slime starts to stick together, tip it out into your hands and gently knead it until it gives the right consistency. If it's too wet and slippery, add a little bit more borax. If it's crumbly, add a little bit more PVA.

And for the non-scientific method (aka the one you can make at home!)

Mix 1 teaspoon borax in 1 cup of water. Stir until the borax is dissolved. In a separate container, mix 1/2 cup white glue (PVA) with 1/2 cup water. Add 3-4 drops of food coloring, if desired. Mix the two solutions together and stir. The slime will start to form immediately. Once the slime is well formed, start to knead it with your hands (out of the bowl!) Some water may be left over in the bowl.

SUGAR VOLCANO

Here's what happens when you add sulphuric acid to sugar. Nothing much at first but then the sugar starts to dehydrate which produces steam and heat (a lot of heat!) Eventually it turns into carbon (which is what the kids are touching in the last picture). Even I was interested in seeing all this happen.

Sugar volcano

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
50mls sulphuric acid

Method

Put the sugar in a bowl and pour the sulphuric acid over the top. We don't recommend you try this at home though, this experiment was done under a fume hood at Daddy's work.

And finally, I just thought I would add this picture of Chris and Jacob. Jacob really loves his Daddy and had such a great time doing special things at his work with him.



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Musical glasses

Today we did a different sort of tactile activity. This time focusing on sound. We filled some glasses with different levels of water and created our own musical instrument! Each glass made a different sound when it was hit with a pencil. The kids really enjoyed this activity. Check out how much fun they had.



Not only did they enjoy listening to the different sounds the glasses made they also enjoyed making the different coloured water and pouring it into each glass. Then Jacob helped to line up the glasses from fullest to emptiest. So many learning opportunities!

Just a note: the glasses actually made a better sound when Mummy hit them ;) But I think the difference in sound is still demonstrated quite well when the kids did it. And they were happy with the sound which is all that really matters in the end!

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Threading

The other day the kids and I did some creating with our homemade version of modeling clay. I just thought I'd post some pictures of what they looked liked after they had been painted. That was a whole other activity in itself!

After they had all dried we got to do our threading activity. Jacob really enjoyed it. It was easy enough for him to do without getting frustrated and he enjoyed being able to use things he'd made as well. You can see how the threading turned out below!

Slime

This week we've been playing with slime! Jacob really loved this activity and spent ages playing with it. The slime has quite a pleasant texture, much nicer than the goop we made a couple of months ago!

Jacob scoops up some slime and watches as he tips it back into the container.

I put out a whole heap of different kitchen utensils for the kids to use in it, including ladles, scoops, spoons and a whole funnel. The favourite thing was this though, a waterwheel. Jacob was quite interested in watching the slime ooze down onto the wheels to make them move.

Watching the slime drip from his hand

Rubbing his hands together to see what the slime felt like. Jacob kept saying it felt like 'shampoo' and all soapy.

Here's the recipe in case you want to try it yourself!

Slime

Ingredients

1 cup Lux soap flakes
2 litres of warm water
Food colouring

Method

Dissolve soap flakes in warm water in a large plastic container. Add food colouring. Allow mixture to stand until it becomes thick; add more water if necessary (I made ours a couple of hours beforehand but it probably would have been better left longer, even overnight!)

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Window painting

I haven't really been feeling like doing much lately so this week I opted for an easy activity with the kids - window painting! The kids loved it because they thought they were doing something they weren't allowed to! I used powdered tempera paint for the paint as I had some old containers of it lying around (you can buy tempera paint from art and craft shops though - they are useful for a whole lot of different kid's activities which I'll hopefully get around to doing in the next few weeks).

Jacob and Esme get to work!

Window art - we used blue, green and red paint. The kids enjoyed mixing up the colours and seeing what other colours they could make too.

The great bit about this activity is that the clean up is just as much fun as the actual activity - give the kids paintbrushes with water and they are happy to 'paint' it off!

The finished products!

A few weeks ago we did some papermache. Well, we finally got around to finishing them and painting them. Here are some pictures of the work in progress and the finished products.




Esme needed a bit of help to paint hers but Jacob did his almost entirely by himself - I was very impressed! I think they turned out pretty well in the end. Don't you?

Painting the giraffe finally inspired me to write a Zoo book for the kids from all our recent Zoo excursions. Jacob loves it, I have already read it to him many times on the computer (Daddy still has to print it so I can laminate it and bind it, he'd better hurry up ;))

Pasta prints

We seem to be developing a bit of a theme lately around tactile activities with food! A couple of weeks ago we did some painting with condensed milk. This week we tried our hand at some pasta prints. I cooked up a whole lot of spaghetti and pasta (adding a few drops of food colouring to each lot to make it a different colours) and let it cool. The idea is that the cooled spaghetti sticks to the paper and you can make pictures out of it. I realised afterwards that it's probably a more appropriate activity for older kids who have the coordination to make a proper picture but nonetheless my kids enjoyed feeling the texture of the pasta and of course, eating handfuls of it!! Please excuse the blueness of these photos - that's what happens when you put a blue tarp down on a sunny day!





Be warned: the pasta makes an awful mess when traipsed around the house ;) I usually do these activities outside but for some reason decided to do this one inside. I think I was still finding bits of pasta days later!

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Sponge printing

I found these great natural sea sponges while I was in Bunnings the other day and thought they would be fun for the kids to paint with. They are all slightly different and made different patterns on the paper which the kids found interesting.

I set up the easel and let the kids go for it. Both of them got involved and did lots of painting (which we will later use for wrapping paper ;))


Of course, this inevitably led to experimentation. This is Esme asking very politely if she can paint the slide...

Of course I let her. After all, the paint does wash off and they had so much fun!



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Painting with condensed milk

I did have another post planned but we did this yesterday and I couldn't resist not sharing straight away. Yesterday we painted with...condensed milk! I used to do it quite a bit with the kids I taught but I hadn't been quite brave enough for the huge, sticky mess that would result with my kids doing it. It was such a beautiful day here yesterday though that I didn't mind doing it and then stripping off the kids if they got really dirty ;)

All I did was pour a little of the condensed milk onto plates and then add a drop or two of food colouring which the kids mixed in. It makes a beautiful marbling effect as the colour is being mixed in and is a great way of experimenting with mixing colours.




Esme discovered that if you shake your hands with the condensed milk on them that it floats in the air a little while before landing (kind of like making fairy floss, if you have ever seen that being done!)


I was really surprised that the kids didn't even attempt to eat it until I mentioned something about tasting it. Then, of course, Esme couldn't stop licking her fingers ;) Jacob was more interested in painting with it though which I was really surprised about. Look at Esme - butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, would it?


We made some beautiful pictures - condensed milk goes all beautiful and glossy when it's dry (just make sure you keep it away from ants because they like to eat it. Trust me, I speak from experience ;))


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