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Showing posts with label toddler activity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toddler activity. Show all posts

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Toy Thursday: Homemade Doodle Board

Judah and I have been playing with our homemade doodle board the last few days to pass the time. This is another activity that can be used simply for fun or to add as a tool for learning. It is super easy to put together and the results are endless.

I found the idea off of Pinterest at the Hippie Housewife. To make our own though I used washable finger paints in a Ziploc freezer bag taped down by clear packing tape onto our plastic table cloth (use blue painter's tape directly to wood table). To do this I poured a generous amount of primary colors into the different areas of the bag. We noticed the more paint you use the more fun you have. Before taping the bag down, I smoothed out any and all air bubbles. I used a light color piece of paper underneath to brighten the background and to catch any messes that may happen. Then I sealed the edges of the paper and the bag off with packing tape.


Judah understood the concept right away as he mixed the colors together like finger painting only mess free. To make designs, you take your finger and draw lines through the paint. To erase your drawings, just lightly smooth out the paint. This is how we doodled our letters and shapes as well as made hand prints. Judah then pretended it was mud and drove his trucks over the bags for road effects.

We left the doodle boards up for several days so that Judah could go back to it to play. We did have one scratch and I simply taped over it with clear packing tape. The colors mixed together. Since the paint remained wet inside the bag, you could totally undo the doodle board and use the paint for a real finger paint project.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Toy Thursday: Indoor Snow!


If the weather is keeping you indoors because of the cold but the kids are bothering you to play in the snow, fear not because there is a solution to this problem. You can make indoor snow!

A few weeks ago, I talked about how much fun it is to have your kids help wash toys. Here is another spin on the idea but with making foam out of dish soap. Your kids can still have fun cleaning their toys. And you have a fun activity to help pass those long days indoors.

After finding the idea off of You Pinspire Me and knowing Judah likes to play with bubbles when we wash his toys, we made indoor snow to play. We put 1/3 cup warm water with several squirts of Dawn dish soap into the food process to blend. And we got a white foam, ideal for play.



I put the foam into a display plastic tray lid so that he could drive his cars around. After a while the foam soap would turn into a small water puddle. We would then keep adding more foam mixtures for additional play. We learned that the longer you blend the mixture, the better foam you get. Judah played with his foam for 2.5 hours until lunch time and even then he made a fuss about putting it away. Once we were finally done though, we wiped up and rinsed off the toys and the food processor to put away for another time. The mess was minimal as he did not get soaked like he does when washing his toys.

This activity provided so much entertainment and it was easy enough to do, that I highly recommend using it to pass the winter blahs. Indoor snow can be fun and so easy.

For additional outdoor fun indoors, check out Indoor Sandbox. And for ways to minimize mess even more, check out Make Less Mess.
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