A Glorious Mess Part II - Heart Stamps

 As I said in the original post, I had intended the soap bubble prints to be the foundation of Valentine's Day cards for family and friends.  While the finished product was nothing like the example that I found online, they were colorful and fun, and 100% Lucy-created.  So I decided to soldier on with the project.  This was phase two - decorating the bubble-painted cards with toilet paper roll, heart-shaped stamps.  This is a super-easy, fun project. 

Materials:
One or two toilet paper rolls
Tape
paint
paper

Instructions:
-Smoosh the toilet paper roll into a heart shape and tape into place
-Squirt some (washable) paint onto a plate
-give your little artist the stamps and the paint and let creation ensue

Again, Lucy did her own thing.  She did a few stamps like this:

But most ended up fingerpainted with hand prints like this:

Happy Valentine's Day...from the toilet paper roll...

A Glorious Mess

I was looking for a fun art project for Lucy that didn't involver her embellishing something I had made, or trying to create something along lines I had drawn.  I am starting to realize that preschoolers don't really do "crafts" so much as they experiment with art.  The best experience for Lucy is me just providing the media and letting her explore the process of making something.

This project looked like a lot of fun to me.  And it was something where there was really no expected "product" so I felt like I could just let her have fun with it.  Turns out it is easier said than done, this allowing the mess to flow without any expectations!  The idea is that you make soap bubble paint solution and blow bubbles.  Then you take pieces of paper and tap them on the bubbles to make fun bubbly prints.  My big plan was to use the paper she decorate to make valentines for grandparents.

You need:
Bubble solution (see below)
a drinking straw
a dish
thick paper (any paper will do, but if you do this project like Lucy did, you'll need something that will stand up to a full-on dunking)
a smock for the kid (maybe one for yourself)
a washable surface to contain the mess
lots of towels

Here is the recipe for the bubble solution:
3 cups of water
1 cup of dish soap
1/4 cup of corn syrup
1/2 cup tempera paint

A word to the wise: use a dish that is AT LEAST 4" deep.  This is a lot of liquid.

True to form, Lucy didn't care one bit about what the project was supposed to be!  We mixed it up together in the kitchen.  "Oooo, gooey!" was her comment as a glopped the paint into the mix.  I spent the whole time we mixed telling her this wasn't for eating for drinking.  We were going to do bubble painting!  As the original poster of this project suggested, I poked a hole in the straw to prevent her from drinking the mixture instead of blowing bubble with it...it didn't work out so well.  I put the dish down, gave her the straw and showed her how to blow the bubbles.  Then I went the 12 steps to the kitchen to get the paper.  Coughing ensues.  I hear a pained (and perhaps a trifle betrayed) little voice say "It doesn't taste good!"  No, sweetie, it soap mixed with paint doesn't taste good, even with corn syrup added.

So after a drink of water, much coughing and a little vomit, we were back to the project. Lucy wanted nothing to do with blowing bubbles this time (which I though would be the most fun), so I was the bubble blower. She dunked the paper, scooped bubbles, painted with the straw, spit, fingerpainted, splashed in the paint and generally did everything but the actual project. After a while I stopped trying to direct the mess and let it flow. What glorious fun!

You can see the remnants of her taste-test on her fac...

And then, an hour later, I notice it is raining on Lucy's art project.  Sigh.

TV-Free Toddler - Tea Flower

Today's TV-Free Activity: Tea Flower Watching
Materials: Clean glass jar, jasmine tea bloom (or other blooming tea ball), hot water, crayons
Ages: 2+
Time Filled: 15 minutes
Note: This is NOT self-directed.  Close supervision required.

You may have noticed a lapse between posts.  I must admit, I have fallen off the TV-Free wagon.  This is because, simply, I have not slept in 5 months.  I had foolishly hoped having a newborn would afford me better sleep than I had been getting while pregnant.  I was enormously uncomfortable, besides just being enormous, and had to pee every 2 hours all night long.  I had this blind, naive hope that Malcolm would be sleeping more than 2 hours at a stretch by this point, but he seems to have regressed to sleeping 90 minutes or less.  So now, while I blessedly don't have to pee all night long, I am still getting up all the time to void liquid, just now it is from my boobs.

Anyway, I digress.

I fell on this activity purely by accident.  I a fun craft in mind for today after lunch, but needed to stop at the craft store for some glitter and glue this morning on the way home from getting Lucy at preschool.  Then, I realized how insanely difficult it is to "stop by" anywhere with two small children.  So I was going to skip TV Free today (again) and clean up the kitchen while she watched 20 minutes of Dora.  I was cleaning up lunch and noticed the box of jasmine tea blooms I had left out from when I went through my extensive tea collection a week or so ago.  These "blooms" are dried jasmine tea tied cleverly so that when the are steeped in hot water, the ball opens to reveal a lovely flower, all while brewing a cup of yummy, fragrant tea.  I thought Lucy would enjoy watching the flower bloom.

Which she did - look at her oozing excitement! :-P  She actually did say "That's really cool, Mama!", so she did think it was fun to watch - only it was taking too long to hold her attention for very long.

What she DID enjoy was drawing on the hot glass with a washable crayon.  She found a yellow crayon on the floor and started to draw on the jar.  I was about to stop her (I thought she would have to push too hard to make a mark and possibly spill the jar of hot water), when I noticed that the heat from the water was melting the crayon.  It was like she was using a mess-free paint brush!  I am not sure if regular crayons would work as well as the washable ones since they are much softer than standard crayons.  And the really cool part is that the crayon literally just wipes right off the jar.

I like this activity for a number of reasons.  1) It uses your senses - watching to flower bloom, feeling the hot glass, smelling the jasmine tea, tasting the tea.  2) It provides an opportunity to talk about being patient and delayed gratification (I am certain my 2 year old is not the only one who has trouble with this).  3) It is a different sort of art project - one that can be wiped off and done over again as many times as you want with little or no mess.  I am sure there are other things that are at work here, but I am too tired to think of them.  Lucy was really focused during this activity.

TV-Free Toddler: Washcloth Soup!

Today's TV-Free Activity - WASHCLOTH SOUP!
Materials: A few large bowls, measuring cups, spoons, wash cloths, towels, water, ice cubes, things that float and things that sink
Age: 2-3 years
Time filled: At least 30 minutes, or until the water ends up all over the floor.  I recommend using this as an enticement to keeping the water where it belongs, as in "once the water is gone, we are all done playing."

So this activity might not be for the faint of heart.  It involves allowing you toddler to play with bowls of water inside.  Well, here in the DC area it is an indoor activity, since the weather has turned cold already.  If you are in warm country, feel free to take it outside.

Here's the set up: Lay a few towels down (a double layer might be a good idea).  I had a few extra foam floor tiles, so I put those down as a water poof surface, in a vain attempt to save our hardwood floors.  Fill a few bowls with water of different temperatures.  Put out a bowl of ice, several mixing and pouring implements, and a bunch of wash cloths.  Then start mixing!  We talked about the different color washcloths, how ice is cold while the water was warm, how to blow bubbles with a straw, that the coaster sinks, but an apple floats.  She poured and mixed and splashed and splashed and poured for a good long time.  The main thing to remember in any sensory activity like this is the refrain "The ______ stays in the ______."  The water stays in the bowl, the rice stays in the bucket, the beans stay in the bin, the WATER STAYS IN THE BOWL!  OR AT LEAST ON THE TOWELS!  THE WATER STAYS ON THE TOWELS, Lucy, or WE ARE DONE PLAYING WITH THE WATER!  That is how it goes at our house.

TV-Free Toddler - Driveway Paints

Today's TV-Free Activity: Driveway Painting!
Materials: Cornstarch, water, food coloring, muffin tin or other small containers, paint brushes
Age Range: 2 years and up
Time filled: An hour or more if you can take it

Here's a step-by-step or making the paint.  Please ignore the half-empty bottle of wine inthe background.  I swear I wasn't drinking.

Fill each muffin...receptacle?...with a generous scoop of cornstarch.

Pour enough water in each...bin?...to completely cover the cornstarch.  Stir well.  You want it to be watery, not a gooey, thick mixture.  I thought I remembered vaguely from cooking with my mom as a kid that the water should be either hot or cold to make the mixing easier.  However, upon further reflection, this was to make mixing the cornstarch into GRAVY easier.  So I don't think it applies here.

Mix in desired colors.  I think using gel food coloring would make more vibrant colors.

After mixing your non-toxic, fully washable (and even edible...if you're into scarfing on straight cornstarch) paint, head out to the nearest paved surface and have fun!  This stuff is great.  After it dries, you can literally brush it off your clothes.  It paints on like this:

And dries like this:

The colors are really much more vibrant that you see here.  I have a crap-tastic camera.

Can you tell she picked her own outfit today?

TV-Free Toddler - Balloon Bonanza

Today's TV-Free Activity: Balloons!

Materials: Several balloons
Age Range: 2-4 years; possibly older
Time filled: 15-20 minutes

We went to a friend's second birthday this past weekend. We left with a belly full of awesome rainbow cake and 2 goodie bags filled with, among other fun things, several balloons. So yesterday after she woke up from her nap, I blew them all up and let her have at it.  Also fun to have on hand are cylindrical pillows to use as a bat and pieces of light-weight fabric to bounce the balloons around on.  This one didn't last as long as I would have liked.  She got bored fairly quickly and went from tossing the balloons to using them to hit the baby in pretty short order.  At least they were balloons and not the drumsticks she tried to hit him with yesterday...