Lately, we have been spending a lot of time playing with rice and dry noodles. I decided to up the fun and colour the rice and pasta. It was relatively easy to do. I just separated the rice into different plastic bags, added a splash of vinegar and then a few drops of food colouring. After mixing everything together, I left the bags sitting open on my kitchen counter for a few days. A few times a day, I would break up any hard chunks in the bags. The pasta took longer to dry, but it could have been a case of too much vinegar.
The kids love mixing, pouring, scooping and serving up the rice. Although the cupcake tin would lead you to believe that we are making cupcakes, Spiderman is really serving up ice cream with various toppings! We took turns roll-playing being the customer and requesting different toppings. It was interesting to see that he remembered which "topping" was suppose to be in which spot. We tackled some simple vocab words such as "more, less, pour, mix" as well as colours.
Sunshine and Lightning McQueen were not interested in our cupcake game. They preferred to mix, pour and transfer the rice into various containers. Lightning is very into spoons right now, so I made sure to have a variety of different types and sizes of "scoopers" for him.
Of course our coloured rice quickly ended up in the "sand" table. Fireman enjoyed mixing the coloured pasta and rice with the water. He was excited to watch it turn back to "white". We talked about the paste that is created when the rice and water combined. We enjoyed filling up our dump trucks and using our front end loaders to pour the rice into various sized bowls.
We often play with rice inside, but it does scatter everywhere. I will usually set up our picnic blanket inside for the rice to stay on. It makes clean up (shaking it outside easy. However today it was beautiful out so we enjoyed some time out on the deck.
This all makes me thing... what else could I dye?
Spiderman (3)
Fireman (3)
Sunshine (18 months)
Lightning McQueen (10 months)
Until next time!
Alicia
When you have group of children who vary in ages and ability levels, it is sometimes hard to find an activity that appeals and is appropriate for everyone. We all love to finger paint. Spider man (3) especially likes to finger paint.
Even though there are a variety of non-toxic finger paints on the market, I still feel better just having the tots use homemade paints. I can't trust Princess (17 months) and Lightning McQueen (10 months) enough to be sure that they are not ingesting a copious amount of non-toxic store bought paint.
Home made finger paint:
2 cups of water
1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs sugar
A few drops off food colouring or jello powder.
Heat all of the ingredients (except for the food colouring) on the stove until it is smooth. Split into containers and add the food colouring. This finger paint is a little bit thicker making it easier to glob, spread and spear on a variety of surfaces. Spider man (3 y/o) and Sunshine (3 y/o) usually like to help make the paint while the babies sleep. I store it in the fridge for about 3 days. The kids love taking this paint outside to paint our water table, deck, toys and bins. It also works on paper, however you need to let the papers dry for a long time after. Lightning McQueen and Princess usually enjoy painting the inside of my white basins. When we are done, we all clean up and spray everything off with the hose. Any clothes that are coloured usually get stain spot treatment and thrown into the washer on a rinse cycle. We have yet to create any stains.
Another popular "finger paint" is home made pudding. Sometimes I just mix it with coco so we have brown pudding. Other times, I make vanilla pudding and add a little bit of food colouring to it. The kids love licking their fingers while creating their masterpieces. Although I do let the kids pudding paint on paper, we have yet to keep a pudding masterpiece.
Another method of finger painting I have tried with the little tots (I usually do this when the bigger tots are painting with brushes and other tools), is painting in a bag. I add a sheet of paper, and paint to the inside of a bag, then tape it down with painters tape and let the little tots go. After they get board with the painting, they usually put their fine motor skills to work and tear the tape off of their trays in an effort to free their painting.
Until next week,
Alicia
Lately, we have been spending a lot of time playing with rice and dry noodles. I decided to up the fun and colour the rice and pasta. It was relatively easy to do. I just separated the rice into different plastic bags, added a splash of vinegar and then a few drops of food colouring. After mixing everything together, I left the bags sitting open on my kitchen counter for a few days. A few times a day, I would break up any hard chunks in the bags. The pasta took longer to dry, but it could have been a case of too much vinegar. 
Sunshine and Lightning McQueen were not interested in our cupcake game. They preferred to mix, pour and transfer the rice into various containers. Lightning is very into spoons right now, so I made sure to have a variety of different types and sizes of "scoopers" for him. 
