Our first activity this week was drip painting. To do this, you need a dropper or straw (depending on skill level), watered down paint, paper and preferably something to put the paper in.
Then all you do is use your droppper to suck up some paint and then squirt it onto the paper. The farther away, the better the results!
Finished product
Samir started Mother's Day Out this week and attends on Tuesdays. He also moved up a class and has new teachers and a few new procedures. One of these procedures is napping on a mat and not in a crib. Needless to say, his first day he didn't take a nap. This activity was perfomed with a sleepy toddler, so we kept it simple!
I found this kit at target for $2. Samir loves cats and dogs and I love magnets, so it was a good match!
He worked hard for about 20 minutes, then fell asleep not long after :)
On Wednesday we tried marbled paper with shaving cream. I have found a few different ways to make marbled paper and we'll be trying them all over summer break. To make it with shaving cream, you use an old cake pan and fill it with shaving cream. Then you drop some food coloring in and use a popsicle stick to swirl it. We didn't have popsicle sticks, but we did have plastic silverware.
This was our first pan.
Use a heavy paper (we used posterboard) and sit it on top. You'll have to mush it a little bit to pick up all the colors. If you lift it up and aren't happy with the results, just place it back down and mush a little more.
As you pull it out of the pan, wipe off the excess shaving cream on the side of the pan.
To make more, just squirt a little more shaving cream on top of what you have and repeat.
The next day we did our Father's Day gifts. I made a coupon book that had coupons for things like car cleaning, dog walking, uninterrupted naps and golf games. I used card stock as a cover and stitched up the side to make it into a booklet. Then we decorated it.
I had to help Samir with the front so it would look like grapes :)
This was our first time using a stamp pad, so on the back I let Samir go to town with his own inspirations!
We also decorated a coffee cup that I picked up at Michael's for $1.50. I wrote "#1 Daddy" on it and then let Samir decorate the rest. We filled it with chocolate to give to Oussama.
Our last activity this week was making colored pasta. I found the recipe on the internet. Use 1/4 cup alcohol, 10-20 drops food coloring and half a cup pasta. I eyeballled it and was pretty happy with the results. I gave Samir the job of shaking the bags which he seemed to enjoy! You're supposed to let it soak for a minute, but I think ours was more like 5 minutes. The worst that could happen is your pasta gets more color!
We used elbow macaroni, alphabet pasta, penne and some type of tube pasta. I want to use these for some art projects next week, but am also taking them as a distraction on vacation. Samir can get some fine motor skills practice stringing them on yarnand the whole family can have some lovely jewelry too :)
After they soak, dish them out with a slotted spoon and let them dry on paper bags. The recipe called for on hour drying time, but I left them overnight. Once again, what's the worst that could happen?
