DIY: Children's Activities Part 3

With Liam being on doctor's orders to stay home until Monday, we have already enjoyed two days off together and we are going to need some fun projects to keep us busy for the rest of the weekend.  We will definitely be engaged in one or more of these activities!  I have been wanting to do the alphabet train one for awhile now, but we also will pick and artsy craft as well :)  Please submit any and all suggestions to me!  We love to stay engaged in all kinds of fun new activities!

Alphabet Train

Borrowed from Kiwicrate.com

I absolutely love the idea of this one!  It is both fun, time consuming, hands on, and a great learning experience!









Supplies:
Paper
Alphabet Letters (Of you can just draw your own letters onto the paper)
Items from around the house that start with all of the letters in the alphabet!  

Directions: 
Lay out the paper in a "train" and add the letters!  Now go around and find the items that match up with the letters.

 Salt Painting

This is a great and easy way to have a fun painting time at home with not too much of a mess.  I have seen a lot of people try this and similar things out in the past and have been wanting to try it with Liam since he is totally into creating different works of art. 







Supplies:
-Construction paper/cardstock
-Paintbrush and/or medicine dropper
-Colored water (we used about a tablespoon of water with 6-7 drops of food coloring)
-Salt
-Glue
-Little bowls for colored water



Directions:
Have your child draw a picture with glue.Then sprinkle the glue with salt.  We did this on top of a piece of cardboard, but a baking sheet will work well too. Next have your child take a paintbrush or a medicine dropper and drop colored water, one drop at a time onto the salt.
Some tips: Make sure they lightly touch the salt with the brush.  It also helps to have a bowl to clean the brush in between colors...otherwise you lose the colors start blending together and you lose the vibrant colors because they become murky. 

Jello Ocean Bath

Borrowed from growingajeweledrose.com

 

 

 Messy activities in the bath are such a fantastic idea.  You get to be all messy and yet you don't have a huge mess to clean up!  Also if the mess is too much, just rinse it out and then wash your child up as they are already in the bathtub playing!  Liam loves the bathtub anyway, so I know he would love this activity!










Supplies:
4 Boxes Blue Raspberry Jello
Small bag of Smooth Round Stones (Such as used for candle accents)
Variety of sea life toys

Directions:
Let the jello set up.  Put it into the bottom of the tub and add some warm water to make the bath warm enough to play in.  Add the stones and toys and let them get in and have a ball.  This makes for a great sensory and learning experience! 

Cardboard Tube Owls

Borrowed from Kiwicrate.com

I have been saving up toilet paper rolls in hopes of a fun activity to come along to use them up in when I came across this one.  Owls are so much fun and Liam loves playing with googly eyes!  This seems fairly easy and minimal mess kind of activity and I need to use up these toilet paper rolls! 







Supplies:
Cardboard tubes (1 for each owl if toilet paper, 2 owls per paper towel)
Scrap Paper
Pipe Cleaners
Googly Eyes
Felt
Tacky Glue

Directions:
Fold the top of the toilet paper rolls down toward the middle to form the owls ears.
Cut up various scraps of textured and colored paper, pipe cleaners, and felt scraps to use for the craft. Cut the orange felt into little triangles to use for the beak.  Apply glue to the various textured papers and pipe cleaners.  If  you  use Q-tips to dip into your glue it can make a lot less mess with younger children.  Attach wings, textures, beak, googly eyes, and any other decorations you want to use. Beads and buttons would be fun too.


If you would like to see the past DIY activities that we have completed together, check them out here:

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle