DIY Toddler Activities Part 6

After a long weekend in the house, I keep wondering why Liam and I didn't get more DIY projects done, so now it is time to plan for next weekend!  Here are some of the great ideas that I have come across, please feel free to share any of your own activities as well!

Nature Names Craft

littlefamilyfun.com

This is such an excellent idea for teaching letters in names and for playing outside.  I love thus one.

Supplies
Cardstock
Glue
Nature items

Directions
Hand each person a brown paper lunch-sack or even a plastic bag
Go out in nature (your backyard, a park, campground, the beach, anywhere!) and find things that you can use to create the letters of your name: such as sticks, rocks, leaves, grass, pine needle, flowers, berries, shells, bark, dirt etc.
On a piece of cardstock, write your name (or have it prewritten).
Use glue to get your nature items to stick to each letter to spell your name!

Pasta & Beads Bracelets

Kiwicrate.com

Yay, we can finally use our Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta for fun :)








SuppliesPipe Cleaners
Pasta
Pony Beads

Directions
Start off with a loop fastened at the bottom of the pipe cleaner there is an end to catch the beads as you work.  Bead the pipe cleaners to make their bracelets! This activity also works on fine motor skills too: fitting the beads on the pipe cleaners.  Once you are about 3/4 of the way up the pipe cleaner, take the end of the pipe cleaner through the hole to latch them together and weave the excess pipe cleaner through the last bead.

Fire Truck Collage

busybeekidscrafts.com

My son has an insane love of all things firetruck.  In fact I am already planning his December birthday party to be firetruck themed.  So of course I had to jump at this opportunity when I cam across it.








Supplies
Printed Fire Truck Template (or you can freehand your own)
Construction paper
Glue
Scissors
Yellow Straws (or pipe cleaners)
Black paint and brush
Something sparkly for the light like sequins or glitter glue

Directions
Trace the template onto red construction paper and cut it out. Cut out the windows from the template (they will be white if you printed the template out on white paper). Glue the windows in place on the red fire truck and glue the fire truck onto a piece of construction paper.
Use straws (or pipe cleaners) to make the ladder. Cut two long pieces for the sides, and small pieces for the rungs. Glue in place on your fire truck.
Glue something glittery to the top of the truck for the flashing light. You can use a glittery pom pom, a few sequins or glitter glue. 
Now it's time to paint on the wheels with black paint! If you don't want to use paint in your collage you can also cut wheels from black paper to stick on, or you can buy self-adhesive foam and just stick the wheels on!

Salt Painting

http://jugglingwithkids.com

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. 
I keep wanting to do this one and find that I need to buy salt haha.






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. 


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

Homemade Liquid Sidewalk Chalk

Penguin Activity Game

Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta

Cardboard Owls

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

DIY: Activities for Toddler Part 4

As I sit here on a Friday night planning on fun things for Liam and I to do I always turn to my DIY lists and try to choose at least 1 activity a weekend.  Since we were able to accomplish a couple, it was time to find some new activities to add to the list.  I am still working on a few oldies but I found some spectacular new goodies :)  Enjoy!  Please feel free to add any suggestions you have so that we can try them out!

Bunny Collage

www.busybeekidscrafts.com

I love how simple and adorable this is!  Plus the supplies are easy to come by and uses stuff we already have around the house :)








Supplies:
Construction Paper
White Paint
Q-Tips
Shallow container/paper plate
Cotton Balls
Scissors
Glue
Black Marker

Directions:
Cut out a green strip of "grass" and glue it onto a piece of sky blue paper.
Pour some white paint into a shallow container or paper plate. Make your Bunnies out of two thumb prints. One for the head, and one for the body. Make as many bunnies as you'd like, anywhere in the meadow.
Break off the ends of your Q Tips and glue them on top of your thumb prints to make the bunny's ears. Glue on a small wad of cotton ball for the tail.
Cut out a sun from yellow construction paper and glue in on your scene. When the paint is dry, draw on the eyes, nose and whiskers.
Other options to add to your collage are green pieces of tissue paper stuck on as grass, or cotton ball clouds, be creative!

 Salt Painting

http://jugglingwithkids.com

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. 
I keep wanting to do this one and find that I need to buy salt haha.






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. 

 Feed The Penguins Learning Game

 

littlefamilyfun.com

I can't lie, I am very excited about this activity.  Liam also has an obsession for the Swedish clay-mation show Pingu.  So he is totally into penguins.  Also we can throw learning in with counting and letters on the fish :)  What a spectacular idea. 













Supplies:
Cardboard Box (about Graham Cracker box sized)
Construction Paper (Black, White, Orange)
Goggle Eyes (2)
Scissors
Tape
Glue

Directions:
Wrap the black construction paper around the box. I only used 1 piece, so it didn't cover the top, bottom or the back of the box. But that's ok. :)
Cut an oval shaped hole for the mouth. It doesn't have to be perfect, just big enough for the fish to fit in.  (You'll want to leave paper off the top of the box so that you can get the fish out after they get put in.)
For the beak, cut a square out of orange construction paper. Then cut an oval shaped hole in the middle.  Tape the beak onto the penguin.
Glue 2 googly eyes on the penguin (or cut eyes out of paper and glue them on).
Cut out a white oval for the stomach and glue it on.
Cut out 2 orange feet and glue them onto the bottom of the box.
Cut out 2 black, oval flaps for the wings and tape one on each side.

For the FISH:

Just draw a fish shape onto a piece of paper and cut it out (Make sure it's small enough to fit in your penguin's mouth). Then use that fish as a template and draw some more fish on a piece of construction paper. Then place 2-3 MORE pieces of construction paper underneath and cut out the fish. (Saves time cutting out 3-4 at a time!)
Once you have all your fish, get a black marker and draw a dot for the eye and a little smile on each fish.
Then draw on whatever concept you want to teach: SHAPES, NUMBERS, LETTERS, MATH, WORDS, etc.
(Optional): For extra durability, laminate the fish so you can use them in other games later! (I actually just used clear contact paper).

Jello Ocean Bath

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!  I have found it to be quite the ordeal to find blue raspberry jello, so I am still in search mode.










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!


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

Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta

Cardboard Owls

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

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

Activities For Children: DIY Part 2

I am always looking for different fun crafts and activities that Liam and I can do together!  And last month I started a Children's DIY (Do-It-Yourself) blog.  The following weekend, Liam (my three year old son) and I chose one of the activities and made it our own!  Last month we ended up making Meditation Jars!  This was both fun and effective!  This month I want to chose at least one other activity for us to do, possibly on this long 3 weekend we have coming up or any other free time between now and the end of the month!  Here are some of our ideas!  Please submit any of your own ideas! 

Rainstorm

My son is obsessed with whether or not it is raining outside, so I am sure that he would love creating a rainstorm!  What a fun quick and easy activity!











Supplies:
-Drinking glass or vase
-Food coloring
-Water
-Shaving cream


Directions:
Fill drinking glass or vase with water and then top the water completely with shaving cream (clouds).
Then add blue food coloring to the "clouds".  (This works best to concentrate the food coloring in a couple of areas as opposed to singular drops here and there).  You can also add to the fun by adding multiple colors

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.

Kool-Aid Dyed Rice & Pasta

This is a great way for what many people call "Sensory Learning."  It is suggested that you get a sensory bin (any kind of plastic shallow tray or bin) and then you want to have various colored objects of all shapes and sizes and then you child can learn from these things and play with them.  Personally I think that a lot of these things can double as art supplies if you have some glue on hand, to include this project.  

Supplies:
1 Cup Rice or 1 Cup Pasta
1/2 tsp Kool-Aid
1 tsp Rubbing Alcohol
Gallon or large plastic Ziplock bags
Tin Foil
Cookie Sheet

Directions:
Gather your tools and start by standing up and opening your large freezer bag. A freezer bag (and not just a regular gallon bag) is imperative for the dying process because of it's thickness--the bag will stand up on its own and will also hold up better to leakage than a standard bag. Use one bag for each color you wish to make.
First, have your child add 1 cup of rice to each bag. Then, have him or her scoop out a 1/2 teaspoon of power out of each Kool-Aid packet. (Each Kool-Aid packet typically has 1 teaspoon of powder in it.) Pour the powder on top of the rice. For the last step, which is a mama step, add 1 teaspoon of rubbing alcohol to each bag on top of the previous two ingredients.
Seal the bag shut (because I can attest that wet Kool-Aid rice is NOT a fun experience to clean up!) and shake it up (this can be a fun part in the process for the kids to do too)! Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to saturate.
Next, pour the wet rice out onto a tray and get it as flat as it will go so that you can dry it overnight (or for at least 6-8 hours). When I dye rice or pasta, I usually make little tin foil sections in the tray to separate the colors. When it is dry, the rice will be all clumped together; separate the rice grains with your hands. (This is also a fun step for kiddo involvement too!)


* Here is our Meditation Jar Activity: Meditation Jar: Our Attempt
* The Original DIY Children's blog: DIY Kid Activities
* As an added bonus here is the DIY Orange Sugar Scrub from this weekend: Valentine's Orange Sugar Scrub

DIY: Kid Activities

There are a lot of awesome DIY (Do-It-Yourself) projects that I have been wanting to try with Liam, so maybe if I can post them all in one place and write about the than it will help me find the time to actually get the stuff together and do them.  So I have decided that I should do this as a monthly thing and force myself to try a couple of things and then post how it all turned out.  I would love any suggestions for other DIY projects that I may not have come across on my own. 

Mind Jar

The alternative for a Time Out, I came across this one today and it is sparkly and fun, and possibly effective.  Although the original calls for a glass jar, I am more inclined to try this using plastic as it cannot be broken as easily.  I know when it is time for time-out for Liam, he is usually in a place where he is not at his calmest and may be inclined to throw something that I had to him regardless of how sparkly it is.  It was describes as:
"A Mind Jar is a meditation tool to use whenever a child feels stressed, overwhelmed or upset. Imagine the glitter as your thoughts. When you shake the jar, imagine your head full of whirling thoughts, then watch them slowly settle while you calm down". 

This can provide a nice alternative to a traditional timeout, and it encourages the child to refocus without punishing them. Although the kids and I just like to shake it up and sit and watch the glitter swirl around and around. Perhaps next time we'll make our own snow globe by gluing an object on the inside of the lid.

Supplies:
- Plastic Bottle (or you can use the mason jar or baby food jar that was in the original post)
- Glitter Glue
- Food Coloring
- Warm Water

Directions:
Mix about 1 tablespoon of glitter glue with 1 cup of warm water...depending on the size of your jar. My jar was a bit bigger so I used 2 tablespoons of glitter glue and 2 cups of warm water. I also added some blue food coloring since my kids like the color blue.

Note: The warm water is to help dissolve the glue. I had a hard time dissolving it...so I heated the water up in a microwave safe cup for 30-60 seconds. While the water is warm...the glitter will fall quickly. I noticed that it only took about 3 minutes for the glitter to fall while the water was warm...but it took a little over 5 minutes to finish falling once the water cooled down. If you do use this as an alternative to time-outs and think 5 minutes is too long for your child, you should play around with the water and glue ratio.
*My main question is, does this mean that you need to warm it up each time?  No one will have time for that if it is used as a possible timeout alternative.  I would find that you need to gauge it by what it is like cool and skip the warm water step.

 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.

Kool-Aid Dyed Rice & Pasta

This is a great way for what many people call "Sensory Learning."  It is suggested that you get a sensory bin (any kind of plastic shallow tray or bin) and then you want to have various colored objects of all shapes and sizes and then you child can learn from these things and play with them.  Personally I think that a lot of these things can double as art supplies if you have some glue on hand, to include this project.  

Supplies:
1 Cup Rice or 1 Cup Pasta
1/2 tsp Kool-Aid
1 tsp Rubbing Alcohol
Gallon or large plastic Ziplock bags
Tin Foil
Cookie Sheet

Directions:
Gather your tools and start by standing up and opening your large freezer bag. A freezer bag (and not just a regular gallon bag) is imperative for the dying process because of it's thickness--the bag will stand up on its own and will also hold up better to leakage than a standard bag. Use one bag for each color you wish to make.
First, have your child add 1 cup of rice to each bag. Then, have him or her scoop out a 1/2 teaspoon of power out of each Kool-Aid packet. (Each Kool-Aid packet typically has 1 teaspoon of powder in it.) Pour the powder on top of the rice. For the last step, which is a mama step, add 1 teaspoon of rubbing alcohol to each bag on top of the previous two ingredients.
Seal the bag shut (because I can attest that wet Kool-Aid rice is NOT a fun experience to clean up!) and shake it up (this can be a fun part in the process for the kids to do too)! Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to saturate.
Next, pour the wet rice out onto a tray and get it as flat as it will go so that you can dry it overnight (or for at least 6-8 hours). When I dye rice or pasta, I usually make little tin foil sections in the tray to separate the colors. When it is dry, the rice will be all clumped together; separate the rice grains with your hands. (This is also a fun step for kiddo involvement too!)