Friday, April 18, 2014

Froot Loop Sand Art with Gospel Colors


I wanted to put together a craft for the kids on Easter and came across Froot Loop Sand Art and thought it looked like something the kids would enjoy doing. I also came across the gospel colors with jelly beans...so I thought I would combine the two. We had to make some of the Froot Loop colors work... purple was the closest to black for sin and yellow closest to white for forgiveness. 
I loved the conversation it brought about with my oldest son as we poured the different symbolic colors into our vase. We plan on doing it again on Easter morning with friends. 

Here is a layout of what we had each color represent and a verse for each topic. We poured the "sand" in the vase in that order so we could talk about each one as we layered them.


 First have your kiddos separate all the colors into piles.
Great color recognition for the younger ones!

Next place each color in a sandwich size ziploc bag. Make sure to release all the air and seal it shut. Let your little ones crush the Froot Loops into sand! My boys loved this part!


We used a funnel to pour our "sand" into a glass vase.
You could also just use plastic cups.


And that's it! 
A fun craft that also opens up an opportunity for great conversation and learning for your little ones! 


SUPPLIES:


Sunday, April 13, 2014

Hudson's Science Party



Can't believe my little guy is SIX years old! We had lot of fun celebrating at his Science Party! I found the adorable printables and lots of great ideas at RV Parties. I also made up some additional printables with the Science Experiment recipes on them. You can find them for free below.





 As the kids showed up I had goggles for each of them and also a science badge.
I found the goggles at the dollar store!

We had one table set out with several different things for the kids to look at in between experiments.
1. Ivory Soap- microwave it for about 1 minute and it will expand because of all the air inside!
2. Sugar Crytals- made from sugar water and food coloring
3. Colored Celery- Place celery in a cup of water with 8-10 drops of food coloring. Leave overnight and see how plants drink their water the next day!
4. Dancing Raisins- Fill a glass with seltzer water and place a few raisins in. The air bubbles will attach to the raisins making them rise to the top of the glass. The bubbles pop when they reach the surface, causing the raisins to sink again. 



Printables from RV Parties


 Another activity we had for the kids to do while they waited for the experiments to start was a fossil dig. Hudson and I had made fossils earlier that week with a flour and salt base dough. We used his toy dinosaurs, leaves, and other things around the house with unique textures to create the fossils. We buried the fossils in a bin of sand and gave the kids shovels, rakes, and paint brushes to help uncover their fossils! It was a great thing to keep them busy while I set up in between experiments. 


The Elepahant Toothpaste experiment was a hit!


 And of course the Slime!


We also had the kids make their own Lava Lamps!


Baking soda and vinegar reaction in a volcano and the kids each got their own petri dishes and pipettes to try it out.

Hudson had so much fun! I am so blessed to be his Mom and love watching him learn and grow. Happy Birthday Hudson!


The kids were sent home with lots of goodies including: their lava lamps, slime, fossils, goggles, name badges, and this fun take home experiment! Drop the mentos into a 2-liter of diet coke and it will make a soda geyser! We did a demonstration of one at the party before the kids left. 

You can find pictures below of the science experiment recipes




(The lines were drawn onto the bottles. You fill 3/4 of the bottle with oil, then the rest with water, leaving an inch or so at the top so it doesn't overflow.)




 I printed these cards to place in the bag with the mentos candy.





Box of Sunshine


I love this idea, and I am sure most of you have seen it all over Pinterest! But I was excited to get to put together a "Box of Sunshine" for my Dad recently, who was recovering from surgery.
It's such a cute idea and you can change up what you put inside. This would be a fun thing to put together as a random act of kindness to leave on someone's doorstep. I would love to do that with my boys. They had a lot of fun helping me put this one together. There are lots of free printables out there, and now I can't find where I originally found mine. But if you look on Pinterest you'll find several to choose from! I added yellow tissue paper and wrapped the box in yellow cray paper. 


Whose day will you brighten with a Box of Sunshine?