Things to do with salt and kids

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Today we have the next instalment in our 'Things to do with' series where we take a common item and see what ways we can play with it, this time it's salt.  Just your regular table salt hopefully in your cupboard already and waiting for some play opportunities!

1 - Salt Scoop and Pour

I coloured some salt with food colouring by placing them together in a plastic sandwich bag and giving it all a good shake.  Then I set up a few pots and spoons for Champ to play with.

He enjoyed scooping out the salt and pouring it in to various pots then pouring it all out again.  It always amazes me how long this type of play can keep him entertained.

But, perhaps next time I should use a bit less food colouring - he had blue stained hands for two days, whoops!

2 - Salt Writing

Once he was bored with pouring and scooping we poured all the salt into the tray and he used a chopstick to make marks, write his name and draw pictures.

3 - Salt Painting

I wrote about our salt painting recently, you can check out how we made our salt pictures here.  It was a fun activity and the results were pretty and our first attempt with watercolours.

4 - Salt & Ice Sensory Play

I enjoyed watching all three boys engage with this sensory play.  I'd frozen some water coloured with food colouring in various pots and put them on the tray then I gave the boys some salt to watch the ice melt.  We'd done this once before, but last time I'd 'trapped' plastic bugs inside for them to free.

The ice was soon melted and the boys enjoyed creating holes in the ice blocks.

5 - Homemade Puffy Paint

We made this puffy paint a while ago and the two ingredients are salt and self raising flour.  It makes for quite a different type of painting as it raises up after cooking in the microwave.

6 - Salt Dough

Salt dough is like play dough except that you can dry it out, paint it and make ornaments etc out of it.  We've made salt dough before (like when we made crosses for Easter), normally we air dry it, but this time we followed Rainy Day Mum's recipe and dried it out in the microwave, much, much quicker, but with slight air bubbles - great for kids as they're ready straight away, but I'd air dry it if we were making presents.

Here's our hearts and dinosaurs all ready for painting.

I found lots more salt play ideas pinned on my Salt Pinterest Board, but I'd love to hear your salt play ideas.

If you're looking for more 'Things to do with' ideas you can check out Things to do with foil, plastic bags, wrapping paper, spaghetti, pumpkin, pinecones, acorns, odd socks, chestnuts and carrots.

Things to do with spaghetti and kids

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So next up in our series of posts on 'Things to do with...' is spaghetti!  These are all easy to do activities for you and your kids with stuff you'll likely have around the house.  First up......

1 - Spaghetti Structures

The original idea for this came from Pinterest, but the link was spam and so I don't know the original source (apologies), but the idea is that you get dried spaghetti and playdough and make 3D structures from it.  This is how I set it up for Champ, he was not impressed and the results turned out much more like......

2 - Spaghetti and playdough creations

This was something we got up to last year and yep, you've guessed it it's spaghetti in playdough you can check out the post here

3 - Cooked Spaghetti Sensory Play

This is a great activity as it's cooked spaghetti it's completely edible and so baby friendly.  There's heaps of similar posts around, but if you're looking for something different try this flavoured version from The Imagination Tree or this coloured version from Creatively Blooming.

I gave the boys tongs and pots and a few small lids that I hid under the spaghetti.

It soon got messy, they pulled off their socks and wriggled their toes in it, then poured it on their heads.  I stopped things soon after as they were starting to descend into chaos, but it didn't take long to tidy as it was all on a tarpaulin. 

And yes, they did eat it too!

4 - Threading on spaghetti

The idea for this is based on threading Cheerios onto a strand of dried spaghetti like the ones I found on Sugar and Spice, but when I went to the cupboard I realised we'd run out of Cheerios!  So instead we threaded rainbow puffs onto dried spaghetti.  This was tricky so Hubby made holes in the puffs first.

5 - Spaghetti Painting

Possibly my favourite post of 2012 and also possibly one of the messiest!  The boys loved spaghetti painting and I did too!  You can read how we painted with spaghetti here.

6 - Spaghetti and Sausages

Now I don't normally encourage the boys to play with their food, but this was great fun.  I found this on Plum Pudding, it's super simple, you get hot dogs (we used mini ones) and you thread the spaghetti through it.

Even Little Dude gave this a go, whilst Bud made some crazy creations!

And, the boys enjoyed tucking in!

I hope you enjoyed this post!  If you liked this you might like to check out some of our other Things to do with..... How about foil, wrapping paper, pumpkin, pinecones, plastic bags, chestnuts, more chestnuts, acorns, more acorns, carrots and odd socks.

Come back soon and make sure you don't miss a thing by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

Things to do with wrapping paper and kids

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If your house is anything like ours there is an abundance of wrapping paper about at the moment!  Once all the present wrapping is done this is a great crafting resource, here are a few ideas of things to do with kids and wrapping paper....

1 - Collage

I snipped up a small piece of wrapping paper and gave Champ a sheet of paper and glue stick and this is what he came up with.

2 - Create Patterns

Our wrapping paper had large and small snowflakes on it so I snipped a few up and created some simple patterns with blanks at the end.  Champ finished off the patterns with some more snowflakes.

3 - Giant Paper Drawings

This time we turned the paper over and got out the crayons for some drawing.  Aided now by Little Dude who's just starting to scribble.

Things then went a little crazy as when they got bored they tag teamed me and tore up the paper!

4 - Counting

Again using the patterns on the wrapping paper I cut out the paper in groups so that Champ could identify how many snowflakes there were on the different pieces and match them to the number.

5 - Paper Chains

A classic!  Looping strips of paper together we made paper chains, not very many as Champ got a bit bored as he found this a bit tricky doing it on his own, one to try again next year!

6 - Laminate

I laminated some different wrapping paper and we used it for a playdough mat.  You could also use this with dry erase pens.

7 - Contact Paper Collage

We used cut up cards for this contact paper collage, but you could use wrapping paper bits instead.

8 - Free Creation!

Champ has a bit of a thing for scissors and junk creations so why not add wrapping paper into the mix!  I gave him scissors, pens, scellotape, yarn, junk and let him get on with it.  This is what he created a kind of crane thing that he wound backwards and forwards to get the wrapping paper to go up and down - pretty clever I thought! 

9 - Wrap presents

If stuck for more things to do, you could always get the kids to work and wrap some presents!

I hope you've enjoyed this post, still looking for more things to do then check out my wrapping paper and baubles Pinterest board.  Or, keep up to date with posts by subscribing, liking facebook or hooking up on Google+ or Twitter.

Things To Do With Plastic Bags and Kids

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With all that Christmas shopping you've been doing you've probably got LOTS of plastic bags hanging around, what to do with them?  Why not check out these ideas......

1 - Lego Parachute
Completely inspired by a post by Scharesteipapier that was recommended by All for the boys we made parachutes for Bud's Lego stormtroopers!

The original post is a bit more professional that ours as I got the boys to cut out their own square(-ish) bits of plastic bag then we stuck wool on each corner, gathered the ends and sellotaped it to the Lego man.

Then stand on a table or chair and launch.  The fun with these lasted AGES!

2 - Papier Mache

We thought we'd have a go at papier mache, but with plastic bags!  I snipped up some bags and we stuck them onto a cup using blue that I coloured with paint.  It was messy!

It created a really cool effect, like papier mache, but thinner and more delicate.  With the boys we did it until they lost interest, but with an older child you could build the layers up and make a really cool lantern!

3 - Cutting

Champ is having a bit of a cutting phase at the moment so, we spent quite a lot of time just cutting up bags!!  Kept him entertained!

4 - Pom Poms

If you do one activity do this one!  The idea is from Craftastica and has a very detailed tutorial which I enjoyed following.

Champ and Dude thoroughly enjoyed their time practising the cheer leading moves!!

5 - Plastic bag painting

We lurve painting, so why not try with plastic bags!  I bunched them up and tied some string round the top and set it up so that Champ could stamp with them.

He enjoyed stamping and swishing the bags round the paper.

Here are the results, I was told this was a rainbow and some rain.  Perfect for making a few more Christmas cards with kids art.

6 - Kite Flying

This one we did in the spring on a windy day when my kite craft failed we made plastic bag kites instead!

Liked this?  Then why not check out more things to do with plastic bags on my Plastic Bag Crafts pinboard, like our Facebook page or check out other 'Things to do with posts' - foil, pumpkins, acorns, more acorns, odd socks, pinecones, chestnuts, more chestnuts and carrots.

Things to do with foil and kids

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We are still really enjoying our 'Things to do with' series, this week..... foil!

1 - Foil Painting
There's lots of painting on foil posts out there my favourite being from Picklebums.  Foil painting is exactly that - you paint on foil, not rocket science, but something a bit different and it creates a nice effect that's different to paper.

Here are the results:

2 - Cutting

Yep, you guessed it we got the scissors out and snipped up the foil!  Again a bit different from paper, so a twist on a classic!

3 - Wrap up your toys

I'm not sure why this appealed so much, but the boys thought this was awesome.  We literally wrapped them up, but you could do some secretly and get kids to guess what's underneath as well.

4 - Shoot hoops

Left over from a mask making craft I had a paper plate with the centre cut out so we covered it in foil....

... we scrunched up some foil and started using the hoop for target practise.

5 - Foil Boats

We did this a while ago using a foil container, but you could make your own out of foil like they did at Mama Smiles

6 - Superhero escape

This is a terrible picture, but was awesome fun!  Basically I wrapped the boys in foil so their arms were tucked in and then we'd count down and they'd explode out!!  A waste of foil, but great, great fun!

7 - Treasure hunt

Nice and shiny, balls of foil make for an excellent treasure hunt - perfect for some outdoor play

8 - Karate chopping

Reusing the foil from our superhero escapes we then started karate chopping.  The boys thought this was amazing, it made a huge mess with bits of foil everywhere, but was worth it.  Basically we held bits of foil for each other then karate chopped it - what's not to love!

9 - Paint mark making

Another way to paint check out our mark making on foil

10 - Solar Oven

I don't think we'd manage this one now as I don't think I've seen the sun for days!  But, if you do have sunshine you could make a solar oven

11 - Glue gun art

This was my favourite of all our activities and definitely gave me some 'cool Mum' points with my boys!  First, under strict supervision I let the boys use the glue gun to create patterns on card.

When the glue was dry I used a glue stick on the foil then stuck this down to the glued card.  I folded the edges so you end up with your raised glue from the glue gun under the foil.  Then take a shoe brush and brush the foil down around the raised glue.

This creates an awesome effect!  Check out my foil Pinterest board to see really gorgeous results others have created.  Plus, come back tomorrow to see how we used this effect to make some super easy Christmas decorations.

Liked this?  Then why not like our Facebook page or check out some of our other 'Things to do with posts' - pumpkins, acorns, more acorns,  odd socks, pinecones, chestnuts, more chestnuts and carrots.