Marshmallow and Toothpick creations

We had fun creating things using toothpicks and marshmallows.  Here are my boys at work and some of their creations. They also spent a lot of time playing with their creations when they were finished and eating a few marshmallows.  

Kool Aid Painting

Today we painted with Kool Aid.  All you need to do is fill a cup about half way full of water and then add a packet of Kool Aid.  It smells great and the colors are nice too.

I haven't blogged for several days.  Yesterday my boys played with their Trio blocks for their activity.  Low-key, but they are always excited when we pull those out.

On Monday we went to their cousin's birthday party.  

On Saturday we took the kids to the zoo.

Last Friday we didn't do an activity aside from visiting the local library, which we do weekly.

We have had a lot of fun as you can see.

Volcanoes in a Cup

The boys had a blast doing their own little volcanoes in a cup.  You can find this and more experiments with different mixtures here.

 We used small cups, white vinegar, baking soda, food coloring, and a tablespoon (any spoon will work), and a cookie sheet to keep the mess contained. All things that were hanging around the house already.

 I filled the cups about half way full of vinegar and then we added a little food coloring to make it more fun.  Then I let the boys take turns putting in some baking soda.  They had fun watching the "explosions".

 I had five cups that we had fun with.  Then we dumped them out and did it all over again because that wasn't enough fun.  In fact, my 2 year old cried when I told him we were done for the day.  Needless to say this activity was a success!

White Crayon/Water Coloring

We did another artsy type activity today.  We colored with white crayons and then water colored over it and  then we were "magically" able to see what we colored with the white crayon.  You can check out this and more crayon activities here.

 We have crayon water colors that we used since we didn't have any regular water colors on hand.

Painting Fun

It really doesn't matter what we do, if I pull out the paints my kids have a good time.  I did put some tape down on pieces of paper and they painted away and then we took the tape off so that the first letter in each of their name showed up.

Aluminum Foil Robots

I came across a cute idea on making robots using aluminum foil.  All three of my boys had fun making and playing with their robots.

 You can use any cardboard.  I cut up some cardboard from a fruit snack box that worked perfectly.

 We use tape to connect our arms and legs to our robots and markers to color faces for our robots.

Sponge Balls

Today we had a sponge ball fight with our homemade sponge balls.  Find instructions on how to make them here.

As you can see, they had a blast and it was a fun way to beat the heat.

Sensory Balloons

I got the idea to do Sensory Balloons here.  We had fun filling balloons up with different things.  

 Then we had fun feeling them and comparing what they felt like.

 We filled our balloons with rice, dry pudding mix, plastic beads, brown sugar, and flour.  It was a fun activity to do.  Maybe we'll do it again sometime with different things.

Board Games, Museum, Oil and Water Activities

I am a little behind on posting our daily activities so I am going to do the ones I missed all in one post.  On Friday we played board games.  Simple, easy, and fun.  Here are my kids playing Trouble.

 Yesterday we went to the Natural History Museum of Utah.  They have free days a few times a year that you can take advantage of and so we did.  The next one looks like it will be in September.  If you are in the area check out more information about it here.  It was pretty packed as can be expected, but totally worth it.

 Today we did some oil and water activities.  More details are here.  My boys thought it was pretty cool that oil separates itself from the water and had fun helping add in food coloring.

Recycling Old Crayons

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.  My boys had a great time at the parade.

 Today we recycling some old broken crayons.  We went through all of our crayons and sorted the broken ones out and then sorted them by color.  For more complete instructions check out Make and Takes.

 After we got all the paper peelings we put them in a mini muffin tin and stuck them in the oven.  You could mix up the colors for more fun, but we opted not too.

 Here are the end results.  The brown one reminded me of a Reese's peanut butter cup. :)

 

Of course, the boys had to enjoy coloring with them when they were all done.  It was a fun activity.  Definitely a repeat when we get more broken crayons in the future.  

Chocolate-dipped Bananas

We made Chocolate- dipped Bananas yesterday afternoon.  You can find the recipe here. It was real easy for the boys to help me make them and to read the instructions too.  The recipe calls for bananas, chocolate chips, and vegetable oil.

Here they are enjoying their frozen treat and a great way to encourage them to eat a banana too.

Today we attempted to make windmills.  I thought it was an activity they would be able to do, unfortunately I was wrong.  It was too challenging for them to do and in the end we couldn't make the windmills turn so it turned out to be a very frustrating thing. :(  Sadly, not everything is a winner.