Tie-Dying Easter Eggs

I don't exactly like dying Easter eggs. That makes me feel like a bad mom. But maybe you get it. There's all this preparation and mess for exactly 56.3 seconds of entertainment. Ugh.

So for the last few years, I've tried to find a way to make egg dying more active. We've done shaving cream eggs. And last year we exploded our eggs. Ok, not exactly, but the kids loved it. This year we tried an activity we're calling tie dyed eggs.

You need hard boiled eggs, sandwich zipper bags, paper towels, and food coloring. I LOVE ideas that don't require a trip to the store for special supplies!

Grab a bag for each color combo you plan to make. We used one bag for 2 eggs, so 6 for a dozen eggs. Dampen 1 paper towel per bag and put 1 in each bag. Then let the kids pick what colors they want. I did the squirting for my younger son. Deposit one egg in the bag, seal it up, and let the kiddos GENTLY a roll it around.

Oren is currently on a shirt strike. It has something to do with the Hulk.

The paper towel helps distribute the color and give the egg the tie-dyed effect.

When they decided their egg was done, I rolled it to the top corner of the bag and tipped it directly into the egg carton to dry. No mess!

Let me say that again in case you missed it. No. Mess.

Then we repeated the process with a fresh bag and towel. We used each bag twice just for convenience.

This approach kept the kids busy and the mess in check more than with traditional egg dying. No splashing, and more than 56.3 seconds of entertainment.

Enjoy! And happy Easter.

An Easter Egg-Speriment

Dying Eggs with Vinegar and Baking Soda

We've tried some interesting egg-coloring methods the last couple years. 

Last year we tried coloring them with shaving cream:

This year I saw this idea on Pinterest:

http://www.messforless.net/2014/03/baking-powder-easter-eggs.html?m=1

However, that idea called for powdered paint, rendering the eggs fun but inedible. 

I decided to modify it so we could actually eat the eggs. Here's what we did:

1) Boiled the eggs. 

2) Filled the bottom of cups, one for each egg, with baking soda and placed the cups on baking pans. 

3) Filled separate cups with vinegar. 

4) Tinted the vinegar with generous amounts of food coloring. 

5) Deposited one egg, still warm, in each cup of baking soda. 

6) Gathered the children. 

7) Gave each child an eye dropper. 

8) Regretted that choice and took the droppers away. 

9) Had each kid select colors and poured that color into the cup. 

10) Watch and listen to the wonderful fizz!

11) Gave droppers back to kids and let them play :) They dropped in more vinegar to renew the bubbles, mixed colors, stirred the baking soda, and made egg volcanoes. They were entertained FAR longer than with traditional egg-dying methods. 

(Notice the marshmallow filling from a chocolate egg on Oren's chin and the Superman cape around Tovi's neck...love these boys!!)

12) Return eggs to carton to be stored. 

We definitely had fun :) Nathan thought these might almost be pickled eggs, but there's no lingering vinegar taste. 

I love the speckled look the colored foam leaves!

What's your favorite way to dye eggs?

Learning Play

There are some moms out there, especially around the blogosphere, who teach and teach and teach their kids at home long before kindergarten. 

I am not one of those moms. 

But we have done some fun activities here at home that stretch the kids' brains as they play. Here are a few of those ideas. Everything can be made with materials you likely already have or that are super cheap and readily available should you need to purchase them. 

GIANT Maze

I made this maze on a portion of a large sheet of thick painter's plastic so it would be durable, reusable, AND dry-erasable! I used duct tape for the lines, but any tape should work. I free-handed the path and designed it to have many possible successful routes to keep it as engaging as possible. Oren LOVED driving his cars along the "roads," and we set up his super hero bases at various points. Tovi liked to track down the bad guys and take them to Gotham City Jail. The kiddos can also use dry-erase makers to draw paths or even walk the paths themselves. 

Ball (...or Angry Bird...) Wall

We LOVE the ball walls at the children's museum, and I plan to eventually construct one for the playroom. In the mean time, this idea is a cheap, easy alternative. I took toilet paper, paper towel, and wrapping paper tubes and wrapped them in tape so loops of tape would stick to them (tape doesn't adhere well directly to the cardboard, so a tape layer helps). I used duct tape, but painter's tape would be safer for your walls if you're concerned. We arranged the tubes in various shapes and orders, then dropped small balls, cars, and Oren's beloved Angry Birds through them.  We had fun re-arranging the tubes, seeing how far apart we could put them without losing the ball/car/bird, etc. 

Alphabet Parking Lot

I've seen variations of this idea online using taped parking spots on a floor. But I had these cheap Dollar Tree table cloths and used those instead. I write the alphabet on duct tape (can you tell I love this stuff?!) and put one letter on each car. The goal is to park the car in the spot with the matching letter. I used upper and lower case. This summer I plan to put words on the cars to have the kids match them with the initial letter on the parking lot. There are MANY possible variations!

Counting With Bubble Wrap

I actually used this with my kindergarten Title 1 group first. I wrote one number per bubble in mixed-up order and had the kids pop them in counting order. This builds several skills including number recognition, counting order, and pincer grasp fine motor skills. You could easily do this with the alphabet. Or for older kids, you could say a word and have them pop the bubble that corresponds with the first sound of that word. These could easily be used in place of Bingo boards too!

What are your favorite activities using ordinary materials in creative ways?

Kitchen Science and Public Humiliation

Public Humiliation

Last night I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with about 20 friends.  Although Nathan was out of town at SICOM, I was super excited to get out, sans kids, with other adults and enjoy dinner without catching drinks, coloring place mats, wiping faces, and shushing whines.  One of the, um, older Sunday School classes at church arranged to watch all our kids while they prepped for Sunday's Thanksgiving meal, giving several of us younger adults a chance to go out together.

I really had a lot of fun!  We were loud, silly, and happy.  The food was fantastic.  I ordered shrimp scampi with fettucini alfredo.

But sometime between my last bite and the arrival of the checks, my head started to hurt.

By now I recognize this hurt.  It's not exactly a headache.  Before I even realize what I'm doing, I'll find myself rubbing my eyebrows.  Bad sign.  Then my tummy started to protest.  My hands started to shake.  And I started to feel far away from myself.  Auras danced across my vision.  I made several back-and-forth trips to the ladies' room, hoping to settle my stomach, but I knew what this meant: I was going to faint.  I down-played it as best I could, but it was clear to those around me that I was not well.  These sensations tend to ebb and flow, so I'd start to think I was through it, but then another swell would overtake me.

Feeling faint's bad enough, but if you've ever felt that way, you know your tummy doesn't feel great either.  Although blacking out in public is bad, I'm less worried about passing out in public than I am about hurling in public!  Eventually I laid down on a nearby booth, muttering apologies to the employees and fretting at how rude I appeared.  Faces hovered above from time to time, seeing if I was OK, waiting for me to be lucid enough to head back to the church.  I made it to a friend's vehicle, rolled down the window (it's similar to feeling car sick), and kept my eyes closed for the ride back.

I had tunnel vision by then, but I found my way to a couch back in the youth wing.  Tovi was worried, Oren was wound up, and both wanted to snuggle.  People occupied my kids, brought me Gatorade, and then insisted I stay the night with them.  Angola's about 30 minutes from our home in Garrett, so it was highly unlikely that I could get me and the boys home safely.  I didn't think I could even manage to RIDE that far if someone else drove us.  This family has 5 kids of their own, so adding my 2 wouldn't be too much of an imposition.  I still felt like a burden, but I was grateful.  I cranked the AC on myself during the short ride to their house.  Tahlia, a saint of a friend, set out jammies for all of us and got my boys ready for bed.  I texted Nate, then laid down with Oren beside me and Tovi in the next bed.

Although snuggling Oren overnight results to fitful sleep at best, I was so relieved to not have to be alone while so unsteady.  After being horizontal all night, I was well enough in the morning to enjoy some pancakes (thanks again, Tahlia!) and get the boys home.  They played in the playroom down the hall while I laid in bed.  I think God prompted especially cooperative behavior and positive attitudes. I'm still woozy if I'm upright too long, and experience says this sensation will probably stick around for a few more days.  But I'm improving.  Thank God for an easy work week coming up!

Kitchen Science

Under healthier circumstances, when Nate's out of town I try to do something special with the boys.  I had originally planned to make glow-in-the-dark slime with them, and around lunchtime I decided to give it a shot anyway.  The process is pretty quick, so I figured I could fit it in before being upright long enough to bring back the woozies.

I found the recipe here, linked on Pinterest.  We made some minor adjustments simply due to my curiosity when I discovered so many colors of gel glue (WITH GLITTER!!) at Wal-Mart.

Here's what we did.

-We set out one bowl for each color we planned to make.
-In each bowl, we poured 1 cup of warm water, 4 oz glue (I estimated--each bottle was 6 oz, so I eyeballed 4), and 2-3 teaspoons of glow paint from the acrylic craft paint aisle.  The original recipe calls for food coloring, but since we used colored glue, I used food coloring only when we wanted colors we didn't have paint for (like red--the paint was pink, so I added red food coloring).
-Then the recipe said to mix the paint, glue, and water.  We found you have to mix WELL or the recipe won't work.
-Next, in a separate bowl, mix 1/3 cup warm water and 2 teaspoons of Borax.
-Add 2 tablespoons of the Borax solution to the bowls of glue mixture.  The more of the Borax solution you add, the thicker the slime.  Less creates oozier, stickier slime.
-Stir it all together and watch it go from snot to Gak :)

My oldest is a texture-phobe, so I used enough Borax to make pretty thick slime.  Your kids may like it dripper, but it will be messier and will stick to hands and surfaces.  The thicker variety feels slick but doesn't stick to hands or surfaces.  We varied the amounts of Borax enough to make some slime oozy and some almost like foam.  It stretches if you let it hang, rolls into a ball, bounces, and breaks into pieces if you pull it.  Fun to explore!

The paint is light-activated, so we had fun holding the containers under the lamp and then running to Tovi's room to open them under the bed.

We're planning to bring these along to Thanksgiving this year to give all the cousins something to do :)

Cheap, easy, memorable fun!  Enjoy!