Number Hunt to Marbling Activity

Number Hunt Trail to a fun Marbling Experiment.

I started Dimples on a Number Hunt. He put on his hat & grabbed his bucket at the first arrow.

Yesterday while searching the bargain shops I came across a stick it note pad shaped as an arrow.

I started with 1 with a picture of a camera, so we grabbed One camera.

the follow was an arrow with the number 2 and a dinosaur on it, Dimples followed the direction of the arrow and came across 2 dinosaurs. He put them in his bucket.

then there was an arrow with the number 3 & a pictures of a car, he followed the arrow to 3 cars and put them in his bucket. Then there was a 4 with a stick looking thing on it :-? It was a pipe cleaner, so he followed it and found 4 pipe cleaners.

The trail led him outside where I had set up an experimental Marbling Activity, like the one we done previously experimental-marbling.
Next, an Arrow with 5 lizards leading to 5 toy lizards, 6 was knives and forks, which lead to a trail of plastic cutlery. Last was 7 with a picture of a marble which went to 7 marbles just under the table that was set up.

All the things in Dimples bucket were to be used as tools in the shaving cream tub.  I set out a tray filled with shaving cream, the paint/ink, glitter, a brush, a bucket of water (to wash excess cream off and for Dimples hands) and some paper.

First he sprinkled the glitter on and i sprinkled the ink, then he picked out some dinosaurs and lizards to trudge through the mass of cream, glitter and paint. then they walked across the paper.  The idea wasn't to put prints on the paper, this was just part of Dimples process- what he wanted to do.
The main idea was to mix around the colours before putting the paper face down in the tray to absorb the swirled ink. Just like we did in our experimental marbling.

It got messy very quickly, that's how we like it (& that's why we do a lot of our activities outdoors)
Next he used the cars to make a donuts/burn out rings. I sprinkled some more colours in it and Dimples made the cars make circular tracks.  Then the paper went face down and pressed down, then i scrapped the excess cream off the top of the paper with a card & what was left was a cool swirled pattern of ink.

Dimples tried out the forks and lightly manoeuvred them through the ink, then a rolling pin, a brush, then his fingers. Dinosaurs and cars were his favourite!

The best results came from having a dull base colour (mix one colour through all the shaving cream and smooth it all. Then using bright colours to sprinkle over the top. The mix these around a bit, but not too match that they blend. When you put your paper down, smooth it out from top down first to bottom so you have no air pockets that will leave big blank spots!

Then let it sit on it face up for a little while, less than a minute & scrape it off with cardboard of a plastic spatula or take away container lid.

with a pink background

swirls

with a grey background