Monster Slime Mess



Gelatin Play is a new play material we have been experimenting with lately. This messy play was put together the night before by simply mixing gelatine powder, hot water and food colour. I used a star-fish snack tray and filled it up with some small plastic animals and put it in the fridge to set.

 

I put it on the glass table, set it out with some utensils and let Dimples go for it. Lets see where it lead us. As usual I love his imagination, today is was monster Slime. For a while it was Alien Poo but he kept coming back to monster slime.

He squished it through his fingers, and crushed and crushed and crushed it until the rubbery mass turned into a slippery slime. It made some pretty awesome sounds as he squeezed it in the palm of his hand and pushed it into the circular part of the tray. These 'fart' sounds were quite humorous to him, he was in hysterics making all sorts of sounds. Monster Farts he would exclaim in giggling fits of laughter.

With a knife and fork he cut some up, of course it was easy to cut but this task required lots of concentration and control. Hand eye co-ordination as he sliced it, holding the knife upright and then practising using a big spoon, scooping it all up and pouring it back into the dish.

He played for a good 40 minutes just experimenting with the texture, squishing it around and burying his hand under it. The only rule he had was to keep it on the table (he almost succeeded in this) it was quite a mess so be warned, but he done well and enjoyed the mess for much longer than I had expected.

I grabbed out a paper towel roll tube and gave it to him without instructions or any ideas and he did exactly as I expected. Used it as a tunnel and poured the slime through it.
Dimples experimented with gravity for a while, filling it up while it was level and then tipping it up and watching it all pour through.  He did get a little wild for a moment, as I was in the kitchen I turned around to see him doing a helicopter motion above his head with the tube and a trail or goo flying out. After I reminded him of the rules he didn't do it again and continued playing

More squishy sounds, more giggles and more imaginative stories. Alien slime, monster slime, an Aliens toilet, this dropped out of their space ship- Aliens must eat sharks and ocean creatures for dinner! The things he comes up with when he gets on a roll amuses me.

 

 Mixing, stirring, pouring, scooping, squishing and slicing up the slime. It went on for another 20 minutes as he used his utensils and by that time the slime had turned into more of a liquid. Then he made what he told me was a clock, a circular pattern in the slime by twisting the tube around. Dimples played around drawing through the liquid slime and making patterns through it on the glass table. Thankfully after he was done, he happily helped me clean it all up. Give him some clothes and a spray bottle and he will clean up just about anything, but this required a mummy clean and a good bath as he had it plopped all over the front of him, on his face and all over the place.
Dont let this put you off though, it was one of the most enjoyable activities he has done in a long while and he kept with it for longer than usual. The food colour doesnt stain and it is really easy to clean up as it doesnt dry on any surface.

Happy Adventures :)

Rainbow Gelatin Exploration

Jello, jelly, gelatin its all the same to me.
Its a cool sensory material that never gets boring.
Have you ever used it in play?

 

 

This was our first attempt of gelatin using the jar of powered gelatin and the colours of the Rainbow.
I can announce that we will definitely be trying it again, in bigger better ways....

 
Just the way it jiggles, shakes and wiggles, the smooth texture and the sense of the cool temperature on the tips of your fingers is enough for any child to want to play with it (and adult).

 

I prepared some colourful sheets of jelly using gelatin, all it needs is to be heated (not boiled) and dissolved in water and then add some food colouring and let it set in the fridge. I just poured a cup of individual colours on cooking paper in a tray the night before, not knowing whether it would work or not. Success! I'll have to get more of this stuff, that was so simple.



Dimples and his best buddy explored the wriggly texture of the jelly with their fingers pretending to mix and cook with it. They used measuring cups to "measure" it and some plastic knives and forks to slice it in to pieces.
























Funnily enough, they held the bigger thicker pieces up to the light shaking and wobbling them, laughing at the funny movements it made. They experimented with tearing it up, squishing it between their fingers, chopping it with the knife and squashing it into a bowl pretending to make each other dinner. Mmmmmm Yum flavourless gelatin for dinner.



The gelatin is very fun used this way, its thicker and more pliable than your usual eating jelly, it is more like rubber and handles more from the playful preschooler than any jello would. It doesnt turned liquidy either, it stays in clumps and lasts much longer.
The boys tried mixing it and blending it together but the only success in that was making smaller pieces and more of a mess. They had a ball splatting it about and mucking around with it.



After the rainbow fiesta of wiggly wobbly fun, they piled it all back on to the tray and helped me clean it up like little angels......
That was until we arrived at the park later in the day and they were giggling and pointing at me, to their amusement I found the tiny rainbow chunks of jello they had put in my hair while i was down under the table and chairs trying to clean up.
Little Angels :)

Sand Dough Small World

This was a fun sensory activity where we explored the creatures that live on the beach in Australia through small world pretend play.

Dimples loves walking our beachs and collecting me things, recently he went for a walk with his Nanny and bought me home a bag of beach things; shells, beach pebbles, spounges, the bottom clumps of dead seaweed, sea erchin shells and other bits and bobs.  We used these in our small world beach with some plastic palm trees.

First we made up our sand dough using 4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup oil and table spoon of cocoa and 2 table spoons of bread crumbs. The result was  "sand dough" a mouldable soft dough that crumbles and resembles sand.

The sand dough was put out in a tray with the shells and beach things, palm trees and plastic sea creatures;  Crabs, turtles, lobsters, seastars, octopus, seals and ofcourse, there had to be a treasure box and a pirate.

Moulding the sand dough Dimples made a turtles nest, turtle eggs, a rock formation for the seals, burried creatures that were "fossils", buried treasure & rocks for the crabs to crawl side ways through.

Happy Adventures :)
Renee

Benefits of Pretend Play

Recently I had the opportinity to do a guest post @ http://positiveparentingconnection.net which resulted in some great comments. So here is an extended version with some additional ideas, links & pictures for the Captain Underpants fans...

In a busy world with what seems to be tireless amounts of chores, it is easy to fall into a cycle of giving your child the same toys to play with each day, using the TV as a baby sitter or saying "maybe next time", "hold on, I just need to finish this first" each time your child comes running to you with underwear on their head exclaiming that they are Captain Underpants requesting that you come play with them.  As parents it is important for us to acknowledge that for a child "Play" is not just leisure but is how they learn.

Captain Underpants flying through the clouds... 

 Of course there are many forms of play and endless ways to engage in play with your child. Dramatic or Pretend Play is just one way that children benefit from immensely that will also give you a chance to positively enhance their learning experiences, their self-esteem but most importantly it can strengthen your relationship with them.

Here are some of the benefits derived from Dramatic / Pretend Play-

• Pretending:  Just the act of pretending is a learning curve for a child. It grants them with an outlet to role play what they have seen in their world. This helps them learn about how the world works and practice how adults interact.
• Social Play: Pretend play encourages negotiation, cooperation, and role playing different situations. Pretend story lines and characters, turn taking, sharing are all great skills to learn.
• Social interaction: Not only does it help with social skills but it encourages a child to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and be empathetic and considerate of others. This gives them a chance to practice behaviour, manners and language that is needed when they interact in real world situations, as well as what behaviour is acceptable in public.
• Language development: Dramatic Pretend play encourages expressive language that would not otherwise be used by the child.  Often through pretend play withdrawn children can first start to express themselves by acting a certain role.  Further, this gives the parent an opportunity to extend on language skills by paraphrasing what the child has said using more descriptive language and exchanging conversations using expressive language examples.
• Imagination: Pretend Dramatic Play is a great for showing how imaginative children are. Imagination is an important building block for learning.  It is not only important in childhood, imagination is crucial for life. Just imagine a world without it, we would not have scientists making new discoveries, artists making new artworks, Santa traditions, award winning stories like Avatar and we would not be able to cognitively process these possibilities or examples.
• Self-esteem: By giving your child complete control in their pretend world and accepting them as a silly character like Captain Underpants you are enhancing their self-esteem. While they use their own initiative to develop story lines, their creative imagination to expand stories and their own personality to choose a character they enjoy, you are enhancing their self-esteem by allowing them complete power in the world & enjoying it with them.
• Motor skills: Playing is very busy work. While pretending to be adults or role playing your child is also fine tuning their motor skills. Mixing, Pouring, scooping, cooking, squatting, lifting, serving, moving around & remaining active.
• Practice: Practice makes perfect, while they are playing & pretending they are practicing all the skills they are going to need as they grow up into adults in the real world. From simple things like dressing, measuring, serving food, cooking skills, to handling money, grocery shopping, going to the doctor, answering the phone and not to mention practicing appropriate manners, behaviours and etiquette.

 

Pretend Play: Eating out at a cafe

Try to provide some Dramatic Props:

Tea sets,
cooking utensils,



Old cooking pots
outdoor mud station mud-is-good-for-you
play kitchen,



Fresh food Shop with trolley, plastic food, food boxes & Cash register



plastic food,
a cash register,
empty food containers,
Real ingredients  eg: worms-eyeballs-goblin-finger-stew



Pretend cooking with Rainbow Spaghetti.
Doll houses,
Telephone, masks,
Dress up accesories,



Flower Stand. Playdough as mud & flower arranging.

pretend money,
wallets & bags,
a pretend shop stand,


Muffin tin, Shaving Cream & real ingredients. pretend-cooking-wild-berry-muffins

play tools,
toy doctor kit,
bandages,

Doctor mask & toy doctor kit

toy animals,
kids tool bench 
building toys
Costumes pirate-party-dress ups
Make Costumes eg: making-robot-suit
Buried Treasure treasure-hunt

By accepting your child in their make believe world you give them complete control not only over the game, but over the 'world' for that short time, this enhances their self-esteem and gives you a chance to engage in their interests and their blooming personality, share in their enjoyments and it strengthens their trust in you and the world around them.

So next time a screaming Captain underpants runs past you, grab a towel and throw it on as a Super hero cape & go rescue Big Ted from the malicious tornado that’s about to hit your house.

Happy Adventures

Cutting the Snotty Gak

Gak, Goo, Obleck, slime, silly putty what ever you have known it as, we've never made it before......

So here goes -
You can find a good detailed recipe here : homemade-kids-gooey-gak
But it is so simple & easy to make, I let Dimples do it all on his own.

Using white craft glue, he poured the whole container into a bowl & mixed it with 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Our first attempt we added blue food colour & it turned out so vibrant, then we tried one with black (the texture was much better but it looked like snot)

while Dimples was mixing through the water, glue & colour, I boiled the jug & dissolved a teaspoon of borax in about half a cup of hot water, then i put it in for him.
Its really quite science like, as soon as it swirls through your mix you can see it separate then as you mix it it gets gooey.

This is where it gets fun, I asked Dimples to then mix it with his hands, with no hesitation he squeezed, kneaded and squished it around until it was no longer liquid at all.  It was gak!  Snotty looking Gak.

He loved the stuff, I gave him a pair of scissors & the cut so well through the gak, I think practising with scissors is made more fun using the gak but it seems to work better as well.

Dimples used his scissors to slice a long stringy piece of gak, it was easier for him to hold as he was working on his fine-motor cutting skills, trying to manipulate the scissors in the right direction to cut the "worm" into "baby worms" -
When the scissors cut he can see clearly the slice, it goes through easily whether the scissors are plastic or blunt or safety ones, where as sometimes the kiddy scissors struggle with paper.
And of course there is the sensory aspect of it, it feels soft and squishy & cool on the fingers.
The science of it, the way it moves blends, breaks, the way it mixed, the way it sinks & flattens.
To sum it up, we think its lots of fun & is an interesting thing to play with.

Dimples used it like play doh with his play doh toys, he cut through it for a long time, he used his knife & fork & pretended it was a slimy dinner and he just played about stretching & hanging it around watching it grow

Scented Sensory Discovery Bottles

How to Make & Play with Scented Sensory Discovery Bottles.

These are awesome if I may say so my self! 
I often find myself sniffing away at one of them as Dimples plays quietly.
Lately we have been experimenting with smells, different smelling flowers and plants, making the best sensory-cinnamon-playdoh that is still smelling great and getting used.

Dimples first smelt the perfume one & stuck his nose right in, taking a huge whiff! It was quiet funny to see his face & i got it on camera too. It didn't deter him though, he kept going back for more & insisted on taking them to show family & friends to see their facial reactions.

This activity was great to do and the scent bottles are still laying around getting smelled-

What you would need to make them:  Baby bottles without the teats with screw on lids, stocking/pantyhose, your contents (coffee beans, essential oils, small objects, fake flowers, material leaves, pretend flower petals, coloured rice or what ever tickles your fancy).

Im sure you have heard of discovery bottles before?  You can use them for anything & everything, but this is the first time I have tried scented ones.
Discovery bottles are great for developing attention span and they have a relaxing quality to them!
Use your imagination -
All you need to do is have your little one get in & help, use a funnel and let them pour in the ingredients, then pop in the small objects. We all know toddlers and preschoolers love shoving small objects into things, you know...... in ears, noses, pockets, nappies, lounge cushions.  Put all your things is & a few drops of essential oil or whatever scent you are using.
Then place your stocking over the top of the bottle & screw the lid on tight. You could go one step further if you intend to leave them for free play & use a glue gun to stick the stocking & the lid on!
The scent comes up through the stocking BUT they are also great for exploration and making sound, twisting turning & shaking them around to move the objects out into sight.  Also great for igniting all your senses, and sharing them with others to see what their reaction will be.  Dimples had great fun with them.

Here's what we did;
Dinosaur Coffee Beans-
One of the favourites, I don't even drink that much coffee but the smell of coffee beans is addictive.
This simple one has coffee beans, a small toy dinosaur, and some small tufts of pretend grass that we found in Dimples toy soldier box.

Eucalyptus Snake-
Another favourite, this one has material leaves, a plastic snake, some green dyed rice, and eucalyptus oil with a drop of tea tree & lemon oil.
I think this one would be a good one to make up if Dimples got a cold. It smells great!

Lavender dragonfly-
Fake Lavender flowers & petals. I got a bunch of these at the bargain shop for $1, the leaves got used in the previous one & the petals in this one. Add some Purple dyed rice and a plastic dragonfly (of a contrasting colour) with a few drops of Lavender oil.

Garlic Eye Ball-
Garlic cloves some skinned & squashed,  some still whole, a couple of white material petals, & a creepy eyeball.

Pretties in Perfume-

Using some old jewelry, rice, fake flower petals and perfume.

Easy & very smelly.

What you should do when encouraging your child to play with them is set an example by smelling them, pull some weird funny facials and have a laugh together, then teach them how to move them around to get the objects to position the way you want, twist, turn, gently rattle & shake.

You can also play by smell only. Have your child blindfolded and ask them to identify the smells, purely by smell. This is also great for labelling things and exploring them, for instance Lavender is purple, it is a flower, it is used in cleaning products and in sprays, it helps you relax and is good for sleep.  Eucalyptus, is great for when your sick to help unblock stuffy noses, it grows on trees, koalas like to eat it and so on.

Pirate Party Part 3 - The cake & food ideas

Pirate Theme Party for Dimples 3rd Birthday - The Treasure Chest Cake, the food ideas & inspiration.

The Treasure Chest Cake-

The Cake was a Chocolate swirl Cake that I made the night before the Party.  A Treasure Chest Cake!

This where I got the inspiration from Treasure Chest Cake recipe . With a little of my own twist of course. I used a cake board from Spotlight as the base, brown sugar as the sand with some real shells, and a smaller cake board as the base of the lid.

First I made the rectangle cake & sliced the rounded top off, it fit perfectly on top of the lid cake board. That was the first part done easily, a layer of frosting on the board (as glue) to stick on the cake, and then the cake top got covered with frosting. I used licorice as 2 straps over the top & wrote Happy Birthday over the lid then put it to the side while I did the tricky bit. I frosted the bottom of the treasure chest around all the sides and a border around the inside.

The Treasure consisted of gold chocolate coins, small jelly belly jelly beans, baby M&M's, some scull Candy's in bright colours, some candy bracelets and a few lolly rings. Lots of sugar & bright colours.

Then using writing icing I put on a key hole at the front & some more straps from licorice.
The hardest part was the balancing act- Using some skews and tooth picks I placed the lid on top. If you are attempting this my advice is to leave your cake refrigerated over night in separate pieces so that it sets and is harder, it wont work if you have a soft warm cake, then set & balance it right before serving it.

Dimples just wanted to take all the ring lolly pops from the treasure.

Food-
I printed up some black, red and white labels and thought up some Pirate theme names to re-name everything.  Everything seems more interesting when it is renamed into Pirate Jargon.

Shark Jewels fruit salad.
Served in a shark head watermelon with blueberries, grapes and watermelon balls to resemble jewels.

Candy Bar
Pirates teeth; baby marshmellows, caramel popcorn.
Cannon Balls; Maltesser chocolates and red jaffer chocolates.
Sharks Bait; Sour worms and snakes.

NOW, just a quick warning. I didn't take many set photos of the lay out and food although i wish i had have programmed my brain to do this. But after the party had started my blogging senses just flew out the window and then after looking back at pictures, I thought to myself  'why don't I have any pictures of the themed food". I had put a lot of time and effort finding themed food to serve and then, nothing!  So another word of advice to an party throwers, take a photo of everything before its party time & little hands scramble all over the place.

Anyway, I can only explain what my ideas were and show you my inspiration. Here goes,

Ships lost at sea;
These were blue jelly, layered with whipped cream to represent the rough ocean inspired by these and these neat boats  on top were orange slices made of jelly with pirate flags to represent boats (like these stripy-jelly-orange-wedges- )

We had "Sea Water" & "Pirates Punch" in jugs, as well as a blow up Pirate boat full of toddler pops and soda for the adults.

Octopus Dip-
Using the top off a Capsicum stuck in dip, I cut out Octopus eyes and 8 legs, the dip was centred in the middle of the plate and surrounding it was sliced carrot, celery, gherkins, cucumber and crackers.
Inspired by octopus-dip-recipe

Squid-
Little Frankfurt's sliced with "squid" legs, served with tomato sauce to dip in.
like the ones shown here on squidoo.com

Sail away sandwich's-
Shaped from a Pirate boat cookie cutter we had sandwich's
Devon & sauce,
ham & cheese
chicken, cheese & mayo
Vegemite.

Pirates Grub-
On top of this I cooked up some Sea shanties, some curly fries and some calamari rings.

Pirate Party - Invites & Decorations

A Pirate themed Dress-up Party for one fabulous 3 year old & his fellow Mateys!

Part 1 - Invitation & decorations
For Dimples 3rd Birthday I planned him a Pirate Party, big extravagant parties wont be a yearly occurrence that's for sure but this year we tried to go all out for his special day.
Dress ups, Buried Treasure, Pretend Pirate Play with a real Pirate boat and a Pirate Treasure chest Cake. Everything was themed in Red & Black from the table decorations, the food and the buckets of treasure...
What follows are the party ideas, food ideas, play ideas, decorations and the Pirate themed fun we had with our high spirited Pirate Crew!  this may take a couple of posts, so this is PART 1 & keep your eyes open for Part 2

First the Invitations:
A message in the bottle was given to guests. The Invitation was a scroll, printed on beige paper with a photo of Dimples holding a sign "I'm turning 3" & popped inside glass bottles with some sand, shells and a cork on top. Each was personally labelled by name.
The Invite was in Pirate Language with phases like " Set the date, dont be late or youll be shark bait" - "don ye best Pirate outfit or walk the Plank"

Decorations-

Fish net & skeletons

Red & Black Birthday Canvas-
 Dimples covered a big cardboard #3 with red & black buttons and glue for me, then I further glued it on red cardboard cut out the number 3 and stuck it on a black canvas we had painted the week before.
& little sculls & cross bone sequence were scattered every where.



Bubbles & Balloons and Streamers Everywhere.

(not that they lasted for the day)

Pirate flags-

Real ones and some I painted on old bed sheets.

Table decorations:

I didn't get very many photos of the table but one had a red table cloth with a black vinyl runner and the scull/cross bones scattered over it.  I wish I got some photos before the chaos began, when it was set up and untouched.

It had golden chocolate coins scattered up the centre as well and this table had a Pirate boat blow up drink cooler in the centre that held toddler pops in ice and some soft drinks for the adults.

The other Table was a Pirate table cloth with 2 red square place mats in the middle, one had "sea water" in a jug & the other had " Pirates Punch, again the table was laced with skull & cross bone sequence and golden chocolate coins.



Keep an eye out for the rest of the Pirate Party, including Games, Dress up Costumes and food ideas.