Fun with Marbles

Thanks to Pinterest for the inspiration for our Marble Day.

Marble Painting

Need: baking dish, paint, marbles, paper.
To Do:  Put a couple small blobs of paint on your paper, in the dish, and roll the marbles through to make some artwork. You can also discuss how the colours mix with older kids! :)

Counting Marbles / Dumping Marbles

Need: spoon, marbles, ice cube tray
To Do: Using the spoon to scoop up one marble at a time, place them in the ice cube tray. You can use this for fine motor control, counting, or just a little something to preoccupy your little one while you set up your craft (which is exactly what I did).

Marble Race/Marble Drop

 Need: cereal box, tape, marbles
To Do: Cut the front off your box, cut the front into 4 sections, cut a marble sizes opening on one end of 3 sections and tape into your box, use the 4th section to prop up the back of your box!
**Note: I found that our marbles kept flying off the track, so I made a guard rail out of masking tape

Penguins

This is a hard time of year for crafts. Christmas is over and the oodles of Christmasy stuff has been put away, you've already done 2 months worth of wintery crafts and it's starting to get boring. So last week I busted out some penguin facts and we made penguin mosaics out of torn paper. Pretty easy for older kids and younger ones will still enjoy it with a little help.

What you need:

• Glue stick
• Blue Construction paper for background
• White construction paper, torn into little squares
• Black construction paper, torn into little squares
• googley eyes
• small bit of orange paper

WHat to do:
Draw your penguin outline on the blue paper - an oval with a flat bottom and then feet sticking out. Put a smaller oval in the middle for it's belly. Have your child glue little pieces of paper onto the outline. You rip out an orange triangle for it's beak and even a pink or red bow for it's hair or a bowtie.

Penguin Facts (for little dudes who don't really care a whole lot)

• Penguins eat seafood - mostly fish, squid and krill
• Penguins are birds, but they don't fly in the air - they swim so fast though, that it looks like they are flying under the water
• A large group of penguins is called a "Waddle"
• They like to use their bellies like a toboggan
• Baby penguins are called chicks.
• As soon as a chick hatches it "sings" loudly for it's parent so they will recognize it's unique voice.
• When it's really cold penguins will all huddle together and 'cuddle' to stay warm

GOOP!

Have you heard of GOOP? It acts like a solid when under pressure or moving, but like a liquid when at rest. Super neat, super easy and LOTS of entertainment!
What you need:
1c Cornstarch
1/2c water (I used a splash more)
**Optional: food colouring

Mix the cornstarch and water and PLAY! You can add drops of random food colouring to teach colour mixing or just for fun (it's kind of messy, but nothing some soap and warm water can't fix).

Pretty Initials

This fun project was easy and pretty quick to do on a sickie/cold days. All you need is paint, paper/canvas and scotch/painters tape.

Tape the child's first initial (or their name) onto the canvas/paper. Then have them fingerpaint over it. Start with one or two colours and then allow to dry before adding more so you don't get a huge mud coloured mess. Once dried, remove the tape. If your paint bled though the tape a little you can touch it up with white paint if you want or outline your letter(s) with glitter glue for a little sparkle! Super fun, Super easy!

**Tips: I cut my letters out of tape - it took a bit longer to do, but I wanted something a little fancier than the straight lines of using masking tape alone. I also used acrylic paint (and especially watched the 1 year old with it) because it goes on nicer and thicker than finger paint, IMO.

Fun Lunch

My little dude started to get picky when it comes to eating. Sometimes he'll pick away at something for over an hour and a half without finishing, or he'll all of a sudden dislike something he loved 3 days ago. So a couple weeks ago I started making "funky lunch"; lunch made up to look like a face. I'm able to squeeze in tons of fruit, veggies, cheese, you name it... and he LOVES it. He will devour his "funky lunch" in 10 minutes and then usually ask for more fruit.
Here are some of our "funky lunches" from the past few weeks!