Elephant Toothpaste

Funny name, great experiment! To make it, you will need:

• 1/2 cup 6% hydrogen peroxide (sold in beauty supply stores)
• 2 tsp. yeast 
• 3 tbsp. warm water
• dish detergent
• food coloring 
• empty 16oz plastic bottle 
• funnel

First step: Add in the hydrogen peroxide (An adult will want to do this stage). Next, add in approx. 10 drops off food coloring.

Next, add in your dish soap and swirl to combine

In a separate cup, combine your yeast and water. Stir until smooth. Using a funnel, add into the hydrogen peroxide mix.

Watch it explode! It builds slowly, but the bubbles just keep coming! The foam is warm and safe to touch. The pictures do not do this activity justice! Very fun! 

And it wouldn't be my son if his favorite part wasn't the hose clean up! 

Again, if you would like more detailed instructions go to: http://www.cometogetherkids.com/2012/02/elephant-toothpaste-foaming-science.html

Exploding Sandwich Bag

I don't have very many pictures from this project, but it was fantastic! Putting warm water and vinegar into a sandwich bag, you add in a pocket of baking soda and quickly seal the bag. The plastic bag quickly inflates with the gas created from the mix and will pop the bag. It is very quick and needs both hands (hence, the lack of pictures), but it was great fun. And as you can see by the pictures, it kept both dog and boy entertained! 

Click here to see a more detailed explanation from the fabulous "Come Together Kids" blog: http://www.cometogetherkids.com/search?q=sandwich+bag

Banana Ice Cream

For those who know me, I am pretty stingy with the amount of sugar I give my kids. So when I saw this banana-only recipe for "ice cream", I knew I had to try it!

First, we sliced up over-ripe bananas and put them on the baking sheet. Then stick the tray in the freezer for a hour or so. The best part of this was that it was great for Aiden to practice cutting (again, sneaky fine-motor skills practice!), and he could do it independently.

After the bananas are frozen, put them in a blender or food processor, and alternate between blending and scraping the sides of the blender.

Our sou chef :)

Keep alternating until bananas are thick and creamy like soft serve. Because everything tastes better with peanut butter, we had to add some! You could also add in chocolate syrup or chips at this point. 

We couldn't wait, so we ate it right then. However, you could refreeze so the consistency is closer to ice cream. Then, scoop and serve.

And the panel agrees:

Colored Salt Art

This was a REALLY great art activity that Aiden was able to do with virtually no frustrations. A winner, all around!
First, to make colored salt, you need regular table salt, ziplock bags, and sidewalk chalk.

Simply choose your color chalk, stick it in the bag with the salt, and rub it all around. Watch as your salt turns the color of the chalk!

Next, we drew pictures onto a piece of construction paper. It's really hard to see it here, but Aiden drew an ant on this paper. He did it himself, while watching me do it on my own paper.

Next, I outlined his drawing with glue. Make sure you put your paper into a box before you do this. It will help catch the salt in the next step :)

After your glue is on, shake the baggie of salt onto the glue.

We used 4 different colors on ours:

Shake off the excess and see your picture come to life!

The masterpieces!

To hang, slip it into a page protector after it's dried. This will save you from salt all over your floor!

Ice Block Excavation

Whoo! It's been awhile! Being away for 4th of July threw me a little off! Aiden and I have been doing our activities but I just haven't been getting them online! We've done some good ones though, so I am trying to catch up!

A great one we just did was an ice block excavation. Over the period of 2 days I froze a bunch of cheap toys into a bowl of water. I did it in layers so that the entire block was full of "treasures", not just everything in one layer. Here are his goodies before going in the ice:

And here they are after the bowl was frozen over:

Then I flipped the bowl over, let it defrost a bit, and shook the ice out:

After that, I let him have at it! He had his plastic hammer and screw driver to start with, but then got a little wooden bat to really do some damage.

He absolutely loved this! He was so excited to start uncovering "treasures" from his "glacier":

Even our dog liked it! She got to eat all the big chunks he broke off :)

This was a great activity! He was outside with it for almost an hour and still hadn't finished. The rest of the chunks are back in our freezer till we can get to them again. ANYTHING that keeps him busy for an hour is a success to me!

Shaving Cream Play

My teacher mind collided with my mom-mind in today's activity. In my head I saw Aiden and I practicing letters and numbers using shaving cream as a fun medium. Here was what I envisioned:

I have done activities like this MANY times in my classroom, with 24 or more children, and managed to keep it under control. However, within a couple of minutes, I lost control of the situation:

I surrendered. He was having fun, and so what if no learning took place? I let it go the way he wanted, which was to "cook" some "pudding" and cover himself head to toe with shaving cream. He had fun and it kept him busy for an hour. Shaving Cream Day=success! 

Mud and Suds Day

So today was a combo of multiple activities that I wanted to do. We started off with the "exploding" soap experiment. Using only an Ivory Soap bar (has to be Ivory) and a microwave, you too can impress your children. :)

First, cut off part of the soap bar.

We used the small piece to start off with. Then, simply pop it in the microwave and hit start. Ours grew for about 1 minute and then was expanded as much as it was going to be.

We thought this was so cool, we of course had to heat up the big part of our bar. This time it grew for about 2 minutes. And boy, did it grow! 

Afterwards, Aiden got to play with it. It was actually quite dry and dusty, which was neat. 

But soon proved to be quite messy! Beware of doing this with little kids too- Aiden leaned to close and breathed in a bunch which of course made him cough and blow out, which in turn became this:

I don't have pictures of the floor, chair, wall, and everywhere else it blew! 

That was the Suds part of our day. The Mud part is relatively self explanatory. A hose, dirt, and a mom who says "go for it". What else could a kid want??

Getting ready to go out-Aiden can't believe what I said he could do! :)

The aftermath

The worst part of the day!

I don't have a dirty picture of Aiden because while I was bathing Ellie he took it upon himself to "shower" off outside. Worked for me! The fun part of the day was that he was able to use the soap pieces from our previous activity to wash up. He really liked that! 

Mental Note: Next time, I would have the baby pool up and ready for an outdoor bath time!