Kids Love Slime - Slime Recipe

I got this recipe from a friend. Makes a real fun and interesting 'slime' for your kids to play with.

1/2 cup Elmer's glue (this is a 4 oz. school sized bottle)
1 cup water

Mix.

In a separate bowl, mix:
1/4 tsp Borax
1/2 cup water
(The Borax won't dissolve but do the best you can.)

Add the borax mixture to the glue mixture and stir. It will thicken quickly at first, and then gradually.

Flop the stuff out on a table and let the kids go at it! It's pretty easy to clean up, too.

Stage an Art Show

A friend of mine had a great idea for her hallway.

STAGE AN ART SHOW

She took a piece of artwork from each of her (little!) kids and placed them in simple frames. Then she wrote up a 'bio' and printed them out along with a photo of each kiddo. She displayed these next to the artwork of each child - just like in a real art gallery! So cute. (You could even add prices and sell the pieces to unsuspecting grandparents!)

Here are the artist bios my friend wrote.
Artist: Caleb, Age 2

Preferred Mediums: Watercolor, tempera,
crayons, color wonder markers, sidewalk chalk,
as well as Doodle pro. He also likes the paint with
water books, and coloring Sesame Street Characters.

His current trend of design seems to be circular
in nature. He drew his first face in January, 2009.
He especially likes to color with oranges, browns,
and sometimes pink.

Caleb learned his colors at 19 months through
the pleasurable treat of M&Ms. His proud parents
are Mark and Jodi.

Artist:
Joshua, Age 9 Months

Joshua likes to make handprints and footprints.
He is still learning to manipulate a spoon or any utensil
for that matter, so he uses just hands for artwork
thus far. He likes to stick crayons, markers,
and paintbrushes in his mouth to taste them.

His favorite foods to eat are Puffs and bananas. He
also likes turkey and sweet potatoes, Gerber style.

He is currently learning by mentorship through big
Brother Caleb. Joshua’s proud parents are Mark
and Jodi.

Playdough - Make it More Fun

A couple of weeks ago I shared my favorite homemade playdough recipe. This week I thought I'd share my idea for making playdough even more fun! I've collected a box of various and sundry things we use when playing with playdough. Here are some essentials:

rolling pins (a cut and sanded dowel rod)
cookie cutters (happen to be Pampered Chef, only because I never use them when really baking)
little figurines of animals, dinosaurs, robots, plants (to build scenes)
things that make interesting patterns or imprints (a comb, popsicle sticks, textured objects)
plastic easter eggs (little kids love to fill these up with playdough or use them for cutting moon shapes)
garlic press (to make squiggly worms or 'hair')
plastic knives (be careful, some of these can be sharp for little fingers)
plastic scissors (without metal strips)
interesting old toy parts (like shape sorter pieces)

Here's a picture of our tool box.

So, get collecting, make some dough and have some fun!