Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Window painting and marble ramps
Day 4 ( or is it 5??) of rain... and this is no ordinary rain.. this is thump the life outta ya grass/washing/anything left outside kinda rain. I have always said to my mum " It rains the ocean in Port" and currently Im waiting for the octopus to fall for the sky. Seriously!
So it was yet another day indoors and a day to keep my littles happy.
To start with, I set up Amahli with some simple, window painting ( can you see a theme here with the simple stuff? Really, they are so much happier when they can just enjoy a craft rather than it being so complex that I am carrying on for them to do it longer cos it took so long to set up!) where I stuck 6 A4 sheets of paper in two sections, one for her, one for him.
I gave her water colour paint ( made from food colouring) and tiny brushes. Each container of paint had a sponge in the bottom to soak up most of the liquid so to save us from spills ( we are doing this on carpet) and it also prevents drips from paint pot to page.
Tiny brushes encouraged finer detail to work, and it would also take her longer to fill up her pages :)
Jared hid in his room until he realised it wasnt messy, then came to paint too. Starting with spots he told me he'd finished after 30 seconds. I told him "ok" and went back to concentrating on praising Amahlis efforts. He watched for a bit, then decided he wasnt quite finished and continued to paint, which I encouraged. He then had a go at painting his name which he was very pleased about and ended up staying here for about 25 minutes!
Wonders will never cease.
Amahli showing me where she had painting "fire".
Later in the morning, I needed something fun for them to do whilst I began a new project for Jared. Hes desperate for an over the shoulder bag and I never have any time to do it so I thought if I could set them up with something busy, I could have maybe, 15 minutes?? Maybe???
So we dragged an old pool noodle, cut it in half long ways, pinned it together with skewers, and made a cool marble run. We have done this before but somehow the noodle went missing ( possibly thrown out by a husband who may have mistaken it for rubbish. Hhmmm) but it was a favourite then and it was a favourite today too.
I gave them each about 20 marbles to race down the track and into the box. I was quickly told " good bye Mum, you can clean now" which was que to run to my craft room for a few minutes. I got about 40 minutes in total... bag will be finished tomorrow :)
I've been meaning to pick up a pool noodle at the dollar store (and some marbles somewhere) to try this out. My son would LOVE this. I like the painting. Is it just food coloring and water? I could totally do that. :)
ReplyDeleteWe love using the noodles for ramps and chutes. We use gumballs instead of marbles. Then the kids get a fun treat at the end. lol. Sorry you have been having so much rain. It is storming here right now. The kids are going stir crazy, but they won't sit still to do a project. Crazy kids. ;)
ReplyDeleteHow adorable they are, bringing their arts to life on the papers stuck on the window. It's a perfect setting for these kids to do their wonders. It wouldn't be surprising if this is one of their favorite activities. And of course, the windows wouldn't be difficult at all to clean afterwards.
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