Idea's For Water Table Fun!

Summer brings many new and exciting opportunities for letting your child explore the outdoors. Aside from those trips to the beach, family bike rides, and long hours at the park... get creative about exploring some things in your own back yard! Water tables can be a never-ending source of fun for toddlers! Whether you buy one already made, or just make it yourself, you won't be sorry you did! 

To liven up your child's water table add a few drops of liquid watercolor or washable tempera paint to dye the color of the water. Then swap out various toys and instruments daily to keep it interesting. Recently we made giant ice cubes by pouring water into small plastic cups. We thought it would be fun to add plastic bugs to the center of our ice cubes as an extra surprise! We dropped the giant ice cubes into the water tables, one by one, giving each time to melt. The children loved guessing what was frozen inside, trying to figure out how to get the bugs out, holding the ice cubes up to the sunlight, and floating them around the water table. This was definitely a success and a nice way to cool off on a warm summer day!

Here are a few ideas to try in your child's water table:

• Ice Cubes
• PVC piping
• Plastic bugs
• Rubber ducks
• Stacking cups
• Plastic sea creatures
• Squeezable bath toys
• Plastic tubes and a funnel
• Magnetic fishing poles/fish
• Plastic baby and sponges to bathe it with
• Farm animals and sponges to bathe them with
• Marbles (with close supervision and older children)
• Kitchen utensils... turkey baster, hand mixer, strainer, etc.

DIY: Homemade Play Dough

We like to make our own home made play dough at Mama & Me and often people ask us how we do it. The truth is, it's easy! Why bother making it yourself?  Home made play dough is softer than the commercial brands you find in the store, making it easier for your little one to squish between their fingers and mold into shapes. Plus, you can feel confident knowing that all of the ingredients come from your kitchen...so there's no need to stress when the inevitable taste test happens! How long does it keep?  If properly stored in an air tight container, your home made play dough will keep for about 6 months. Listed below is one of our favorite play dough recipes. Try making several batches to hone your play dough making abilities. It's a great rainy day activity or creative party favor for your child's next birthday! HOMEMADE PLAY DOUGH Ingredients (4 Cup Recipe) 4 cups flour 2 cups salt 4 cups water 6 tbsp vegetable oil 8 tsp cream of tartar food coloring Directions Mix all ingredients in a large pot. Cook and stir over low/medium heat until play dough is completely formed and no longer sticky (pulls away from sides of pot). Dump onto table or allow to cool in pot for about 30 minutes. Knead large mound of dough while adding small amount of flour if sticky until desired consistency. If you would like to add food coloring you can choose either method: Add food coloring into the pot while cooking until it reaches the desired color; or Color the playdough after cooled by dividing large mound of playdough into six equal sections. Add approx. 5 drops of color into a small hole you poke in each smaller section. Close hole and knead the dough until color distributes. Repeat until you reach desired color. Continue with each section until you have all of the colors of the rainbow. Variations: Add cinnamon, orange extract, lemon extract, vanilla extract, ginger powder, peppermint extract, almond extract, or one package of unsweetened powdered Kool-Aid to your playdough to give it a great smell. You can even make each section a different scent for each color. Try offering the playdough with small plastic animals, popsicle sticks, play dishes and utensils, beans, rollers, spatulas, measuring cups, small cars/trucks, sparkles, cookie cutters, seashells, or stones.

Winter Collage on Contact Paper

Contact paper can be a unique and interesting surface for your little ones to collage on. Not only will they love sticking their hands to the surface, but there are many other items you will find around your house that will be sure to fascinate your toddler. Try pom, poms, stickers, foam shapes, cotton balls, q-tips, ribbon, buttons, yarn, fabric, tissue paper, and more!

To add interest to this activity, or re-introduce this activity in a new way, try creating a theme around your collage. For the collage on the left, we created a winter scene by placing lace behind the contact paper. Then let the kids collage with pillow batting, cotton balls, ribbons, paper tree cut-outs, stars, snow flake shapes, etc. on top. Once the scene had been set, we pulled out some cars and toy trucks for the kids to roll across the paper, through their snowy winter scene. The kids enjoyed the sound of the cars rolling across the sticky paper! 

Here are some simple steps to getting started on your contact paper collage at home:

1. Peel back the paper off a roll of contact paper.

2. Placing the sticky side up, use masking tape, to tape the contact paper down to a table.

Tips:

Can't find contact paper? It is available at most arts and crafts supply stores. But if you can't find any, try using cupboard paper, flip it so the sticky side is up for the same effect.

Ideas for Halloween Fun!

Who doesn't have a favorite memory of a costume they once wore... trick-or-treating, carving pumkins, and all the fun that comes with the creativity and silliness of Halloween?!

Aside from the costumes and the candy, here are a few of our favorite ideas to adding some seasonal flair to your Halloween rituals!

FROZEN FLOATING HANDS

We made these creepy looking frozen hands for our sensory tables in class today, they were a hit with our little ones! After they melted, we brought them to our light tables for some more exploration and fun.

Try this at home:

Fill a rubber glove with water. Add a few drops of food coloring and tie the opening of the glove tightly. Freeze overnight. Add them to a bathtub or simply let your child explore how they melt in a sink full of water. Have some fun with it, see if you can engage your toddlers sense of humor... try "high fives" with the spooky hands, get them to "shake" the spooky hand, tickle your toddler with the wobbly, melting fingers.

JELLO WORMS? YUM!

Try serving these Jello worms as a special after-dinner treat this Halloween... not only do they look like worms, but they feel like worms too!

Make this at home:

Place bendable straws into a can. Make Jello as indicated on the box. Pour into straws, bendable side down and chill. After refrigeration, run under warm water to pop the "worms" out.

Read detailed instructions

GLOWING BATHTUB

As if bathtime wasn't fun enough?! Try adding a few glowsticks for a magical evening activity. Let your child explore the light and shadows in the water with their favorite bathtime toys.

Color Inspiration

We were inspired by the vibrant colors of summer, so we decided to bring some of those outdoor colors inside for some sensory table play.

Grouping together items of a particular color, or shade variations of a color, make a fascinating activity for explorative play. These tables are equally as fun to make as they are for your little ones to play with! Try making one at home. 

 STEPS:

1. Find a container...any plastic bin will do, but we recommend something that isn't too deep, as the point is to make these objects visible. An under-the-bed storage container is ideal. 
2. Fill container with similar shades of colored objects. Start by looking in your sewing/craft box for samples of color. Lace, ribbon, pom poms, feathers, and fabric are all great items to start with. Then check your child's toy box. Look for the color of choice in your child's cars, blocks, game pieces, balls, bowls, plastic action figures...etc. The options are limitless!

Children love looking at all the items inside the table, you will be surprised at how long this entertains them! For older children, we recommend taking photographs of each individual item before placing it in the table. Print the pictures and use them as flash cards to play a game of "I Spy" with your child. Rotate the colors of your sensory table weekly to add interest for your child. You can even try silver, gold, or rainbow themed sensory tables to add another level of challenge.

Try offering your child bowls, jars, or containers to collect materials and give tongs, spoons, scoops or measuring cups to play with the materials. If using lightweight materials, you can offer contact paper tapes to a table, kitchen appliance or floor to make a beautiful collage of the materials.

Below are close-up photos of our individual sensory tables to get a better look at the fun, diverse and colorful items we chose for our collection. We hope you find inspiration to create a unique, playful color palette from the random toys, items and materials you collect in your own home!