Super Simple Body Paint

At my house, we are always looking for that magical body paint recipe. We've had a few misses, but have found several good ones. We discovered this one by accident.

This started as a shaving cream activity. Bobo asked to add paint to make "Hulk's blood," which just means green. We added yellow and blue powder tempera paint. It turned the shaving cream green, leading to shedding all clothes, leading to painting the body, leading to sitting in the mixture. "Mama, my booty's green."

Water Bead Slide

For this activity, you'll need water beads, a pool noodle and a container to catch the bead in. I placed the water beads in a cup at the top of the stairs with the end of the noodle in the box at the bottom since the beads bounce.

If you are worried about the mess, or have carpet, you can use the clear water beads or marbles. If you have more than one noodle, you can have races!

Bath Time Body Art

If your little guy is ever like mine, bath time can be a battle. It's so much fun getting dirty, not so much getting clean. I've mentioned in a previous post about B's love for body art. Every project we do ends in painting himself, which leads to the bath. Now, we are bringing the projects into the bath!

Sometimes, I paint Bobo...

I saw a post on Thoughts From the Courage Zone for 25 Things to do with a Wiggly Toddler. We've already done all of the list except painting with watercolors in the bath. As Bobo would rather paint himself with anything, we used the watercolors to paint him. They washed off every surface, including him, very easily.

When Bobo wants to paint himself to become say The Green Lantern or Black Spider-man where the paint is going to cover his whole body, we make bath paints. There are several recipes out there, but through trial and error, I've discovered you don't need to be exact. You just need a few things:

We use cornstarch, food coloring, mixing bowls, liquid body soap and paint brushes. The recipes I've seen say to use clear soap, which is why we used my Celine Dion body wash. The tiny bottle only lasted for one bath, so I tried his blue baby body soap the next evening. It worked great. You just can't make red. Green is the color of choice most often, though, so it works for us.

Body paint in the bath makes bath time so much fun! No more bath battles for us! Now, if I could just find a way to make washing hair exciting...

Tot School: Valentine

Month: February
Theme: Valentine

We've been using Pam's printables from Over the Big Moon.

Hidden object hearts. Bobo had to shake the hearts and guess what was inside. He was disappointed they all didn't have candy.

Transferring poms with tweezers (from the Zombie Lab set). Bobo also transferred the poms into his penguin nesting doll. The baby penguin was too small, so we had to hunt for something small enough to fit.

Cutting tray. Bobo loves to cut the little people out.

Sticker tray. We both love the Power Puff Girls. Mojo Jojo!

Homemade Cinnamon play dough. It was supposed to be purple, but we were out of red. We made a really ugly grayish color. Bobo added blue before playing with it and made a marble effect. He dumped the painted corn kernels to push into it.

Fun with science. We had bath tub science this week, so no pictures. Bobo mixed colored vinegar with baking soda. Then, he made color bubbles by spraying colored water in the bath. That led to spraying himself different colors. Lots of fun with rainbows!

Four more days to go!!!

Play Date: Valentine's Day

Month: February
Theme: Valentine's Day

This week at our playgroup...

Valentine-making invitation.

"I love my mommy" riddles and animal identification.

Edible bracelets. I don't know how many of these will actually become gifts, but the kids had fun making and eating them.

Large Motor Sort. I've set this out the past couple of weeks as it's a favorite.

I modified the Winter Tot Pack penguins. I always have a matching game in storytime. Instead of doing colors, I tried matching the number of spots on each penguin with the numerical penguins. I pasted spots onto the penguins, laminated them and pasted magnets on the backs. The game accompanied my flannel story of Pippa's Penguin.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tot School: Superhero Part 2

Month: January
Theme: Superheroes

I have not been taking as many photos. Instead, I've chosen to engage more in my child's play. Sometimes, I do not even take my camera. The result has been magnificent. We jump from activity to activity, and my little boy always has a smile on his loving face. I'll still be sharing our activities, but it will be from the "before" perspective. Remember, though, when following your child's lead, the invitation is only the beginning.

Tot Trays
 

From left to right and top to bottom: "V" is for villain magnet poms, Cut and Paste, Counting Cards, Color by Number, Patterns and Pre-writing If that seems like a lot of Pre-school activities, it is! I do not usually include so many paper activities, but Bobo asked for them.

I kept some of the trays we didn't get to the first time. Again, from left to right and top to bottom: "V" is for villain magnet poms, Batman transfer with hanger clips, Counting cards, Color by number hero, Sticker City, Pre-writing hero to car. Please see my original Superhero post to get the location of the print materials.  

Where it led?

Bobo has been fascinated with rainbows and mixing colors lately. School and tot trays often lead to colors.

He used a paint brush to finish his color by number page.
 

Cutting and pasting the bad guys/good guy page led to an imaginary battle frozen on paper.
 

The sticker sheet also led to a battle. We talked about where the words should go and matched those to the action unfolding.

If I don't mention play dough in a post, do not be fooled! Everything leads to play dough. Bobo loves to paint himself and he just discovered, he can turn different colors with the aid of play dough.

Becoming the black spiderman.

The whole superhero theme led to a ton of imaginative play and physical activity. I have been the Black Cat, Spiderman girl, Superman girl, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Mom-ra (take on villain from Thundercats) for the past month. We didn't have a field trip for this theme, but we had a blast staying home.