Who will sink the boat?

Daphne wanted to make a sail boat today so I got some craft foam, hot glue, foam stickers and a hard plastic straw. I used the straw and some foam to make the mast and sail but it didn't work so I carefully cut it off. She had so much fun decorating the sail I felt bad removing it...but sometimes you have to let something go. Next she wanted to get out some little people to ride in the boat. I decided to make it into a science project! How many will fit in the boat before it sinks? I could only find 6 of the 7 dwarfs (I wonder where she hid the last one...hmmm) so we used a prince. The verdict? The 6 dwarfs floated but the prince...sunk the boat. We learned about weight, weight distribution, and surface tension. Plus we had a blast!

Back yard beach

It's way too cold for a trip to the "local lake" that is almost two hours away so today while it was above 50 we took the opportunity to get out our sand box. For safety reasons we opted to not get a big box to leave out. Instead we got a shallow storage tub that goes under the bed and put part of a 50 pound bag of sand in it. Daphne loves it! Her cars go on trips, she builds castles, she can even grow fake flowers in them. So many things a girl can do in the sand! On a side note I'm contemplating getting a cheap hard plastic kiddy pool to put under the swing set slide to make a water slide. Has anyone tried this before? If you have let me know how it went!

Lava Lamp Fun!!!

We made a lava lamp today. I used one of our big plastic test tubes and mixed one part water some food coloring and 3 parts oil. Then broke up generic Alka Seltzer tablets and let her drop them in. We watched this for a few minutes adding one piece when the first one fizzled out. Then she wanted to put multiple pieces in at once. Will this make more bubbles or less bubbles? She said less. So we tried. Well, it made more!

***No more updating everything from my IPhone.  I was informed it autocorrected to say antacid tablets instead of Alka Seltzer (made it one word by accident and IPhone didn't understand it.  Antacid won't do anything.  Sorry about that).***

Another frog pond!

I couldn't help myself.  Last night, while Daphne was spending the night with her Mimi, I got a little creative!

The grass is decorative plastic grass I bought awhile back.  I used Daphne's cookie sheet and 5 made a base of hot glue then stuck the grass in the glue.  Make the base a little bit bigger than what you actually need for the grass to keep it upright.  The lily and lily pads were made out of the foam sheets.  The eggs were little blue circles of foam and hot glue poured over it.  The tadpole and tadpole with legs were made out of the foam sheets and hot glue as well.  The frog is a little plastic toy she picked out at chuck e cheese the other day...lol.  The water is colored with the fizz tablets to color bath water.  She had a blast!!!

A Trip to the Pond

Today we made a trip to the pond. We counted 5 frogs on an old log. Then we played hide and seek with them in the green water. Those little frogs are hard to find and catch.

Play school Mommy!

Trying to put something together quickly for Daphne to play school I came up with this binder.  It covers numbers 1-10 (with different fruits for her to count).  I put them in page protectors so she could use them over and over.  I have her count or count with her and talk about the different fruit and the number.  She can trace the number with her finger or a dry erase marker...or put stickers on it like she did today.  You can do this with letters too which I'm working on.  I can't wait to show you the letters.  Give me a week and I should have the letters up as it will take some time to get the pictures copied and pasted and everything put together.  (Plus, I ran out of page protectors...lol.)

Building with craft sticks

We all have those moments with toddlers when we are out to eat and dinner is taking longer to make than your child has patience for.  The crayons have long been tossed because they are tired of coloring.  What can you do?  Well, I made a simple, open ended game, with craft sticks.  Velcro dots on each side and end.  (If you use the traditional velcro use sticky at one end, soft on the other...reverse on the other side so the end with the stick dot has soft on the back side and the end with the soft dot has sticky on the back side.  HOWEVER, I strongly recommend the newer velcro that is sticky for both sides...I just couldn't find it at our local Walmart or Home Depot and Micheal's is too far off to get the other kind.)  They can build all they want, un-velcro, and start over.  Daphne LOVES playing with these.  They fit neatly in a quart sized zip lock bag and aren't very noisy...unless you count the squeals of excitement when she makes a sail boat and tells you all about it...then asks you to provide the wind...lol.  (or whatever else she creates and is proud of)