Little Pintesters:Foil Painting

This activity can be found here.

http://picklebums.com/2011/08/30/easy-art-for-kids-painting-on-foil/

It's been a while since we've done a "Little Pintesters" post. These are special posts where we will test activities we have pinned on Pinterest. Today we painted on foil! It was actually fun for both my 2 year old and 5 year old. I give it a score of 10. It's not much different than regular painting but for some reason painting on foil gives it an added element of fun!

Score: 10 out of 10

Little Pintesters: Junk Match Busy Bag

 

We love Pinterest! I recently pinned THIS activity and threw it together in less than five minutes with stuff I had lying around the house.

They're called Junk Match bags. You pretty much grab an assortment of small objects you have around your house, trace them on cardstock and put them all in a gallon ziploc bag. That's it! Easy! Then have your little ones match the object to its outline.

Outline all the random objects

Place them in a large ziploc bag. You may need to trim the cardstock a little bit to make it fit.

 

Let your kids have fun!

This is probably the easiest activity to put together!
TIP: The cardstock can be laminated to make it last longer.

We give it a BIG 10!

Here are some more ideas to make this activity even more fun and educational:

• Make themed bags for holidays with small holiday objects from the Dollar Store
• Make alphabet bags each with objects starting with a certain letter for practicing letter sounds
• Bags can be themed around shapes or even color

Please let us know in the comments if you try this activity and if you come up with more fun ways to use it.
 

Little Pintesters: Toilet Paper Tube Fun!

Here are two activities you can make using empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes.

The first one is a fun game my boys absolutely loved. Found HERE. You take the tubes and cut them up into different sizes and you tape them onto a cookie sheet or tray. Then you take a small ball and the kids have fun tilting the tray and making the ball go through the "tunnels." To make it more complicated you can add more balls. FUN!

Our Score: 10

The second activity found HERE (This a great website if you're teaching your preschooler at home). You take six tubes and cover them with colored paper. Then you glue them onto a long piece of cardboard or cardstock and onto each other. I used a glue gun and it worked very well. You label each tube with its corresponding color. You can have your little ones sort all kinds of objects. We've used popsicle sticks, pompoms and beads so far.

Our Score: 10

 

The best part of these activies is that they cost little to nothing to make! 

 

Little Pintesters: Acorn painting

 This fun activity was found here as I was browsing Pinterest. 

You will need:

An empty oatmeal canister

construction paper

acorns

paint

 Line the oatmeal canister with your paper and add some dollops of paint to the inside or the canister also. Toss a few acorns inside. Close the lid and shake it up. That's the really fun part!

 I loved that this was a mess free painting activity. I also liked that my 1 and a half year old and my four year old could both do it. I often try to find activities that they can both do so neither of them feels left out. This was PERFECT! It's definitely a do over. My four year old especially liked it. For some reason he is really into collecting acorns and playing with them. Fun, fun, fun, fall activity! This can also be done for other occasions using marbles, similar to this activity we did a while back. 

Score: a big 10! 

Little Pintesters: Homemade Finger Paint

 Back for another Little Pintesters post where our little ones test out pins we find on Pinterest. 

This recipe was found here. 

Ingredients:

3 T. Sugar

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. cornstarch

2 c. water

food coloring

Combine ingredients in a small sauce pan. Mix and warm until mixture reaches desired consistency. Let cool. Pour into containers. Add food coloring to make desired colors.

The verdict: this was easy to make. I like that you can adjust the consistency to make it thicker like finger paint, or less thick for painting with brushes. The blogger of the original post suggests doing so if desired. It came out pretty thick. Next time I'll add a little more water if they will be using sponge brushes. 

This activity actually really entertained both my four-year-old and my 1 and a half year old. They were entertained for almost 45 minutes. Which is a long time for them!! So much fun.

Score: 10 out of 10 !!

That's all for now! Let us know if you try this activity and if it's successful for you :)

Little Pintesters: Wacky Sacks!

I found THIS fun idea I wanted to try for the kids I teach in the nursery at my church. It looked simple and fun so we gave it a shot.

All you need are balloons (larger are better), playdough (I made my favorite recipe. Found HERE), and a permanent marker

You start by stretching the balloon open as much as you can. The adult has to do this. It's too hard for little hands. The orginal post said to shape the playdough into a snake and have the child stuff it into the balloon. We just did little chunks. It was easier for the little ones.

 Now close the balloons and draw some funny faces with a permanent marker.

 Now have fun with them! Squish them, toss them, play hot potato, play catch, shape them into funny shapes, and when you're done playing with them you can take the playdough out and let the fun continue!

I would give this project a 9 out of 10.

Why? They were super easy to make and the kids loved them so much we had to make more for siblings. My little ones even wanted to keep them during their nap. It doesn't earn a perfect 10 because the faces started to wear off. My little one kept asking me to redraw it.

There you go! Wacky Sacks! So fun!



Little Pintesters: Bubble wands and Homemade Bubbles

Bubble wands and homemade bubbles

My little Pintesters were eager to try out these homemade bubble wands and bubbles. The bubble wands are made using pipe cleaners and plastic beads. They were fun to use on a pinch, but they soaked up a lot of the bubble solution so it was a little wasteful. 

Bubble wand score: 8 

why not a ten? Because they soaked up more solution than necessary which made my Little Pintesters and I all wet. 

The bubble solution:

4 cups water

1 cup dish soap

1/4 cup corn syrup

container

Mix the ingredients together in a container to store in such as a gallon jug. Pour the bubble solution into a shallow dish and give your little cookie cutters, water bottles with the bottoms cut off, and bubble wands to explore with. 

Now for the review: This solution was fun to play with the water bottles and cookie cutters. It made big bubbles that would not float away so it was not as useful for the bubble wands. The most that would come out of the wands were about 5 bubbles. 

Bubble Solution score: 8

Why? Because it did entertain the little ones for a good 15-20 minutes, but I would've liked for us to be able to use the bubble wands and produce lots of "floaty" bubbles to play with. 

That's our review for now! Have a nice day!

Introducing. . . Little Pintesters!: Dying Rice and Pasta

Hi! This is Angela. We're starting a new kind of post on this blog. We will periodically write all about activities, projects, learning games etc. we have found on Pinterest (our favorite resource!). We'll have our little ones test them out so you won't have to! Then we'll rate the activity and how well it worked with our kids. And we'll give suggestions for improvement and whether it would work better or worse with kids of different ages. Your comments are appreciated!

 

Dying Rice and Pasta

I found this activity here: http://thebakerbee.com/2011/09/28/crafts-for-toddlers-rice-noodles/

 

You'll need:

rice or pasta

rubbing alcohol

parchment paper or foil (I used foil- it worked well)

food coloring

a large bowl (preferably one that will not get stained)

spoon for stirring

 

put a couple tsps of rubbing alcohol and 6-10 drops of food coloring into a bowl

add 2 cups of rice or pasta of your choice and stir until it is fully coated

 

set it out to dry on a piece of foil for an hour or two

 

Use it to do art projects, beading, sorting, or in sensory bins like my kids did here.



 



They seriously loved it!! They spent at least 30 min digging out little pompoms and beads and burying plastic dinosaurs and cars. After lunch they asked to play again for another half hour! It was huge a success!

 

I give this project a big 10 out of 10!

It is so versatile that it can work for kids of all ages. The possibilities are endless!

If you've had success dying your own pasta and rice please comment and tell us how your kids played with them.

 

Little Pintesters. . .signing out.