Jello Finger Paints

This activity can be fun in all kinds of ways. Take the chance to practice letters, shapes, numbers...or just have fun with the texture.

Materials: gelatin powder, water, paper, and fingers :)

Mix a small amount of the powder with water to form a thin paste, about the consistency of white school glue. Using their fingers, help your child paint a picture with the Jello paint! Best part: the paint is edible. No worries about them licking their fingers between colors.

One note:

This activity can get messy, but it's easy to clean up with a warm washcloth. Just be careful that there aren't any fabrics nearby that you don't want tie-dyed.

Toothpick Pictures

Last week while my husband was gone my daugther and I made him a "family picture" to welcome him home. It was quick and easy and really fun.

Materials Needed:
Large cardstock, cardboard, or sturdy paper
ToothpicksCottonballs or craft puff balls
Glitter Glue (optional)




Create a picture on your paper using the toothpicks - use colored puff balls to embelish. You could make a picture of most anything (people are pretty easy though). Let your child decide who or what is in the picture. After the picture is all set up use Elmer's glue to put everything down on paper. You can let your child help by having him/her put the puff balls onto the glue. When you are finished you can write in a message or put more details with glitter glue.

Wet Chalk Art

Sometimes the most simple activities will produce the greatest results and biggest smiles. Here an easy art activity that my little one has loved:

Get a wet piece of dark paper and draw on it with chalk. Children really enjoyed dumping water on the paper. If you want to do this activity, I recommend putting the paper in a cookie sheet to keep the clean up minimal.

How easy and fun is that? :)

Pet Rocks

My son is obsessed with collecting rocks. So here is our activity this week...

Materials Needed:
Smooth Rocks (find your own or get some from a craft store or craft section of a store), Acrylic Paint, Craft glue, Paint brush, Q-tips great for making spots, Various decorations (wiggly eyes, feathers, felt, foam, sequins)

How to Do it: Paint your rock. Let it dry. Glue on accessories!You could even find a clear container (empty snack container) and use it for a cage!

Build around a story.

Today, in our "preschool time" with my four year old son we built our activities around a book. We read the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. We have some magnetic letters and a magnet tray. We used those materials to spell out "tree" and "boy." If you don't have magnetic refrigerator letters, you can just spell them on a piece of paper. I then read the book to him. Every time "tree" or "boy" showed up in the story I would point to the words we had spelled and had him recite them.

When we were done reading the book we colored a picture of the boy and the tree. We used torn pieces of green contruction paper for the leaves and glued them on. It took no prior preparation on my part because he could do all the tearing.

Try it out and use your child's favorite book to build around. You can make a food that is mentioned in the book, sculpt the characters out of playdough...the possibilities are endless! Have FUN!

Welcome to the Activity Corner

We had a request from a reader to save all the crafts, snacks, and other exciting ideas from our activity corner. Up to now we have just been deleting the posts as we do a new one, but from now on we will transfer the activity corner posts to this blog. That way if you miss one you can always check here! Since we have deleted all our past activity corners we do not have them posted here. :( However, if time (and memory) permits, we will try to remember the activity corners from the past and post them. Thanks so much and keep reading!

White Mud

Finally, your child can play with toilet paper with your approval! :) This concoction is fun to explore and play with! I would recommend taking it outside in an empty kiddy pool or playing with it inside a large container inside. Toddlers love mashing it like mud; and with the help of soft-sided cups and other molds, older kids can shape it into towers, castles, and more.

Step 1: Ask your child to help you unravel about 1 1/2 rolls of two-ply toilet paper, then tear it into 2- to 3-square pieces. Put all of the pieces in a plastic tub.

Step 2: Grate half of a 3.1-ounce bar of Ivory soap into the tub.

Step 3: Slowly add about 6 cups of warm water, 1 cup at a time, while you and your child blend the mixture together by hand. It'll take about 15 minutes to mix it all up -- hang in there, it's worth the wait! Stop adding water when your mixture feels creamy and saturated. (You can always add more TP if yours gets too runny.)

Step 4: Help your child mold the mud into mountains, towers, and other shapes.


Step 5: Store the mud at room temperature in a covered container; it'll last for several weeks. (Dispose of it in the trash.)