Blue Goop!

As part of our blue week, we made some blue goop!  You may have to add more water or cornstarch to make it the right consistency, but it is 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water.  

Add in some food coloring to make it more interesting!  We did blue for our blue week:

The texture is unreal!  You just have to touch this stuff!!!  It feels like a liquid and solid all at once:

The monkeys played with it for a good bit:

And even Monkey hubby couldn't resist playing in it!

We brought it out the next day too and it retained its texture:

With the consistency just right, it dries almost instantly on your hands:

Yet still feels like liquid:

And since it's just cornstarch and water, clean up is a breeze!  Please do this one and then leave a comment telling me what your experience was with it!

Ocean in a Bottle

So this was a super neat activity that Monkey A really enjoyed!  Admittedly, it could have been much better if I had some mini seashells and/or small plastic fish, but she didn't seem to mind at all!  

I used some empty small Gatorade bottles, water beads, blue food coloring, sea salt (you could also use sand), glitter, and baby oil:

 
After I poured in the salt, Monkey A added the food coloring:

I helped her add some water:

And then we mixed in some glitter and beads:

I later added some baby oil to make "waves"...it was really neat and she loved shaking up the bottle!

Ice Age Dinosaur Excavation

As part of our blue week, but also because we were supposed to have a dinosaur playdate but then Monkey J and I fell ill with strep and we were on quarantine, we whipped out our Ice Age frozen dinosaur block.  You will have to freeze the dinosaurs in sections at a time in your freezer otherwise they will all float to the top.  I dropped in some blue food coloring to make it more interesting:

I provided spray bottles of colored water:

Some brushes and some colored salt:

And finally some bottles of warm water:

Monkey J quickly discovered that the warm water worked the best on excavating the dinosaurs:

The sun melted the bottom layer while the monkeys napped:

So I quickly refroze the bottom layer and let them finish their excavation:

A wonderful time, particularly for when it's hot outside!  Do you think this is something your little monkey would enjoy?

Blue Stones, Water Beads, and Color Letter Puzzle

I set up a simply blue play station for Monkey A this morning.  Some empty Gatorade bottles and blue glass stones and she was sorting away happily:

I also offered her some blue water beads.  You can get them already colored, or if you have the clear ones simply add some blue food coloring to the water:

Monkey A loves putting objects into bottles:

I then made Monkey J a Letter Puzzle.  I had some rectangular foam sheets from The Dollar Tree.  I wrote the word, "blue" on both, and then cut one up into pieces

Monkey J was so excited that he asked me to make some more!

And he immediately started spelling:

What a fun way to spell!

Start of our Blue Week: Blue Sensory and Blue Sand Paint

We have lots of fun in store for our blue week and we got started right away with our sensory bin:

We then headed outside for some fun blue sand paint:

Simply mix some sand (I used sand from The Dollar Tree), blue paint, and some water:

Add more water to get the consistency just right and don't worry, whatever the texture, the little monkeys will love it!

Hand over some paintbrushes:

And let them paint:

Or simply enjoy the sensorial experience :)

Gardening Center

In the afternoon, I set up a little gardening activity for the little ones.  I was inspired by this post from the Happy Hooligan's website.  I didn't have any artificial flowers on hand, but my little monkeys didn't seem to mind...they just wanted to play in the water and the mud!

I set out some shovels, rakes, some of their mini watering cans:

And set them up near our two big planters that had some potting soil in them:

And in one of their sand buckets, I filled up some water:

They loved mixing the water with the soil using all of their different tools!

Napkin Butterflies

As our last part of Summer week (and to mark the very first day of summer!), we made some butterflies out of napkins and food coloring:

We set up some food coloring in little containers and then used some droppers to drop the food coloring onto the napkins:

When finished, it should look like this:

We then took a black pipe cleaner and wrapped it around the middle of the napkin and curled the top parts over to make it look like antennae:

A few googly eyes, a craft stick (originally I had tried gluing the craft stick to the pipe cleaner but then I found that wrapping the pipe cleaner around the craft stick made it a lot sturdier), and some drawn eyelashes and a mouth (per Monkey J's request) = one beautiful butterfly!

Monkey J loved his butterfly and walked around the house with it giving it a hug:

Here is Monkey A's butterfly!

Have you made some craft butterflies with your little ones?  How'd they turn out and what materials did you use?