Our rice-filled, Japenese-themed sensory bin was such a hit with the little girls at Gracen’s 3rd birthday party, we decided to bring it out to enjoy again today. We brought a soft blanket, parked ourselves in the shade of a big tree on the far side of the yard, and Grae snuck in the calm, quiet time she quite desperately needed in order to regroup after a couple of busy people-filled days (if you’ve yet to try it, slowly running your hands through dry, cool rice is quite therapeutic).
Knowing Grae’s love of popsicles, my mom sent her home from the Okanagan with a couple of new popsicle mould sets the other day. While I knew she’d be excited, what I wasn’t expecting was for two new popsicle moulds to keep her happily playing in her rear-facing car seat for at least 1/2 of our 7 hour drive home. She was so engaged with them that Brad actually said, “Well I know what we need to bring on the plane to Kuwait.” (If you’re travelling through Germany in August and see a woman with popsicle mould parts clumsily falling out of her purse, that’ll be me.)
When we got home and I started thinking about fun play opportunities for the week, I thought it would be fun to try to set up a popsicle-themed pretend play station. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was making the pretend pops out of ice, but I wanted something a little different. Enter gelatine. With a fun texture that can be jiggled, squished, and crumbled, I knew it would be a hit.
To make the pops quite sturdy, I mixed up 3 packets of Knox unflavoured gelatine with 3/4 of a cup of boiling water, then added 3/4 of a cup of cool water once the gelatine had been dissolved. I popped a few drops of liquid food colouring into each of my popsicle cups, poured the gelatine mixture in, mixed it up, and put the faux popsicles in the refrigerator over night.
This morning while we were preparing breakfast together, Miss G immediately noticed the rainbow coloured popsicles in the fridge and asked if they were for playing with. Let me tell you, this girl doesn’t miss a thing. She patiently waited until after our morning outing, lunchtime, and her nap, and I had this little set up ready ready for her when she woke up.
She was delighted to see it and immediately asked, “Are these just for playing, Mama? Or are they for eating?” With the fact that they were for playing with cleared up, she began naming the flavours – my favourite of which was tomato soup (the red one). Then she began doling out the treats in bowls with spoons, as she often likes her popsicles.
Next up, all of the popsicles went back into their moulds and got put into her pretend freezer. Then she took them out, one by one (with the help of a spoon and some serious shaking) as though she were filling customer orders.
For the customers who preferred to eat their frozen treats from a bowl rather than a stick, she happily crumbled the popsicles up. As you do.
There was lots of play with the popsicles in their smushed up state…
Then she moved onto making rainbow pops. Because I mean, who wants only one flavour when you can have several, right?
And then there was soup. Oh, was there ever. Soup stirred so enthusiastically that bits flew out of the bowl and landed in various spots around our living room.
I’d say pretend popsicles were a hit, wouldn’t you? A colourful, messy, joyful hit.
♥
For extra fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.
Have you every come home from a shopping trip with surprise item in your bags? That’s exactly what happened with this hair gel… I do not use hair gel. Brad does not use hair gel. No one in our house uses hair gel. Yet after returning home from a grocery shopping trip with Miss G a few weeks ago, there it was in one of our bags. My immediate thought was, ‘Crap! Did we accidentally steal this?!’ I checked the bill and nope, we’d paid for it. How it got through the checkout and into our bags, I have no idea.
Anyways, knowing that we wouldn’t be using it in our hair anytime soon, I decided we’d use it for some sort of play. And when nothing brilliant had come to mind in a few week’s time, I decided that we’d mix it with cornstarch. Because cornstarch mixed with any sort of liquid = cool, right?
It took some serious mixing to bring the ingredients together first, then it took some serious kneading to smooth it out and soften it up. The result, however, was quite lovely. Pillowy soft and lightweight, this dough behaves a lot like ooblek does. When handled gently and moved slowly, it’s stretchy and elastic, and when handled more abruptly, it breaks off in chunks.
Gracen wanted to play with it immediately, so together we collected some bowls, silicon moulds, and plastic utensils and brought everything outside to play with.
She began exploring her new dough by sinking her hands into it, squishing it between her fingers, and poking holes into it…
Then it was time to fill all of the containers with “oatmeal”.
With a good breakfast in our tummies, it was time for dessert. ☺ The dough rolls into balls really nicely, so Miss G turned our ball collection into cupcakes with cherries on top.
When we were done with our first round of dessert, Gracen shouted, “Cookies next!” and took off into the house running. She returned with a tray of creative table goodies – buttons, pony beads, straw pieces, gems, and sparkly pompoms. I was put in charge of forming the cookies and she was in charge of decorating.
To show that we had eaten the cookies all up, Miss G crumbled them all into a bowl.
The cool part was that as soon as she was done, the crumbles had already started melting together to form one mass.
This was such a fun new dough to explore and play with. One thing we did notice is that after being played with for an hour, it had dried quite a bit. It definitely can be played with again, but this is not the type of dough you’ll want to leave out for very long when not in use.
Oobleck Dough
Mix the wet ingredients together. Add in the cornstarch and mix really well. Once the dough comes together in a mass, knead until smooth and soft.
Play!
♥
For extra fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.
Do you ever set up an activity that you think will be a total hit and it just kind of flops? Or if it doesn’t flop, it just doesn’t take off the way you thought it would? That was the case with this sensory tray.
After a Sunday morning adventure and a good afternoon nap, we decided to hit the backyard. Brad and I wanted to get some yard work done, so I decided to set up a sensory station for Grae to explore in between searching for rocks, running around, and helping with the yard work.
I kept it very simple and filled a tray with raspberry-scented shaving foam, sprinkled glitter on top of it, and set out a warm bucket of water with a hand towel.
Grae dove in.
She definitely had fun mixing up the different colours of glitter and squishing the foam between her fingers…
And she even thought it was funny that it stuck to her hands at first, but after a while, the fact that she couldn’t properly clean the foam off of her hands and arms, even with the bucket of water and towel, started to bother her.
She decided to gather some sandbox tools and played for a while longer, but the activity never really took off the way I thought it would. In the end, there was a giant tray of semi-played with foam just left there and she was done.
If anything, this was a great way to get messy. ☺
I guess all activities can’t be a total hit, can they?
♥
For extra fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.
After making a few batches of ice cream dough this afternoon, Gracen and I set up a simple little ice cream shop in the living room. We used an old wooden apple crate for her table top and made sure the floor was protected with a large bath towel.
Then we went around the house to collect a few other items. First up – ice cream cones. Yes, the real ones… We had them on hand from her 2nd birthday party and they’d never be used otherwise, so may as well use them for some fun pretend play, right?
Of course, for customers not partial to cones, you need to have a bowl option. These silicon baking cups did the job perfectly.
Next, we gathered up some spoons and an ice cream scoop…
As well as some buttons, beads, and straw pieces for candies and candy sprinkles.
And with that, our little ice cream shop owner got to work.
There was plenty of scooping, touching, smelling, and exploring to be done.
Of course the ice cream treats rolled out of the shop one after another too. A hazelnut ice cream cone for Papa…
And a strawberry ice cream cup {with extra candy sprinkles!} for Mama.
This was such a simple set-up, but I can already tell that she’s going to get hours of fun out of it. Of course, it’s more than just fun… This little ice cream shop incorporates pretend play, a sensory experience, and creativity too.
♥
And if you love ice cream and pretend play, check out our play dough ice cream shop too!
Are you following us on Facebook and Instagram yet?
We’d love to have you!
