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Who knew you could combine a microwave with Ivory soap and have a blast?  I know I didn’t.   This is a fun and EXTREMELY easy activity to do with your kids!  I saw this idea on kidsactivitiesblog.com and knew right away my kiddos would love it!  The only thing you need is Ivory soap (it must be Ivory) and a microwave.

First we cut our soap into thirds.

Then we nuked it for about 2 minutes.  You can watch it grow while in the microwave.

Be careful when you pull the plate out though because it can get hot!

The kids were amazed to see how much bigger the soap had gotten! To learn more about the science behind it visit here.

Turn bath time into art time with some easy to make Shaving Cream bath paints! My children love bath time and can spend endless hours swishing and splashing in the water. They love to pretend to be mermaids and pirates and by the time they are done, their little toes and fingers look like raisins. But they don’t mind and neither do I. I love that their imagination runs wild in the tub. So, when I had heard of these shaving cream bath paints, I was all for it! They were a huge success (and it was super easy clean up!) Here is the recipe so you can try this with your kids!

Ingredients:

• Shaving Cream (NOT the gel, use the foam kind)
• Washable finger paints/Tempera paint**
• Muffin tin or bowls
• Paint Brushes

Instructions:

Take the muffin tin and squirt shaving cream into each circle. Mix a different color of food coloring into each spot. Give the kids a paint brush and let them play in the tub!

**I used food coloring the first time and it stained my kids body a bit so I used washable finger-paints and it washed right off.

***You can have even more fun when you use this glow in the dark version!

Shaving Cream bathtub paint (glow in the dark version)

Take the muffin tin and squirt shaving cream into each circle. Mix a very small amount of fluorescent activity paint into each spot. Put in a black light and the kids will have a blast!

My kids LOVE the ocean! They can spend the whole day at our local aquarium. Well, let’s be honest, so can I. The sea is so fascinating! It is so vast and full of life! You can spend hours getting caught up in learning about what’s under the deep. I love to learn about these types of things but my kids won’t sit through a nature program for very long so here is what we did to learn about the ocean and sea life during the week of the letter S.

Activity: Went to our local aquarium. Be sure to look for discount days or look on your local aquariums website for coupons and activities that might be going on during the summer.

Books:

• The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (Love the moral of this story!)
• Miss Smith under the ocean by Michael Garland

Movie:   Finding Nemo by Pixar

Food:

• Octopus Hot Dogs (cut the hot dog length wise halfway up to make 8 tentacles, when you boil or cook the dog, the tentacles will curl up making an octopus effect)
• Gold fish Crackers
• Veggie Fettuccine alfredo (seaweed with foam)
• Blue Jello cup with whipped cream and Swedish fish (ocean in a cup)
• Raging Water Capri Sun or Ocean Spray Grape Juice

Science Activity:  

Will it float or sink?

Fill 2 clear cups with water. Add ¼ cup salt in one of the cups. Stir to dissolve. Grab a light ball and a heavy ball and ask the kids what they think the balls will do. Sink to the bottom or float to the top. Place the light ball in the each cup and see what happens. Do the same with the heavier ball. Now try a piece of ivory soap. What happened? Why did it float in fresh water and sink in salt water. Explain that the salt water was heavier than the soap so that’s why it sank. That’s why it’s easier for us to float in salt water than in fresh water.

The other day, I was looking through Pintrest when I came across this picture.

I LOVE that!! Isn’t it the truth? Children learn to become readers through us parents! I love to take a time out of the day to cuddle with my little ones and read a book or two. I’ve been reading to and with my kids since they were infants and even though they couldn’t really understand what I was reading, I knew the importance of getting them started early. I have since learned a few tips on how to get your kids reading.

1. Read to your kids! Start early and continue throughout their lives. Kids need and want our attention. Reading is a great way for bonding time!
2. Get out a basket or book rack and display your books. When kids have easy access to them, they will pick them up!
3. Go to your local library! Kids love checking out books and getting to pick out what book THEY want to read! Attend story time!
4. Each month take out and display books that go with a theme for that month. You can check on your calendar what holidays are in each month. Example: January- snow/winter, Feb. Valentine, March -St. Patrick’s Day, April-Easter, April Fool’s Day, May- Mother’s Day/Spring, June-Alphabet Summer (books that start with what letter you are doing), July, 4th of July, Patriotism, Alphabet Summer, August- Alphabet Summer, Sept.-Back to School/Fall, Oct.-Halloween, Nov. –Thanksgiving/fall, Dec.-Christmas/Hanukkah.
5. After reading, do some kind of activity that goes along with the book. Read ‘Snowmen at night’? Make your own snowman outside or a snowman craft! Read ‘If you give a moose a muffin’? Make muffins together! Read ‘The Lorax’? Pop popcorn and watch the movie/show together! Books will come alive as you create activities for them to do.

Every year my kids and I make fun snowflakes to decorate the house and windows with. We love living in an area where we have a white Christmas. There is something magical about snow around Christmas time. And there is nothing like coming in from outside playing in the snow to a warm cup of hot cocoa.  We love snow!

This year I found this fun website with templates for making ‘Star Wars’ snowflakes. Yes, that’s right, ‘Star Wars’ snowflakes! My kids love them!! It’s fun to put a little twist to our snowflake making! Here are some of our snowflakes we made this year and a link to the website so you can make your own!

Here are the Templates we used:

http://anthonyherreradesigns.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56:star-wars-snowflakes

A few years back, my little girl asked me why we leave cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve. I told that Santa is very busy that night and that it’s nice to leave a snack for him to help him get through the night. She then asked me why we don’t leave a snack out for Santa’s reindeer. It was then we started the tradition of leaving food out for Santa’s reindeer. One year my husband even spotted some of Santa’s reindeer enjoying their snack (see below picture) I have sense come across a few recipes and a few poems. Here is our favorite recipe and favorite poem.  You can put them in baggies for neighbor gifts or for a pre-school class. We sprinkle the food on a brown paper bag in our yard and wake up to nothing left!

Magic Reindeer Food

2 cups uncooked oats

1 cup baby carrots

½ cup peanuts (still in shell)

¼ cup glitter or sugar sprinkles

Reindeer Food Poem: “On Christmas Eve, sprinkle this wonderful Reindeer Food on your lawn. The shiny glitter will sparkle in the moonlight and the smell of oats will guide Rudolph to your home.”

Magical Reindeer Food Poem

Inside this special package is a treat
but not for you!
It contains magical reindeer food
and here is what you do.
Sprinkle this magical reindeer food
carefully on the ground.
And tonight if you are lucky
Santa’s reindeer will come around.
But here’s a secret I have to tell,
one you must try to keep.
That Santa’s reindeer only come
when you are fast asleep.
So quickly put your jammies on
and get a story read,
Then sprinkle this magic treat outside
and hurry off to bed!

If you are anything like me, you envision your Christmas cookies looking perfectly shaped, soft and frosted in a manner that even Martha Stewart herself would be impressed. But in reality, you end up smearing frosting on circle shaped cookies and decorate them with sugar sprinkles. Yup, that’s me every year. But NOT this year!! I discovered “Painted Sugar Cookies’ my dear friend at Krista (Budget Gourmet Mom.com) shared this recipe with me and wowza!!! My cookies are awesome!!! The best part is that the kids can have their fun “painting” their own cookies and can let out their inner Van Gogh! I love that there is little mess and all the cookies come out recognizable and yummy! So, take a crack at it and you too can have your perfectly decorated cookie!!

The “Paint” for your Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 tsp. water
• food coloring
• small clean paint brushes74174nstructions

1. In small bowl beat the egg yolk and water until mixed. Divide into bowls for as many colors as you will be making.
2. Put a few drops of food coloring in each bowl and mix. Use paint brushes to paint designs onto the sugar cookies then bake accordingly.
3. If more yolk mixture is needed double or triple the recipe for desired amount of “paint”.

What a fun and easy science experiment to do with your kiddos!  I had all of these items in my house already and the kids were more than thrilled to try this out.  I doubt elephants really use toothpaste, but the experiment gets it’s name because when it’s foaming over it looks like a giant tooth paste tube.  And who has giant teeth? Elephants of course!

What you’ll need:

• An empty water or soda bottle.  16 oz seems to work best
• 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide (20 volume/6% solution works best, but I used the kind you can buy from the grocery store and it was a success!)
• Squirt of dish detergent
• 3-4 drops food coloring
• 1 tsp yeast dissolved in 2 tablespoons very warm water
• Funnel
• Pan with 2 inch sides

Put your empty bottle in the middle of your pan.  Measure 1/2 cup of your hydrogen peroxide and add the food coloring.

Pour your hydrogen peroxide down the funnel into your bottle.  Add a squirt of dish soap to the mixture.  Next add your yeast mixture through the funnel.

Now stand back and be amazed!  The mixture is going to ooze out like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube!

We have tried lots of different colors with this easy experiment. Check out our Green, Pink & Yellow Elephants Toothpaste!

To learn about the science behind the experiment click here.

Have your kids ever wanted a lava lamp?  Well now they can make their own using every day household items!  This is a fun and inexpensive way to make your very own lava lamp!

Items needed:

• Empty and clean 16 oz. plastic soda bottle with the lid
• Vegetable oil
• Food coloring
• A large Alka-Seltzer tablet
• Water

What you do:

Fill the bottle 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Add water to the remainder of the bottle, almost to the top but without it overflowing. Add 10 drops of food coloring, to make the solution appear fairly dark.

Cut the Alka-Seltzer into 8 pieces. Drop one of the tiny pieces into the oil and water mixture. The mixture will start to bubble.

Wait until the bubbling stops and add another piece of Alka-Seltzer. Continue until there is no more Alka-Seltzer, and the bubbling has completely stopped.

Screw on the cap of the soda bottle. Tip the bottle back and forth and watch the waves appear.