Art man gets a new life

I've had this bendy art man since college.  He was all sad and boring in his unfinished wood outfit.  So Raina and I made him pretty.  

We painted him first.  "ALL colors!," to quote Raina!

Then we modge podge and glittered the heck off this dude.

Now he can stretch with confidence!  

No more plain armpits!  Nothing to be ashamed about!

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You are beautiful, art man!

I don't know what exactly we are going to do with him now.  I thought he should move into the princess castle, but that idea was vetoed.  For now he sits on a shelf above my sewing table... reminding me to be different.  :)

Then I tried to convince Raina that we should fancy up this little zebra.  I failed.

In case you were unsure, we got messy.  As usual.  

Paint dancing is a perfect way to start your day!

Rainbow Rice Party

It's all fun and games til someone spits up in the rainbow rice!

I thought we'd have a little fun today and play with the rainbow rice Raina and I made last weekend.  We made it by scooping plain old white rice into sandwich sized ziploc baggies (about 4 cups per bag), squeezing a few droops of food coloring into each bag, adding 2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol, and SHAKE SHAKE SHAKING until the rice was all coated in color and our arms and legs were tired out from the shake it up dance :)

I realize these pictures show nothing except playing with rice.  The actual process of pouring rice into bags required assistance, and I was not able to provide said assistance while operating a picture taking device :)

this is taina after we added the food coloring.  it got on her hands and then she rubbed her face.   did you know blue food coloring is a beast to get off skin?

We ended up with bags like this (that we let dry for about a week... probs doesn't take that long for it to dry, but we got busy!)

I set up the kitchen table with some scooping, pouring, and "Rice Tea" (get it?!) goodies, poured out the rice into a nice shallow container, and let her go to town!  Raina was in heaven.  She played by herself for about 35 minutes (amazing!) before I joined in the fun (more on what I was working on in a soon to be written post!)

we even planted some flowers!

Even Meow got in on the fun!  Oh meow, you're such a good sport!

This toy was so much fun, but it made a huge mess!  I did not expect the rice to fly as far as it did!

Questions, answered:
Did it make a mess?   Yeah, it made a giant stinkin' mess.  But a totally worth it mess!  Besides, dry rice is really not hard to clean up, and Raina helped with that part, too!  (I tape a 1 foot by 1 foot square off on the kitchen floor, give her a dustpan and broom, and have her sweep messes into the square!  It makes cleaning a game!)

Did the color come off on our hands?  Nope!

Are we going to eat it now?  Absolutely not!  This was my husband's question, and I think it was a joke :)  I suppose you could make and eat colored rice, but you should probably omit the rubbing alcohol!  :)

Science Sunday!

In my former life (pre kids, that is!) I was a preschool teacher.  And a pretty darn good one, if I can pat myself on the back a little here.  But at home, with my own kid, I'm finding a hard time getting in the groove.  Raina's almost 3 now (2 weeks!), so technically, she's a preschooler.  (Wait, what?!  How'd she get that old??)  I've been wishing for a while now that I could get my behind in gear and really start trying to get some learnin' in at home in semi-structured sort of way.  We're (sorta) getting the hang of this 2 kids thing, so I'm starting slowly, and seeing how things go.

Today was Science Sunday.

And it rocked.

Hearing Raina yell, "Let's do more science!" is pretty awesome.

We did 4 experiments:
(you can watch videos of the first three of these on you tube if you want more details!)

Milk, food coloring, and dish soap

In a shallow dish (we used a plastic lid), pour a layer of milk.  We used whole milk.  I wonder if the fat content makes a difference in how the effect comes across?

Drip food coloring into the center of the milk.  Don't worry if it looks like they are mixing together.

Squirt a drop or two of dish soap into the center.... and watch the colors dance!

Raina thought this one was pretty incredible.  We did it a bunch of times, varying the colors, food coloring placement, amounts of each ingredient, etc.  We also did some investigations like "What happens if we blow on it?

 If we blow on it with a straw?"

"What hapens when we tip the plate?"  "What happens when we stir the mixture?"

Volcano pre-show:  how does it work?

I wanted to do volcanoes.  But inside the volcano, the workings of this get hidden! So we did it first in little clear containers.  Raina squirted in three different colors...

then mixed in baking soda...

then poured in vinegar!

We got science ALL over the floor!  And on Lucca's pants.  I wonder if Lucca learned any science by being an observer today?  :)

After the fizzing and bubbling subsided, she spent some time mixing the lava bowls to make new colors!

Volcano

We decided to make our volcano out of playdoh.  Raina was concerned when I told her it would ruin the playdoh, but I assured her we'd get more, and then she was okay with it.

We made a big hole...

Jammed in some baking soda (we are now officially out of baking soda!)...

Put a few drops of food coloring and some vinegar in a cup...

and poured it in for an explosion!!

We made a yellow explosion next, and then added some dish soap to mix things up.  Dish soap makes the explosion BUBBLY!  Cool!

Sharpie tie-dye

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  All over Pinterest, actually.  You use sharpies to decorate some white fabric (we used a white mens tshirt stretched over a baking sheet, and held it in place with rubber bands).

We did it on our couch, but you might not want to :).  Our couch is yuck, to be truthful, and I don't mind getting things on it anymore.  Any excuse to get rid of it.

When it's decorated to your liking, spray it with a spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol.  The colors will start to run and spread!  The more you soak it, the more they spread.

For this step, we set up in the tub.  Make sure to ventilate! (Our house actually reeks of vinegar and rubbing alcohol now... ventilating when it's windy and thirty degrees isn't easy!)

our bathtub is gross, i know.  don't tell me - tell the landlords :)

I'm definitely saving this.  Maybe making it into a pillow for Raina's room??

I think I'm going to institute Sunday as Science Sunday in our house.  Do you have any favorite experiments to share?

And tomorrow...  Math Monday?