Some Light Table Fun

I was browsing pinterest one day and spotted these awesome treasure rocks from Growing a Jeweled Rose. They looked like lots of fun, so I decided to make some for the kiddos. They were super easy to make, just baking soda, food coloring, and water. I found various treasures from around the house to hide in the middle. I let them dry over night and the kids played with them on the light table the next day. They really enjoyed it.

Just ignore the sorry looking red rock!

Touching them to see what they felt like.

Spraying the vinegar onto the rocks.

"I think I see something!"

Finding the treasure. I love Josh's expression in this one.

Digging in the rocks to find more treasure.

Spraying was too slow, so we just dumped the rest of the vinegar in.

When they were done with the treasure rock, I cleaned out the tub and poured our water beads in it. They grabbed a couple of their plastic cups and started scooping and pouring. I really need to figure out how to take better pictures with my camera because the water beads look awesome on the light table, but I just couldn't capture it. The kids enjoyed playing with these for awhile before they got too bored.

Oh the concentration!

And of course I can't sign off without showing a few pics of our newest member. We don't do school time with her, so she just doesn't get in on all the pictures!

Sleeping Beauty

Two of my loves.

Baking Soda and Vinegar Fun

We have a nature and science museum here in Denver that we have a membership to. One day we went and saw a movie there about volcanoes. They gave us a toy volcano when we went. I pulled it out the other day and the kiddos had a good time taking turns dropping vinegar into it. I had placed baking soda in the bottom and it bubbled up each time. This turned into an extended play. I pulled out a couple cookie sheets and dumped baking soda onto them. I gave them some food coloring and a bowl of vinegar with a dropper. They played with this for about 20 min. So much fun!

Playing with our volcano.

Dropping in food coloring

Adding vinegar

He's not having any fun!

All the colors started mixing together. It looked pretty cool.

Josh just pretty much emptied all his food coloring and it just turned black.

 A fun pictured to leave you with. I love these kiddos!

Oobleck

I have been wanting to make Oobleck for quite awhile, but I was always waiting until we could read the book, "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" by Dr. Seuss. I decided to go ahead and make some on Sunday because the kids were getting stir crazy. They have been doing so good the last few weeks considering most of their stuff is still in boxes and they don't really have a routine yet. Our future "classroom" still looks like this:

Quite frankly, it is driving me nuts! I am a very organized person by nature and I can't stand the fact that our lives really don't have any organization yet. Callie and Josh are now sharing a room, so Jamey's cousin gave us a bunk bed. We have to paint it white, so it is in the garage until we have time to refinish it. Until then, we don't have anywhere to put their toys, so everything remains packed up except for the boxes the kids have managed to unpack all over the floor. I am very glad that we have a designated space for a classroom though, and I have high hopes for the future of this room.

We do have a sandbox, which I'm not super crazy about (I hate how sand gets everywhere, in every crevice, and I don't want it in my house), but it has given the kids something to do:

Josh's latest fashion statement, even at Wal-Mart!

So today I pulled out the old cornstarch and water to make up this fun mixture to get the kids off my back! :) I am glad I did, because it kept them busy for almost 2 hours! For those that don't know what Oobleck is, it is made by mixing one part water with 2 parts cornstarch. The mixture is almost solid like if you just hit it or bounce your fingers on it, but then if you just place your finger on top, it will slowly sink in. You can pick it up and mold it, but as soon as you stop, it'll seep through your fingers. It is really quite cool. Here are a few pics of the kids playing with it:

Mixing it together

It started to get too hard to mix with the spoon, so in went the hands.

Watching it seep through her fingers

An hour or so later, this is what the porch looked like.

Josh wanted the "masher" and he picked a tomato from the garden and squished it up in his bowl.

Even though we are only renting our house, which is a new experience for us, we are blessed to have awesome landlords who don't mind if we paint and are also cool with our dogs. We have an awesome, though small, backyard with a great garden that we inherited. Here is Kona's happy place:

The weather has been so great here, and we often leave our back door open. I love the fact that the kids can go in and out in their bare feet and not track dirt in (unless they've been in the sandbox). In our old house, there was so much dust and mud that they often never played in the backyard. So overall, we are loving Colorado!

Elephant Toothpaste

I have seen this idea online several times and been dying to try it. I finally tracked down the 20% peroxide at our local Sally Beauty supply. It was only about $4 for a big bottle, so pretty cheap for some fun experiments!

Here's what you need to

• 16 oz empty plastic bottle
• 1/2 cup 20-volume hydrogen peroxide (20-volume is 6% solution, purchased from a beauty supply store)
• Squirt of Dawn dish detergent
• 3-4 drops of food coloring
• 1 teaspoon yeast dissolved in approximately 2 tablespoons very warm water
• Funnel
• Pan to contain mess!

Stand the bottle up in the center of the cake pan. Put the funnel in the opening. Add 3-4 drops of food coloring to the peroxide and pour the peroxide through the funnel into the bottle. Add the Dawn detergent to the peroxide in the bottle. Pour the yeast mixture into the bottle and quickly remove the funnel.

I don't think ours got as firm as some of the ones I've seen online. It seems like it should stand up more and coil around the bottle a little before falling down, but ours just came out and fell down. I don't know if the mixture was wrong, or if the shape of the bottle would affect this (more narrow mouth, like a coca cola bottle). This was still really cool and the kids enjoyed playing in it when it was done!

Daddy was our helper today!

Our supplies.

Squirting in the food coloring.

Pouring the peroxide into the bottles.

Squirting in the dish soap.

Watching it foam out.

Pouring it into the pans.

Having fun! Callie: "Mommy, we're washing our feet for Jesus." Love that girl!

This is what our peroxide looked like. I think I have enough to do this 2 more times.

Sprouting Lima Beans

Today we decided to try to sprout some lima beans. This wasn't a planned activity. Callie had seen something on tv about growing beans and she asked it we could do it, so I said sure! Callie did hers during Josh's nap, so I had Josh make one after supper. We just placed some paper towels into cups and pushed lima beans down the sides. Then we poured water in. We will see what happens in the next couple of days.

Putting in a paper towel and the lima beans.

Pouring in the water.