Homemade Dinosaur Eggs/ Geology eggs

Geology eggs, paleontology eggs, dinosaur eggs, gem eggs, dig your own fossil eggs... You know the type. You get the kits where, with a small tool, you can dig a treasure of some sort out of the plaster mix.

I thought they'd make a terrific party favour for Miss 4's birthday party, however the bought ones cost too much. So here's how we made our own.

Simple Rubber Band Gun and Ammo Pouch

I made these simple wooden rubber band guns with Mr 6 today. It was declared to be "epic" so many times I thought I'd share. I made a second one when Miss 4 came home, and the whole process (including "helping" took about 10 minutes)

Ingredients:
26mm diameter dowel stick. 7cm long*
1cm square stick. 18.5cm long*
1 wooden peg
2 nails
*note: all the measurements are approximate, done by eye, and measured later. We used scraps we had handy.

You also need:
wood glue
sandpaper
hand saw
hot melt glue

1. Sand all edges
2. Saw a small groove horizontally across the end of the square stick (for the rubber band to sit in)
3. Wood glue and nail the other end of the square stick to the round dowel.
4. Hot glue gun the peg to the top of the square stick
5. Test it out and paint it.

For the target, we made holes in the side of a cubby house box, and I taped plastic bags to the back of the holes to catch the rubber bands. It made it easier to see which hole the rubber band had gone through, and easier to get it back.

I also made an "ammo pouch", which consisted of a simple rectangle of fabric sewn into a tiny bag (sew sides and a triangle across the bottom corners). I sewed a pipe cleaner in the top hem, which gives it a stiff feel, so the pouch can be pinched shut or kept open.

Good quiet fun that's not going to actually injure someone when the rubber band hits (unlike the wooden sword which was Mr 5's first suggestion for a wood work project). And all done before the kids lost interest. Definitely a great thing to make on a quiet or rainy day.

Hammering Out Flower and Leaf Prints

I saw this idea on Build/Make/Craft/Bake, and had to give it a go. I mean seriously, it's using a hammer to squash the colour out of natural things. How much fun could that be?

Tactile Chemistry

We started off with the plan of making fluffy stuff, using cornflour, shaving cream and food colour. We made up a bowl of pink and then made a second bowl of purple fluffy stuff.

Good fun in the making.

NOTE: Put the food dye on the shaving foam, not cornflour, this helps it to spread out rather than making a mixture with lots of little spots.

We moved the activity outside as it was obviously going to get pretty messy pretty quickly (and this helped the smell of the shaving foam dissipate too)

I gave Miss 4 a tray to get playing, and popped inside to get my camera. By the time I came out again, the two colours were mixed into one.

For a while this was great, but after half an hour or so Miss 4 found she couldn't really build the things she wanted to build with it.

Minecraft birthday party

Mr 6 is right into anything he can play on the tablet right now, especially minecraft. So for his birthday party we had a bit of a computer game theme.

The cake was candy crush (because it was made with lollies, surely you can't get a much easier cake than that!)

We had one party game. I wasn't sure how it'd go, seeing as I'd just vaguely invented it in my head, but it worked brilliantly and all the kids, from the 1y/o to the 14 y/o wanted to line up and have a go.

Outdoor Scavenger Hunt

I had the kids home for a sick day this week, and came across this wonderful outdoor scavenger hunt from Muddy Boots, with some very good ideas in it. So I thought I'd share it.

Paint Powder and a Squirty Bottle

Ever since seeing something like this on Playschool, I've really wanted to try it. Such a simple and fun activity. Get some powdered paint (we had tempura paint) sprinkle it on the paper and squirt with water. Hang it up to dry. Fun!

Note: This is messy, so a great one for outside.

Salt and Ice Sculptures.

I have been wanting to do the ice and salt experiment for a while now with the kids, I was just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. It's a perfect activity for a warm spring or summer day. Last week we had a lovely day, and I had remembered to freeze a nice big block of ice.

It was one of the nicest, simplest and most satisfying experiments I've done with the kids. All you need to do is freeze a big block of ice, make a few different colours with food colouring in water, and fill a small container with table salt. Take it all outside on a tray with a couple of spoons and let the kids play.

At first it was interesting watching all the colour mixing. That kept going for a while, watching the colours blend and the ice slowly melt away. By the time the colours had mixed into a dark green colour the tunnels were looking very interesting. We could scoop some of the used water from the tray and pour it back into the ice, until we had a couple of nice tunnels, and the kids finally had had enough.

 

A Fairy Playground

After being inspired by the amazing fairy gardens other people have created, I decided we should have a go at our own.

I cleared a corner of our overgrown vegie garden and started making a little house. Miss 3 took one look at it and declared it was too dirty for her fairies, so we found a grassy patch and started again.

We collected stones and shells for the kitchen area and flowers for the house, I made a swing from some twigs and cotton thread and then the kids set to making a whole obstacle course, complete with straw trampoline, balancing beam, slippery slide, tunnel and sandpit.

Finally we got ourselves some fairies to play with in their new home, by sticking paper wings onto some Lego Friends dolls. 

Not as elegant as the other gardens I'd seen, but definitely heaps of fun and imagination.

Making a Wind Vane

We found this activity in a beautiful book "Feel the Wind" by Arthur Dorros. An excellent book for explaining what wind is to young children. 

We made this first wind vane together, and then the kids made a second one by themselves.

You need a pencil with an eraser, some cardboard, a pin and a straw.

Put them together, making sure you put the pin through the balance point of the arrow.

Take it outside and put it in the ground.

Using a compass, put rocks around to mark north, south, east and west.

Sidewalk Chalk

Some more great times with sidewalk chalk. Both my kids have done their first great drawings and writing with the fat chalk sticks. Probably because it requires less fine motor control, and more fresh air. 

Our all-time favourite is a chalk road for bikes, trikes or scooters. I draw out a road, about a foot wide, with some intersections. If I'm feeling enthusiastic I'll add dotted lines down the middle of the road, traffic lights, (personalised) parking bays or a petrol station. If the kids are feeling in a drawing mood they'll add arrows, houses, pedestrian crossing, sweet shops. Once my son even drew a grocery shop, and then when he was writing the sign for it he asked me how to spell "very boring things shop". Sometimes we've drawn letters along the side of the road so they can sing the alphabet song while they're riding.


Sidewalk chalk is also good for life size portraits or hopscotch, or (a favourite of all the neighbourhood kids, but not so much of me) grinding the chalk up to make "fairy-dust". Although the fairy-dust game keeps the kids busy and industrious, and fairy dust is then good for making hand prints and foot prints on the concrete, it's also good for making hundreds of chalky footprints through the house!

I think the best thing about the sidewalk chalk roads and artwork is that they last until the next rain, and then you have a clean canvas to start you new creation.

Hopscotch

Sometimes it's the simple old fashioned things that are the most interesting. Miss 3 was dancing this week, doing jumping and hopping, and it made me think of hopscotch. I quickly drew up a couple of tracks, and the kids loved it. Mr 4 immediately wanted to draw his own, and both kids jumped and counted the afternoon away.

Outdoor Footprint Painting

From an early age, my daughter has loved to paint. And outdoors on a big piece of paper is definitely one of her favourites ways to enjoy it (I think because she's allowed to get paint on as much of her as she chooses). Even my son really loves it, despite the fact that he's never enjoyed getting messy. Take a big roll of paper outside, fill a tray with paint, and away you go. I also put out a clean bucket of water for my son so he can be in control of how painty he is. Great for hand prints, foot prints and even nappy prints. Just watch the foot prints, as paint underfoot can get very slippery. At the end it's just a matter of hosing down the ground and children. This is can be as much fun as the painting was!