shaving cream sensory delight

Shaving cream is one of my favorite activities! The creative possibilities are endless.
So what do you do with the cheapest shaving cream you can find in the store? (has to be foam)
Place aluminum foil on a cookie sheet & let the fun begin. Children have so much fun touching such an odd medium. Incorporate early leaning by encouraging child to make shapes (older toddler) Young preschoolers can trace letters into the shaving cream, beginning letter recognition. Older preschoolers can write name, numbers & pictures. Expand to play Pictonary, Hang Man or "turtle talk-phonetically sound out" words.
Skills worked on: Fine Motor, creativity, sensory experience (touching shaving cream & aluminum foil)


For today's play we focused on color mixing, with food color. For the Boy (who just turned 2) he picked 2 colors & watch in excitement as he created a new color. The Girl (who is 4) had to predict what colors were going to be made by mixing the colors together.

Enchance by using different kitchen utensils (toothpicks, q-tips, forks etc) We used plastic cars (cleaned in the dish washer) & meat sauce brushes.

This is what happened when i focused on coloring mixing a rainbow with the Girl. The Boy decided to bathe himself in the shaving cream.

puppy chow

This is my first entry into a Blog Carnival...so here we go...
We made puppy chow the other day for our friends at the park district, celebrating their last week of camp. Some people associate this yummy treat with the holidays, i will always think of Summer Camp! (& how the counselor's would leave a baggy full of 'chow on my desk! So here are the ingredients:
Chex Cereal 6-9 cups
1/4 cup Butter
1 cup Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Peanut Butter (we used pb chips)
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar.

Pour 1 cup of chocolate chips into a bowl, combine with 1/2 cup of peanut butter. Melt in microwave with 1/4 cup butter at 30 second intervals, until mixture is smooth. Add in 1 teaspoon vanilla.
The best part of this cooking project is little ones can assist with pouring & measuring. Any time you invite children into the kitchen, there are lessons to be learned involving math (measurements, recipes etc) and science (changing states-solid chips to liquefy etc)
Chips mixed together. Now the peanut butter chips were easier to stir but created a weird texture. I would use the pb chips again if i was in a hurry.

This is what happened when i let the Boy pour the cereal by himself!

Now i didn't get pictures of the next step. I was dealing with the odd texture of the PB Chips. The last step is put the cereal in a large bag. (only a couple cups at a time) pour a small amount of the goey mixture into the bag, top off with powdered sugar. Give the bag several minutes of shaking & mixing. The kids love this part of the project. Continue to add cereal, mixture & powdered sugar. I usually leave it all in the bag, but if you would like you can spread it out on a waxed paper covered cookie sheet.
Twist-i tried it with Cinnamon Chex.

The Castle

My dear friends Amy & Mike built this amazing castle in their backyard. These are 2 of most amazing & loving people i know.

Amy has an awesome garden!

still to come- Castle- Gourmet S'mores & friends pictures!

One of our favorite summer activities. Sidewalk Chalk.