Rainbow Foam Dough

Like many sensory materials, this one has several names.  I've seen it all over, but from what I can tell it started with a mention by the Ooey Gooey Lady on Facebook and has been done by several bloggers at this point.  I always see this pin float by me on Pinterest - and now that I've played with the sensory material, I do think Foam Dough is the best name for it.  

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I was expecting it to be pretty fun, but WOW IS IT FUN.  You really ought to try it.  Because you will LOVE it.  We had one of S's grandmas staying with us this weekend and she and I just could not stop playing with this dough.  It's a safe bet that an activity is a total win if any adults around are just as engrossed with playing as the kid(s).   Now that I've hopefully convinced you to try it, I will warn you that it is messy.  Like really messy.  Maybe the messiest thing I've played with?  It cleaned up just fine for us, but I am thinking most people would rather play with this in a big bowl/tub/bin outside.  :)

Foam Dough has two ingredients in a roughly one to one ratio - cornstarch and shaving cream   I wanted to make rainbow Foam Dough, because, well - rainbows!!!!  So I started by coloring the shaving cream because I figured that would be easiest - I added liquid watercolors, but you could also use food coloring (this, coincidentally, is how we make Shaving Cream Paint).

Then I slowly added cornstarch to each cup and stirred until it started looking ever so slightly doughy.  We kept our dough on the wet side because it was so much fluffier.  The more cornstarch you add, the drier the dough, but it does lose some of that amazing foamy-puffy texture.  Ultimately I'd say our foam dough ended up being slightly more shaving cream than cornstarch.

 

It really is just so foamy and puffy and fluffy and AMAZING.  It's like touching a cloud or a marshmallow...or maybe a marshmallow cloud?  Anyway, the pictures simply do not do it justice.

You can roll it into pretty little balls.  S had her grandma and me on ball rolling duty - and then she would SMOOSH them.  :)

Smooooosh.

It really was such a blast and so unlike any other material we've played with.  Shaving cream is definitely not save to ingest, so poor little X had to sit this one out.  Maybe next year!

We sincerely hope you'll give this one a try - it is something you must experience!!!!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Simple Small Worlds: Butterfly World

You can read about our other Simple Small Worlds here:

Fizzing Hidden Ocean World

Froggy World

Insect World

Dinosaurs and Sticky Mud

Farm World

Dragon World

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I knew I wanted to make a second small world based off of our Insect TOOBcreatures, and since we love butterflies (and raise them every year!), what better world to make than Butterfly World?

Our Michaels store is constantly running specials on their faux flowers, so I waited until these brightly colored gerber daisies were two for $1 and bought several in purple, white, yellow, and pink.  S loves having different sensory materials in her worlds, so I settled on using some fresh green grass and adding a little pond.  And of course we used our Dollar Tree gems, because, well, we almost always use our Dollar Tree gems.  :)

At first, I cut the stems of the flowers to the height I wanted.  But then I saw S bending the stems and realized that because they had wire inside and I could bend them to the correct height!  Thank goodness for S!  So I bent the remaining flowers and stabilized them with tape throughout the world.  I left an opening in the center for the butterfly's pond.

 A quick trip to the backyard with a grocery bag yielded the grass necessary and we added a few drops of blue liquid watercolors to make the pond especially blue (you could instead use blue food coloring).  S required gems both in the pond and randomly scattered throughout the world.  It was then ready to be populated by our guests - a few creatures from our Safari Ltd Insect TOOB and one rogue Monarch (from a really cool Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly set we used to learn about Raising Butterflies).

S immediately set to work storytelling, as is always the case with our small world set ups.  The butterflies in Butterfly World lived on the flowers and needed to make beds because they were sleepy.  They also needed to bathe in the pond (there's a lot of sleeping and bathing that goes on in our small worlds - they are for sure recurring themes).

The butterflies would fly down into the grass, gather wingfuls of it, and transfer them to the flowers.

They also loved including a gem or two in each of their beds.  To decorate, of course.

Blue butterfly was pretty serious about constructing her bed/nest.  I was so impressed with how much these flowers held - there were 2-3 gems and a giant pile of grass on most of them, and there was no bending or falling!

Blue butterfly really has a serious bed happening there.  I bet that fluffy grass is extra cozy.

S had so much fun with the grass - and after not too long, little X woke up from his nap.

And he also loved the grass!

Luckily he was content to sit with his own giant pile of grass for dumping and just observe all the nest/house building that was going on.

Once the butterflies were all content and sleeping soundly, S moved on to making houses for the "little buggy guys" that were in the world, lest they feel left out.

For more butterfly fun, check out our posts on Raising Butterflies and Making Your Own Butterfly Wings!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Starter Art Kit from Discount School Supply

What I'd Put in and Why

When I surveyed readers on Fun at Home with Kids' Facebook page, most people were interested in me running a series of posts reviewing Discount School Supply products that culminated in a shopping list.  If you haven't seen all of the posts in the series, here is a list of them:

Golden Glitter Slime (and Dragons)

Painting the Bathroom Mirror

Pretend Baking:  Painting a 3D Cake

Baby/Toddler Colored Rice Art

10+ Ways to Use Fingerpaint
Make Your Own Puffy Paint Shirt

Like my Sensory Starter Kit shopping lists for Target and the Dollar Tree, I'll include what I would put in with a list of alternates.

Before we get into the list, I'd like to say the reason behind it is that Discount School Supply charges a bit for shipping (understandably, since paint is heavy!), unless you purchase $79 worth of supplies - then the shipping is free.  I know that $79 sounds like a lot to spend, but the supplies last quite a long time.  You guys know how often we use our liquid watercolors, and our bottles are still around half full.  I generally find that if I plan well, one shipment from Discount School Supply will last us at least a year, if not longer.

Some other helpful money saving tips:
Discount School Supply's Facebook page announces a promo code for the week just about every Tuesday.  You could also try submitting a craft/activity to their website - if your craft/activity is chosen, you'll be sent a $50 giftcard to use at Discount School Supply.  And finally, don't feel like you need to buy every color of every paint.  We generally stock 3-4 paints per color - the one exception being liquid watercolors.  I definitely LOVE rainbows, so I had to have a full set of those.  :)

All photos used courtesy of Discount School Supply

1.  Liquid Watercolors

 We use our liquid watercolors constantly (in lieu of food coloring, but also as watercolor paint).  In fact, you can click here to see a long list of activities that feature them.

2.  Washable Tempera Paints and/or Fingerpaints

If you have a very young child, fingerpaints may be the way to go.  If your child is older - they may prefer tempera paints to fingerpaints.  Fingerpaints are a bit goopier and are slightly translucent whereas tempera paints are much more like what you think of as a traditional paint (we have and love the Confetti Fingerpaints).  S enjoys both, so we have a few colors in each type, but you may want to go all fingerpaints with an infant/toddler or all tempera paints with an older preschool aged child.  For ideas on how to use these sort of paints beyond unstructured painting, check out our post on Painting the Bathroom Mirror and 10+ Ways to Use Fingerpaint

3.  Paper

We have a butcher paper dispenser/rolls from Ikea that we use, and we alternate between using that, watercolor paper, and construction paper.  Discount School Supply has really nice large sized high quality construction paper.

4.  Brushes

Now that she's older, S likes having a variety of sizes of paintbrush to choose from.  She would probably most enjoy this set currently.  However, when she was younger, she really liked having chubbier brushes.  She has been using the Wacky Painting Tools and Foam Rollers like crazy as well, so those are some other types of brushes to consider as well.  And if you're going for a set of fingerpaints only, well, you already have the painting tools you need.  :)


The above are sort of the base supplies necessary to create lots of art.  Here are some added bonus supplies that are also fun:

5.  Tissue Paper

We love using this in art projects - especially when making Contact Paper Window Art.

6.  Contact Paper

To see all the ways we've used contact paper click here.

7.  Make it More Additives

We used the Make it Shine to make our Golden Slime and we use the Make it Puffy to make our Puffy Paint Shirt.  We love these and they're a fun way to make a set of paint even more exciting.

8.  Biocolor Paint

You will want to get some of these if you're looking for permanent paints to use in a variety of settings with an older child.  These were also necessary to make our Puffy Paint Shirt.

9.  Plastic Glitter

We used this to make our Golden Slime and it's amazing.  It is the best glitter I've seen.  I love that it doesn't dump everywhere and that it is plastic and is therefore glass and metal free!

10.  Seashells

We have a set of Medium Sea Shells that we use frequently in sensory bins and small worlds (you can see some of them in our Fizzing Hidden Ocean World!).

11.  Stamp Ink

The Colorations Stamp Ink is truly the most washable stamp ink I've ever encountered.  S enjoys inking her hands and stamping that way as well as using the stamps - so I REALLY appreciate that it doesn't stain her skin.

12.  Kid Safety Scissors

S loves practicing her scissor skills and she is old enough/careful enough that we feel comfortable with her having metal safety scissors.  We both appreciate how well/cleanly they cut.  We also have some of the Colorations Plastic Scissors - which we love for playdough play.  These plastic scissors are ultra safe - the blade is plastic - it won't cut hair, etc - but they do not cut paper (particularly thin paper) very cleanly because they are plastic.  If you are concerned about your child getting hurt with scissors (or cutting their hair - ha!) then the plastic scissors may be a better choice.

13.  Foam Paint

This foam paint is such a fun sensory experience.  We also love playing with shaving cream paint, which is similar in appearance, but foam paint is much drier/fluffier in texture and the color is much richer.  We love using our foam paint for full body painting (hands and feet at the same time!) and we have also made a beautiful 3D pretend cake with it.

Well, I hope that gives you all plenty of options.  I do not make any commission off of the sale of any of these products, nor was I paid to write this post (I did receive some free product to use in writing some of the previous posts, but was not asked or obligated to write this post) - I just am a fan of Discount School Supply and their product lines.  We've tried a lot of paints/glitter/etc in the last four years, and these are hands down our favorites!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Baby/Toddler Colored Rice Art

Other posts in this series include:

Golden Glitter Slime (and Dragons)

Painting the Bathroom Mirror

Pretend Baking:  Painting a 3D Cake

10+ Ways to Use Fingerpaint

Make Your Own Puffy Paint Shirt
Starter Art Kit from Discount School Supply

You know the saying every child is different?  It's so true!  By the time she was a year old, S was already quite interested in art.  She'd fingerpaint and color with markers with the intent to produce a drawing.  It was amazing and so much fun.  X loves markers, too...but to dump not to draw!  Nevertheless, I like to engage him in art activities from time to time, because one of these days I just know it will click for him!

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We often like to use contact paperin lieu of glue, and given X's natural desire to examine handfuls of sensory materials and drop them, I thought I would create an art invitation that allowed him to make art while getting to DUMP!

S and I colored rice according to our usual method with liquid watercolors (we chose just three colors this time) and we presented X with three containers - one for each color.  I cut large squares of cardboard from our recycling and covered them with contact paper (sticky side out - I used tape along the edges to secure the contact paper to the cardboard).  We then placed one sticky canvas on either side of our splat mat (one for X and one for S - though we knew X was liable to wander between the two).

X investigated the sticky canvas, and then set to work examining handfuls of rice and dropping them.

S was much more intentional - at times placing single grains of rice - while X was randomly dropping large handfuls.  Love this shot of my two curly headed babies!

And I've always got to get a picture of those chubby baby feet and toes!!!

Towards the end, (with sister's assistance) a digger arrived to help scoop the loose rice.  X thought this was a great turn of events!

Once they were completely done with their art pieces, I added one final layer of contact paper (this time sticky layer down) and taped around the edges.  Even as finished/sealed pieces of artwork - they were still fun.  You could touch and roll some of the grains of rice and the loose bits in between the two layers of contact paper made a quiet rattling noise.

My sweet baby with his (unintentional, but beautiful nonetheless) artwork.

The rattling noise inspired S to dance.  And dance she did all around the living room with her piece of art!  (S never can pass up a good opportunity for an interpretive dance.)

This was a fun way to involve little X in some art play and despite appearances, it was super easy to clean up!  Most of the rice was on the splat mat, so I made a funnel and dumped it back into a container to save for another day.  Any remaining stray grains of rice easily vacuumed up!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.