Dinosaurs and Frozen Sensory Snow

I saw this awesome recipe for Shivery Snow Dough from Learn with Play at Home a few months back and thought it was totally brilliant!  A freezing cold snow dough in the hot summer sounded just perfect.  I decided to make a different snow dough, but followed her add glitter and freeze steps.  :)  

I wanted to use something that crunched like snow, and I remembered the texture of slightly wet baking soda - the precursor to making  our baking soda shells in our Hidden Fizzing Ocean World (and also our Fizzing Treasure Rocks in Day 2 of our Leprechaun Treasure Hunt).

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So I took two boxes of baking soda and added just enough water that it looked like crumbly snow (I mixed by hand).  Then I added some glitter (of course) and popped it in the freezer.  S loved how cold it was, but it was pretty darn frozen.  We decided to add some water with our squeezy condiment bottlesto see if we could melt some of the "snow".

Adding the water started the melting process and you could break off little tiny melty snowballs.  It was then deemed ready for some dinosaurs!  Now these particular dinosaurs lead pretty adventurous lives.  If you are a regular reader, you'll recall they've been fossilized, caught in sticky mud, and frozen in gelatin.  Today was their first adventure in snow, though.  :)

Since the snow was made of baking soda, S wanted to try adding some vinegar (I know some of my readers have children who don't like the smell of vinegar - this play works perfectly well with water!  Vinegar is totally optional.)   We had fun watching the brief glittery burst of bubbles as the vinegar and baking soda reacted.

Then it was back to playing.  The vinegar/water made glittery lakes on either side of a frozen path.  The dinosaurs were taking many trips back and forth along the frozen path and sometimes falling into a lake on either side and needing S's assistance (apparently dinosaurs are not good swimmers)!

As the baking soda snow melted, it was so soft.  I was surprised to see how long the whole mixture stayed cold.  It was really quite cold even at two hours out (S REALLY liked this world and kept playing and playing and...you get the idea)!

The slurry that the melted baking soda made was reminiscent of cornstarch and water.  It was nice and goopy and drippy, which is extra fun for dramatic play.

As it melted, the frozen crumbles turned into more of a snowy sludge (it was still SO COLD!) and S could make patterns with her fingers and the dinosaurs could leave footprints (they quickly disappeared, but it was pretty cool).

So much fun - and baking soda is only 59 cents a box at the Dollar Tree!  What's not to love?  :)

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

Natural Rock Play Space and Outdoor Kitchen

 This post is part of a series on Playspace Design.   Other posts in the series include:
Our Playroom

Our Reading Room

Our Art Room

DIY Outdoor Sound Wall
Dinosaur Garden

This is my favorite, favorite part of our yard.  It makes me happy just being here.  There's the dappled sunlight through the overhanging trees, the gentle rustling of the native grasses - and somehow it all combines to just be perfection.  It's so hard to do a place like this justice through photos...which is why there are SO many in this post.  I really felt like it was the only way to possibly get a feel for it.

When we first looked at our house a year and a half ago, I could see so much potential inside - but the backyard was a big bummer for me.  It was sloped and had three tiers where each flat level was overgrown grass and each slope between was full of vinca or ivy.  If you were a bird looking down on the property the flat areas would make a giant overgrown grass E, if that makes sense.  Anyway, it just didn't feel very fun.  You couldn't move between the levels and the yard was just not that inviting for young children.  My mom had the vision, though.  She assured me that we could make some amazing playspaces in the yard and create ways to move between the areas of the yard more easily.  This area you see here is located at the far bottom right of the "E".  There were two beautiful boulders at the top of the lowest stretch of overgrown grass and I remember telling my mom maybe we could add some rocks here, building off those two boulders, so that the kids could climb between the flat levels?  Well --- this is what my mom created.  A magical playspace modeled after a natural dry stream bed.

S is obsessed with collecting sticks.  Every time we go on a nature walk she's carrying and collecting an assortment the whole way.  So my mom designed four of these stick holders as a sculptural element to the playspace.  S likes to bring the sticks home from all over and place/arrange them in these black PVC pipes that we've buried in the ground.

There is also a water works element to the playspace.  We have this giant metal bucket that we fill with fresh water each time we come out to play and S can use it in either of her sand pits to "cook" the food she's always busy making here, or she can pour it down her hidden pipe.  

In between two rocks there's a slotted opening that leads to a flexible underground pipe we buried when we were making the dry stream bed.  It runs from one side diagonally to the opposite side of the dry stream bed.  If you're quiet, you can hear the water as it travels under the play area.

The pipe is laid at a gradual slope, so S can walk down the path and catch the water coming out of the flexible pipe at the other end.  We have a purple Tubtrug there to catch the water as it comes out.  If S is wanting to cook at the lower sand pit, she'll often send a large quantity of water through the pipes to fill this lower bucket for easier access.

Here's another view of the main water bucket.  S is prepping some muffin tins for the sand batter.  :)  We found all the cooking supplies at our local Goodwill.

Here you can see S's lower sand pit.  We dug a very deep (around 3 feet deep) pit in the dirt and encircled it with stone pavers.  We added several 50 pound bags of play sand to fill it and we keep a garbage can lid over it when not in use to keep wild animals from using it (ew!).  You can see S's array of cooking utensils here near the lower sand pit.  On either side of S are the two orignal beautiful boulders that inspired this whole amazing space.

Here's a finished cake that S has made for the dinosaurs from our Dinosaur Garden.  Doesn't it look delicious?  :)

A view up the dry stream bed.  Once we cleared the area of all the grass and vinca, we laid/buried the pipe, rough cut out the stairs, and dug and filled the sand pits.  We then laid the largest boulders that made the steps and framed the planters.  Next we brought in large river rock and placed them sporadically, finally we filled in the remaining spaces with smaller rocks and pea gravel.  We chose native grasses of varying heights for each of five planters - the largest grasses exist on the perimeters and will grow to about 5 feet in height at maturity, eventually creating an even more private area.

A closer look at the upper sand pit from behind the upper grasses.

My mom also found this long rectangular flagstone and earmarked it for a bench/oven.  S can sit on it to eat her fantastic baked goods, or she can place the muffin tin and some of the smaller pots and pans underneath to cook them in the "oven".

Going back up the path to fetch another bowl.

The sand pits are so much fun.  We'd considered mud, but ultimately decided that sand would be easier for S to work with as mud can sometimes get a bit difficult to dig through when it's dry.

My little chef hard at work in her little sanctuary.

Well, I hope I've managed to capture a little bit of the perfection and peace that exists in our amazing dry stream bed play space.  We are so thankful to my mom who had this incredible vision and brought it to life!  I still can't believe this used to be a snarl of grass and vinca...

Sometime next week I will try to post the remaining elements of our backyard so you can see how everything works together!

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Why You Want a Water Table

and TEN creative ways to use it!

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Those of you who are familiar with my blog are no stranger's to baby X's fantastic expressions.  A few weeks back the Seattle weather, normally rainy until JULY, gave us a little summer teaser and baby X got his first experience with our water table.The photos were just too good to not share, so I thought I'd write a little post about why we love water tables.For those of you with water tablesalready, there are TEN creative ideas for how to use them at the end of the post.  :)

X loves water.  LOVES it.  And water is really one of the best (and free!) sensory materials ever.  There's warm water, cold water, ice - so many ideas and ways to play using just water.  For the littlest guys, water tablesare a great way to practice standing and cruising and splashing.

You can introduce fine motor practice by placing items in the water table for grabbing (please note the items pictured are not baby toys, and do pose a choking hazard - X has an older sister and is always supervised and an adult is always within arms' reach).

As baby X illustrates here - water tablesare just THE COOLEST.  We bought our first water table when S was 10 months old and we've used it constantly ever since.  As X gets older, he'll begin to use the water table to practice scooping and pouring like his big sister does now.

Honestly my kids really enjoy a water table with, well, water, but you can spice it up a bit if you are so inclined.  And for those of you with long winters like us here in Seattle, a cleaned/dried water table makes a fantastic indoor sensory table during the colder months (you could fill it with sand, moon sand, birdseed, dried beans - the possibilities are nearly endless!).

For those of you who already have a water table or for those of you who will soon have one, here are ten fun ways to use your water table this summer:

Add some soap and set up a Washing Station like Fun at Home with Kids

 Make a fun outdoor Penguin World that also helps you practice counting like Thrive 360 Living

Make a Dinosaur Sensory Bin like Fantastic Fun and Learning

Do some Sensory Tub Painting like No Time for Flashcards

Add in some letter practice and make Alphabet Soup like My Nearest and Dearest

Explore colors with Colored Ice like Fun-a-Day

Create a Spring Sensory Table like The Pleasantest Thing

Create an Ocean Sensory Tub like No Time for Flashcards

Set up a Marshmallow Sensory Play like Fantastic Fun and Learning

Have some Fizzy Fun like My Nearest and Dearest

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

Baby Play: Exploring Float

You can find the other posts in our Baby Play series here:

Exploring the Kitchen:  Part I

Exploring the Kitchen:  Part II

Exploring Sticky

X loves playing in water, so I try to incorporate water into his sensory play we do whenever I can.  In the vein of "exploring" - the theme I seem to have picked for the Baby Play series - I figured float would be great since it included water.  :)

S and I grabbed a bunch of colorful floating things.  If you have bath toys - those would be great - like a great big pile of them.  The more the better for this play, in my opinion.  We added some balls from our ball pit and S and I cut up some shapes out of play foam.  I also randomly found these really cool giant foam cubes at a local store that was going out of business, so we tossed them in as well.  X was hopping with excitement when he saw the set up!

He immediately set to work grabbing various floating objects.  It was great to see him fixate on something and then reach and stretch until it was in his possession!

Now he's going for one of those amazing cubes!

Such great hand-eye coordination practice for our little guy!  X is still too young to discuss colors or shape names, but you could definitely incorporate both of those with a toddler-aged child.  You could even make a game of it - Can you grab the yellow square? - etc.

I couldn't resist this cool shot of our floating rainbow!

X thought it was great fun.  And got wet.  Of course.

S had fun, too.  She liked making little structures that took advantage of the "stickiness" of wet foam (did you know you can use foam to make Window Art?).

More fun colors.  I heart rainbows.

And I'll end with one shameless how-cute-are-my-babies shot.  :)

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