Ice Masterpiece- melting ice with kids

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I saw this "ice sculpture" on  this blog's Juggling With Kids  facebook page and thought it looked like a lot of fun.  You take a large piece of ice and melt it with salt and add food coloring too. The colors spread through the ice. Simple science with kids to show them how salt helps melt ice.

I had 2 empty creamer cartons and filled them with water and put up in the freezer for a day before I had time to get them back out.  Well, we finally got them out this week and tried this out.  Here is what we did.

What you need:  

Ice block( take empty milk carton or other carton and fill with water and freeze), kosher salt( other salt may work), food coloring, tray or pan).

What to do:  

Take the ice block out of the milk carton and place on a pan.  Then pour salt on top and add food coloring.  Last, wait to see the color seep through the ice.

What we ended up with in picture above.

What we used.

My son was so excited to touch the ice and salt. 

Now to add color.

And more color, add as many as you want.

His face, love it.  He was really into this.

I was hoping for more color to seep through but it didn't.  Hope to try our other block out soon and see if it comes out any different.

My toddler getting his hand in there:-)

We had fun trying this activity out and look forward to trying it one more time.  Hope you and your family can make your own ice masterpiece.


Here is another link of  a blog that tried this out http://artfulparent.typepad.com/artfulparent

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check us out on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter,  Google+,

and our G+ community, All Things Kids.

Linked up at Tue Tots


We also linked up here http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/2012/08/sharing-saturday-31.html

Kid's Co-op # 16

We have made it through another week.  Here is this weeks kid's co-op.  I will try and share a few of the grea ideas on my fb page this week.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, or twitter page

10 Books Kids Love

"The more you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

- Dr Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"

I thought this quote was great to start our 2nd post in the new series 10 Things Kids Love.  ( Our 1st post was 10 movies kids love)  I think almost every child loves story time.  When they are young we read to them and as they grow they can read to us.  Mine are still at the age that I read to them.  My oldest does pretend read to me and I love it.  Reading is a great activity that you can use to bond with your kids.  It is also a great learning time for our children.  Here is a link to a site that has 10 reasons to read to your child that I liked.  We love books and have them all over our house.  Every room we are in has a book that is close by.  Knowing that other families feel the same way, I chose to do my next list on books.  So here is what I have put together for you with the help from other moms out there.  The kids seem to range in age from 1yr to 6 yr.

Liebster Award

I hate to say this is the second time I have gotten this reward.  That's not the bad part, the bad part is I didn't do what was required of me the first time to accept it.  Having felt bad over not putting together a post with the first nomination, I knew I had to do it this time.  When I got a comment from Nicole at Mama Of Many Blessings , I was so flattered and touched to have been chosen by her for the Liebster Award. The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers. Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, values, cute, endearing and welcome.

With the Leibster Award you are asked to share 5 random facts about yourself, so here are my 5 random facts:-)

1. My grandfather was Cuban.
2. I can't speak spanish.
3. I love Crocs.
4. I love watching movies.
5. I am a little OCD.

Now it's my turn to nominate 5 blogs for the Liebster Award. Here are the rules for the blogs I've chosen: Post about your win.

1. Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award and follow their blog.
2. Copy and paste the award button to your blog (right click on the image and save).
3. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that have fewer than 200 followers that you think deserves to be recognized.
4. Let them know by leaving them a comment on their blog.
5. Share 5 random facts about yourself.

Here are my 5 blogs I see deserve to be presented with this award for the great blogs they have put together:

1. The Fairy and The Frog
2. Z is for Zel
3. Watch Me Play and Learn
4. Smile Play Learn
5. Adventures at Home With Mum

I enjoy all of these blogs and what they share on them.  I hope you will check them all out if you have not come across them already.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!



Check us out on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter,  Google+,
and our G+ community, All Things Kids.

Cloud Dough Transportation Sensory Bin

We first made cloud dough fall 2011.  And my son LOVED it!!  We have sense played it in many times.  It keeps well in a rubbermaid box.  We store it and get it out for hours son end fun over and over. In time he has spilled it here and there so it was time to make a new batch.  Here is what we did to make our Cloud Dough.

Lemon scented ice cubes in the tub

We love colored ice cubes in the tub and we have made a few scented baths.  So I chose to put the 2 ideas together to make scented colored ice cubes.  This was our first try at this type bath.  We had already used some of the cubes in our outside water play.  My little tot loved the cubes in the bath.  He had been walking around with this bottle brush from their kitchen so we just added it to the tub.

Kid's Co-op #15

TGIF!!!!  So here is the fantastic Kid's Co-op for this week.  I need your help please comment what ideas you like.   I will then try to share the ideas you pick on FB, Twitter, and/or Pin. 

Have a great weekend.

Fun Snack Cone For Kids

I saw this great treat idea on spoonfuls fb page and knew we would try it out.  We added our own mix of snacks.  

Dino Land with mocha glitter playdough

We had a lot of fun playing with our coffee grounds last week.  I love to re-use and recycle anything we use to play with when we can.  Because of this with some help from some fab blogger: Nurture Store  and The Iowa Farmer's Wife  I chose to make Mocha playdough to re-use some of our coffee grounds :-)
Here is the link for 2 recipes for chocolate playdough- Link 1 & Link 2  they are about the same. What I did was add 1 cup dried out coffee grounds that we had played in and some GLITTER for fun.  I also thought the glitter would help us remember "we don't eat it."  After making the playdough I now needed to set up a play theme for my son(3yr).  That is where Dino Land came from!!  I found little dinosaurs, wooden sticks, and a few sunflower seeds.  I took the playdough and flattened it out in a tray and then added the items.  After seeing how it would look for him I took the items off and covered the tray with press and seal. ( I made the playdough the night before so my son would be ready to go in the morning)  The next morning I managed to get the toy items back in the playdough before he noticed it.  Then I called him to see if he wanted to play.  He was super excited about it and sat down quickly to get started.  

Here is our day and how you can make your own Dino Land too.

In doors bug hunt

The week we did this there had been having record breaking highs in our weather.  The temperature had been in the 100's.  I had to come up with a few things to do inside for the boys.  My son had already picked out the magnifying glass at the store earlier that week.  I had hoped to go outside and let him look around with it but with the heat I had to come up with plan B.  My boys had started to fight over the magnifying glass so I ran back into the store that week when we were out.  While there I picked up some plastic bugs for them to hunt.  This is how we ended up hunting for bugs indoors.

Our in doors bug hunt!

I already had a bucket on hand so I just emptied all the bugs into it and put the magnifying glass in there too.   I showed it to my oldest and explained what we could do.  He thought this idea was great.

While my son was in one room I went to the other and hid all the bugs around the room.

Since he is only 3yr I didn't want to hide the bugs too well.  I wanted him to be able to find them.  Little brother was napping but got to come play later.

He couldn't wait to get started!

Using the plastic tweezers to pick up the bug.

He would ask me what type of bug it was when he picked it up.

Using the magnifying glass to look at the bug.

He now said the bucket was the trash and added the bugs to it.

The bugs are now in the back of the fire truck going to a new trash place:-)

Emptying the bugs out in the trash.

He was having so much fun and I wanted just one picture of his cute face.  I have told him before mommy takes pictures of the things we do so we can tell other Mommy's what we did. That way other kids can have fun too if they want. When he doesn't want his picture taken I work around it and just leave him out or his face. I am getting around to telling you why you see a picture of me in the post.  He told me I could get his face if I took a picture of myself and put it up for mom's to see too:-)  Oh, I laughed.  I did take the picture and to keep my end of the deal her is a picture of me, lol.  Maybe it will give you a good laugh.

Now back to hunting bugs! The bugs have now made their way up to the bed.

Makes me think of "good night, don't let the bed bugs bite."

Oh, look little brother made it to play.  He didn't look for bugs they are all over the place by now.  He does have fun driving them around.  He loves to copy everything big brother does:-)

He brought the net over from the other room to play too.

They have been playing with the bugs... on and off this week.  It seems they like playing with bugs.

Hope you all can have some bug fun too.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, or twitter page


We linked up at  http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/2012/07/sharing-saturday-29.html

Make old toys fun again

Most kids get bored with the same toys after they play with them over and over again.
And who wants to keep going out and buying more!  Here is an alternative to doing that.  ( for the record we still come home with new toys from time to time-mostly hotwheels).  Take and put up some of the toys the kids are not into at the moment.  A few months later get them out again for them to play with.  We made this more exciting by putting them in this little valentine mailbox we have.  My toddler loved opening the mailbox and seeing the new toys inside!  I must say his older brother liked this too.  Little brother took the toys and pulled them out and dumped them out.  He would not play with these toys a few months ago but to him now they seemed pretty interesting. 

Our play time this day.

Opening the mailbox.

Now big brother has to come see what is going on.

To me he is thinking, "oh, maybe I do like this toy."

Pulling toys out of something just seems to be fun at this age.  You could use a box or container...

He had fun doing this and we have done it since and he still likes it.  To include big brother one day I filled it with the hot wheels and gave it to him to look in.  Of course little brother loved that too and was next to big brother to help him play too!  This idea of filling the mailbox with toys has been fun for both of my kids.  And they both like when I get toys out that have been put up for a while to play with again.  Hope you and your kids can have some fun like this too.

He is watching to see what big brother is doing in this picture. 

Please do come and visit us again.  We would love to have you back:-)

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!


Check out our pinterest board, Fb page, or twitter page