Multi-Coloured Ice Cube Water Play

It was really hot and humid here last week, so we decided to try out some fun water play. Rather than just splashing around in a water table (which is totally lots of fun on it's own!) I decided to try shaking things up a little bit and I pre-made some coloured ice cubes to add to our water bin. Basically I just put a few drops of food colouring into each section of the ice cube tray and then filled it with water and gave each section a little stir before popping it into the freezer.

After it was fully frozen I had a lovely rainbow of ice cubes to add into the water bin. The result was really neat as the ice cubes melted and the colour started to swirl into the water. The boy-o had fun adding new coloured cubes to the mix and it was a great way to cool off too!

He loved trying to scoop up the ice cubes and "catch" them with his containers as they were melting. Since they cubes are coloured with food colouring be prepared to end up with coloured fingers as well if your little wants to touch them and play with them as they melt in the water.

We took turns adding different coloured cubes to see how they changed the water colour, and put the unused cubes back in the freezer for another day of play!

Watching the colour disperse across the water as the ice cubes melted was really cool and the next time we try this out I think we'll add a whole bunch of one colour and try not to touch them for a few seconds so we can really see the colour spread.

The boy-o had a great time playing at his little water station to try and beat the heat, and the addition of the coloured cubes added a little bit of extra fun. It's definitely a fun and simple activity that we'll be trying again another day.

"Exploding" Tie-Dye Milk

This is a super cool science activity that's sure to impress your little and have them wanting to try it over and over again! We were at our local OEYC (Ontario Early Years Center) this morning and they were having a "Science" themed morning. They had a lady come in to do some simple activities with the kids, which the boy-o of course loved, so we decided to keep the science fun going when we got home!

This activity is called many different things, and so you might have heard it referred to as Tie-Dye Milk, Colour Milk, Exploding Milk, etc. but it all boils down to the same awesome activity no matter what you call it. I've decide to take the best of all worlds and call it "Exploding" Tie-Dye Milk.

All you need for this activity is some milk (the higher the fat the better--we used 2% and it worked ok, but homo would be better!), a container to put the milk in, some food colouring, dish soap, and some Q-Tips. Poor a thin layer of milk into the bottom of your container and then put in a few drops of each colour food-colouring.

Now the fun part!! Dip your Q-Tip into the dish soap and then touch the Q-Tip in the center of one of the colour drops and watch the colour shoot away from the Q-Tip making cool swirling patterns in the milk. You can re-dip in the dish soap and keep touching the Q-Tip all over your container to watch the awesome patterns that emerge.

You can also swirl the Q-Tip around in the container and watch the colours run away as well! The boy-o was totally fascinated by this activity, and loved watching the colour spread out across the container. Once it started to get a little murky we added a few more drops of colour to brighten it back up a bit and started over again with making the colours run.

The reason that this activity works is the dish soap interacts with the fat molecules in the milk, which is why using a fuller fat milk makes for a better experience. The activity is another great one for some quiet toddler play or a rainy day. 

To make the activity last longer simply dump out the coloured milk and put a fresh new layer in the container. It requires very little milk, so even repeating the activity a few times is still a very cost effective science exploration. (especially if your milk is getting to the end of its shelf life and you don't know how to use it up!)

We'll definitely be filing this one away for use another day and I hope you and your little enjoy it as much as we did!

Colour Me Happy: Pasta Dying

I love making crafts--and when possible I prefer to make my own supplies as well, rather than buy pre-made stuff, because that's half the fun! I've started looking after a two-year old in addition to the boy-o, and I wanted to come up with some fun craft ideas that she would enjoy doing while the boy-o was napping. One of the things that was always a huge hit at the daycare was making rainbow coloured jewelry. I've used all kinds of materials in the past including FruitLoops (edible accessories!), beads and pasta. I didn't have FruitLoops or beads on hand, but I had tons of pasta and some food colouring, so I dyed my own "beads" for necklace making. It's super easy and the colours turn out nice and bright! I made Yellow, Green, Blue, and Red.

What You Need:

- a bunch of pasta noodles

- a ziplock bag for each colour you want

- as many colours of food colouring as you want

- rubbing alcohol

- wax paper

- paper towel

Instructions:

1. Place desired amount of pasta in each of the ziplock bags.

2. Splash a little rubbing alcohol into each bag.

3. Add a few squirts of food colouring to each bag, one colour per bag.

4. Roll the bags around and around to make sure the pasta gets well coated with the food colouring mixture. You can let the pasta sit in the bags for a few minutes to make sure it soaks in well.

5. Dump the ziplock bags out one at a time onto a thick pile of paper towel to absorb any extra food colouring mixture.

6. Transfer pasta from paper towel to wax paper to dry. (It really doesn't take very long!)

And when your pasta is all dried you'll have beautifully coloured "beads" all ready for necklace making or any other threading activity you want to use them for!