Ice Ice Baby

It's been awhile since we've done any "art projects" (Bea calls anything creative an art project) in our backyard.  It's been so hot most afternoons that we've been staying inside.  However, today felt relatively nice, considering the highs of 100+ this weekend, so we spent the afternoon outside.

This was a pretty simple one.  Last night I made blue, green, and yellow ice cubes using food coloring and an ice cube tray.  This afternoon we put them all in a disposable roasting pan.  I gave Bea a cup with water and an empty cup.  She spent the majority of the time pouring water and ice cubes back and forth and Charlie spent most of the time grabbing the cubes and splashing in the water.  I was actually surprised how much he participated, although I'm not sure why considering how much he loves being a part of whatever Bea does.

After about an hour of playing we went inside and Bea and I had some jello (not the best snack, but I tried to make jello cubes for this and it did not turn out well so we had a ton leftover).

I'm definitely going to do this again.  Maybe next time I'll freeze some bigger blocks of ice and use a bigger container.

Heather

Water + Food Coloring = One Happy Toddler

Last week was unbelievably warm, I think it was 92 on Monday, so we spent a ton of time outdoors.  Bea loves her new tricycle (more on that in another post) but I also wanted to find some activities for her to do in our backyard.  We hope to have a sandbox in the next few months and eventually a swing set so up until now our backyard playtime has involved a lot of shovels and buckets, which she loves, but I thought it might be fun to add another element.

I can't remember if I read about this particular idea on a post over at Play at Home Mom or if I'm taking several posts and combining them into one, but I know I came up with the general idea through reading about their outdoor play.

I basically used several glass and plastic containers that we had and filled each one with different amounts of water and food coloring.

I also had a few empty containers, a big bowl, and a spray bottle filled with water.  Bea loves to pour and dump anything from one vessel to another so I knew this would be a big hit.

It didn't take long for her to pour everything together so the water was a deep purple/black for most of the time but she loved it.  She must have poured and scooped for over an hour, only stopping every so often to spray the water bottle.

And not to be left out, here's a picture of Charlie enjoying the sun.

Heather