Make Your Own Movie

Who doesn't like to be the star of their own show? Most children I have met love to watch themselves "on film" over and over and over. A great activity is to create a short film and let them be the stars. With the wide availability of digital cameras and their video capabilities this can be a pretty entertaining activity for even older children/teenagers. My neices will spend hours prepping scripts and props and then recording their short film (usually in one take, so they do not have to edit.) It keeps them entertained, gets their brains working and they always love the results!

Read more over at Funonadime.net and see our first short film!


P.S. Remember, there is a gift card coming from CSN Stores and all link participation in the Friday Brag Fests and the October Fun Challenge will count as bonus entries! Come join in on the fun!

 

Ice Breaker Experiment

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This project originally started out with a science experiment that I thought would be a little difficult for my kids to understand. Did  you know salt water does not freeze? The suggestion for the experiment was to freeze regular water in half of an ice cube tray and in the other half freeze salt water. After a couple of hours when you pull the ice out, you would see that the regular water melts and the ice water does not melt. So, I came up with this variation for the kids to play around with....


What You Need:

• Salt
• Water
• Little bowls or plates
• Mini toys or small objects
• Container - size depends on how big you want your block of ice to be
• Ice cubes
• Optional: random tools or kitchen gadgets

Directions:

Step 1: Make a large ice block in a large container (mine was not huge, just a storage container). i filled it with cold water and mini toys and/or objects (mini Lego men, pen top, crayon, a glow in the dark snake, money - some sink, some float, just stuff that is on hand!). I added lots of ice to speed up the process and then put it in the freezer. The ice helped keep the toys separated and at various levels and it froze in just over 1.5 hours. 

Step 2: I started out giving a small bowl with a piece of ice to each child. Then I gave them some sugar to sprinkle on the ice to see what happens

Step 3: Then I gave them some salt. Wit the salt the ice starts melting quickly. We talked about what they saw and made sure they all noticed the ice melting quickly.

Step 4: After experimenting, I pulled out the big block of ice that I created and put it on the table in front of them. They saw their toys and the money and got really concerned and wanted to get them out! So, I had them tell me what they could do to get them out.

They tried knives...

Then they decided that forks might be better. I had to give each of them a turn to chip away at it because they were getting a little scary. They really enjoyed this part a little too much!

I reminded them of the little ice cubes and then they asked for the salt.

They each got a turn to sprinkle (and they wanted to keep stabbing it with the forks, too.)

It was a slow process, but they had a lot of fun. Once it started melting, it really started shrinking.


Next time I am going to make a really huge block of ice or make multiple ones of the one above and let the kids at them in the backyard. The 20-30 minutes we spent on breaking up this ice block was not enough for them!

It was fun for all who watched and participated!

This is the underside once we were able to flip it over.

ENJOY!!

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Watermelon Jello Bowl

 (Just for the record, they came up with this pose on their own. I just asked them to get near the watermelon!)

My friend made a water melon bowl for a BBQ last week and all the children there were fascinated....and I think my two ate more than anyone else, so I thought it would be fun for us to recreate it. Again, my kids were still very fascinated with it and ended up being great helpers! Fun, cheap, easy and yummy...what is not to love about it!

What You Need:

• Watermelon - about the size of a Volleyball/Basketball
• 3 Bowls
• 1 - large enough to support watermelon while in the fridge
• 1 - to hold all the watermelon once it is scooped out 
• 1- to mix the Jello in
• Melon scooper, ice cream scooper or large spoons
• Jello of choice - 2 large boxes
• Measuring cups
• Knife (the larger, the easier)
• Plastic Wrap
• Fruit (optional)

Directions:

Send your kids away while you cut off the top of the watermelon! My little helpers hands were all over the place, so I sent them to go tickle their dad!

Scoop out the watermelon guts using a melon scooper. We don't have one, but discovered an ice cream scooper works well as long as I didn't care if the watermelon fruit did not looked pretty coming out. =D 

You now have your Watermelon Bowl.

Get fancy and cut a V-design  on the edge of the watermelon to fix the "it's a plain watermelon" look.

Place Watermelon Bowl inside of a large bowl to give it support while it is setting in the fridge.

Boil water for Jello and follow Jello instructions and mix up in a separate bowl. Using ice for a 1/2 cup or so of the cold water helped cool off the water quickly, so it was not too hot before adding it to the Watermelon Bowl.

Add Jello to Watermelon Bowl. Cover and let it set in the fridge. If you want to add fruit to the Jello, wait about 1 hour to an 1.5 hours then add the fruit. I was surprised at how fast the Jello set even though it seemed like it was pretty deep. It was finished chilling 5 hours after putting it in the fridge!

  

My kids were so excited about eating from this bowl that they went down for naps with no fights because they were told they could have it if only they took a nap! They also tell everyone that comes over about their creation. It was a lot of fun and really easy to make!

Enjoy!

Chalk Paint

Chalk art is fun, especially outside on a nice day! While at the store I saw some liquid chalk and thought, "I wonder if I can make that at home?" The answer..."Yes, I can!" In fact, can you guess what it is made from? Cornstarch! I am going to stock up on a few boxes of this stuff for some summer fun. There is so much you can do with cornstarch!

What You Need:

• Cornstarch
• Water
• Food coloring
• Container(s) - cupcake tin, mini cups, etc
• Paintbrush or mini sponges

Directions:

This is super easy! The basic recipe is 1 part water and 1 part cornstarch. Combine and mix together.

(We used 1/2 cups cornstarch and 1/2 cups water)

Disperse mixture into mini cups (if you mixed everything together in a bowl). Add food coloring. We added 2 drops per mini cupcake tin/slot (Blue seems to leave a slight hue...it looks like it will easily fade, so avoid or dilute if you do not want it)

Mix the colors in.

Lots of fun colors!

Give them the rules..."no painting on the house, the dog, or mixing it in the dog food"...or something like that. Put the chalk paint outside and give them their paint brushes and let them get creative!

We used sponge wedges for their art work.

It looks just like chalk when it dries and it comes off easily, too!

Additional Fun:

We discovered that when we got to the last of our chalk paint and there is not much water left, that we get Monster Goo! The kids had fun creating mini colorful balls...a very fun unexpected surprise!

It looks wet, but it is a lot thicker than it looks!

This had to be one of my favorite parts of playing with this paint... My son decided that it would be more fun to paint his body than the ground. He kept saying "My dad is going to Lll-uh-ve me all painted" and then he tried to paint me again saying, "Daddy is going to Lll-uh-ve you!" He was so proud of his body art that he did not want to wash it off later!

Have fun!

I'm linking this to:

      

Chia Pet Head

What fun we had watching seeds grow as hair from our chia pet's head! Creating your own chia pet (or head) is super easy and a great activity for everyone to see nature in action!

What You Need:

• 
  
  Soil
• 
  
  Sawdust (optional. It is just a filler)
• 
  
  Nylon - (Can get knee highs for pretty cheap at the store)
• 
  
  Chia seed, wheat grass seed, regular grass seed, or any other herb seed
• 
  
  String or rubber bands
• 
  
  A little bowl for your creation to sit in

Directions:

Cut nylon to size you would like your chia pet to be (you can always make it smaller later). Get nylon wet. Add seeds to toe area or where you would like "hair" to grow. Add plenty of seed so you have a lot of hair! Keep the directions for the seeds so you can refer to them later. Add 2 handfuls of dirt on top of seeded area. If you don't have enough dirt, you can add sawdust to fill the rest of the nylon until you get desired size. Allow room for give so you can "design" your pet.  

Now you can create your pet into something other than a potato! You can make a head, caterpillar, or anything you want. My son thought it would be fun to do a head! You can use rubber bands or string to tie off different areas. All I had was string from when I used to do cross-stitching and it worked great!

Tie off the area you would like and then shaping afterwards is easy (like, if you wanted a more pointy nose instead of a round nose).

Our "Man" with ears and a nose

Then decorate. My son said he needed eyes and eyebrows.

After "Man" has been shaped a bit more and given some more features.

Place your creation in the little bowl in an area where everyone can watch its hair grow. Our seed directions said to keep the dirt wet until seedlings appeared, which took about 5 days. We made him on a Monday afternoon and by Saturday night you could see a few tiny sprouts that were able to get through the nylon. By Sunday morning he had a full head of hair and by Monday morning ( a week after he was created) he had an inch of hair!

If I could have...I would have bought the Chia seed and invited a ton of mom/kids over and made these. We could not find any wheat grass seeds or chia seeds in small packets (we looked everywhere!). We finally found some chia seeds at the health food store, but they were $14 for a pretty big bottle and I didn't want to spend that much or have that much seed leftover. So, we ended up using regular grass seed that we used for our backyard. It worked nice, but it would be fun to have something growing we could use.

P.S.

Keep a good eye on him. After a good morning of cleaning and play, I noticed "Man" was missing! The kids claimed they did not know where he was. I finally found him under the trampoline and now my son admits (2 days later) that he moved him because, " 'Man' wanted to hide from the sun!"

Bird Feeders - One Way to Recycle Your Plastic Containers

You know you go through all sorts of plastic containers. Put aside a couple of them and make some bird feeders with your children. They were a lot easier to make than I thought and it is a lot of fun to watch the birds outside your windows. It is a real conversation starter with my children! I will note that I cannot take credit for coming up with the idea for making these...it was all my husband!


What You Need:

• Clean plastic container including the lids (milk, juice, applesauce, etc.)
• Wire hanger (one hanger can be used for 2 bird feeders)
• Wooden dowel (we bought one from the store and cut it down into 3 pieces)
• Bird Seed
• Knife or sharp scissors
• Basic tools, pliers and hammer (we mainly used a Leatherman)
• Nail
• Bird Seed 

Directions:

First, cut a holes in the side of the container big enough for a bird to get in and low enough that the bird can get the seeds inside (about 1.5 - 2 inches from the bottom - make sure there is room for the dowel to go through the plastic underneath the hole). You can add another hole on the other side for variety.

Next, cut a small slit in the plastic about 1/2 inch below the hole that was just cut. Make another one on the other side and then push the dowel through the 2 slits.

The OJ container has 2 holes in it.

Now, you are almost done. All you have to do now is poke 2 holes into the lid with the nail (using the hammer).

This is the lid for the applesauce container.

Cut the wire hanger in half. I actually learned that my Leatherman can do this! Just open it to the pliers and then place the wire inside the pliers as close as you can get to your hands and there is the wire cutter (I hope that made sense and I'm sure there is a better way to describe that). 


Fold the wire in half and insert it through the holes in the lid so the bend is on the top of the lid. Then twist the wire a couple of times under the lid. Make sure you leave some wire on top so you can hang the feeder where you want. We discovered that there is a bar in our rain gutter so we looped the wire around it and then inserted it into the lid and twisted the wire under the lid so that the bird feed will have a secure hold outside.

Then screw the lid onto the container. (You may have to cut the wire under the lid a little shorter if it is too long inside the container). Now, the bird feeder is ready to be hung outside.

We added 2 dowels and only 1 hole for the applesauce container.

You can hang your feeder outside from a hook, nail, tree limb, rain gutter, etc. We chose to hang our bird feeders near a window so we could see the birds. 

Don't forget to add some bird seed!



Updated:

Here are the pictures I promised of the bird feeders from outside...

We also attached one to the back fence!

Have fun!

Fruit Smoothie - Yum, Yum!

The weather is getting warmer (and staying warmer, no snow again here!), the trees are getting greener and there are a ton of strawberries at the store! I love warm weather for many reasons, but one of my favorite reasons is because it means that we get to have our favorite treat everyday, if we wanted to. There is nothing better than a cold fruit smoothie made from fresh (or frozen) fruit on a warm day. Yum! It also makes me feel like a better mom because my kids are getting in more fruits and veggies. Yes, I said veggies! I love to add spinach to our smoothies. It does not change the taste and it is good for you. The best of both worlds! Another reason I love to make smoothies so much is because my children really enjoy helping make them, too, making it a really easy and rewarding activity!

Here is how we make ours and I'll explain the veggies further down.

What You Will Need:

• Orange juice - fresh or frozen concentrate
• Fresh or Frozen berries, you choose (we love to add strawberries, blue berries, black berries, and raspberries) 
• Banana
• Spinach - fresh or frozen (see tips below if your child has a problem with it)
• Ice cubes/water

~ Also, see variations below...

* This recipe will make 5 to 6 glasses with 6 oz of smoothie


Directions:

Add a handful of strawberries (usually ends up about 6 strawberries), add 1-2 handfuls any additional berries you are adding, add 1 medium sized banana, and 1 handful of spinach leaves. Then add about 1/4 cup of orange juice concentrate (1 cup if not concentrate). If your berries are fresh, add 1/2 to 1 cup ice cubes to the mix that way you can make sure your smoothie is cool, otherwise add 1/2 to 3/4 cups water. I eye this and aim for 3x what I added of the concentrate.

 They love to help!

Now blend!

Make sure you taste it before you start handing it out and that it does not taste too sweet or too blah! Sometimes I have to add a few more strawberries or another banana.

If you want it to be thicker, add more ice cubes. I usually have to do this when I use fresh fruit!

If you want it to go further than the 5 or 6 cups without having to use anymore berries, add a banana and add more ice/water (and sometimes a little more juice). I was able to get a good 4 or 5 more glasses out of it!

And adding a straw seems to make it that much more enjoyable to drink! Mmmmm!

Spinach Tips: Every time I make this smoothie for someone new (especially teenagers) they usually cringe when they see me adding a leafy vegetable. My nieces will attest to that! I convinced them to take a little nibble out of a spinach leaf. Once they tasted it and saw that it didn't have much of a taste, they did not mind me adding it and even more so after they got their first taste of the smoothie. They loved it and I never heard them complain again! My kids do not even think twice about adding the spinach

P.S. I like using frozen spinach just because I do not have to worry about the fresh stuff dying if it is not used fast enough.

Variations

• 
  
  Instead of adding juice/water, add a small container of yogurt - different flavors give it a different twist. Add milk or ice/water to thin it out.
• 
  
  Add cranberry juice with the orange juice

And the list could go on and on, but I will let you get creative!

Other Tips: I find that the frozen fruit is more affordable when I buy a large bag of it from Costco vs. my local grocery store or even Wal-Mart.

Now go treat your taste buds!