How to make your own moby wrap:

You’ll want to get 5-6 yards of interlock fabric.  Each batch of fabric can create 2-3 wraps.   You will want to cut your fabric into long strips.  I folded the fabric like a hotdog.  The width of each strip needs to be a minimum of 16 inches wide (I have some as wide as 25 inches – but they are more bulky).  I laid my fabric out on our couch to help contain the yardage as I cut them.  Viola!  You now have 2-3 moby wraps!

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How to wrap your baby:

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We made borax snowflakes, it was really easy and fun. We made 4 of them and gave them to grandparents when they visited. Our biggest challenge was finding a jar with a wide enough mouth. I copied the directions from about.com

How to make Borax Snow Crystals:

1.Cut a pipe cleaner into three equal sections and twist the sections together at their centers to form a six-sided snowflake shape. Don’t worry if an end isn’t even, just trim to get the desired shape. The snowflake should fit inside the jar.
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2.Tie the string to the end of one of the snowflake arms. Tie the other end of the string to the pencil. You want the length to be such that the pencil hangs the snowflake into the jar.

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3.Fill the widemouth pint jar with boiling water and add borax one tablespoon at a time to the boiling water, stirring to dissolve after each addition. The amount used is 3 tablespoons borax per cup of water. It is okay if some undissolved borax settles to the bottom of the jar.  If you want tint, now is the time to add it.  We used food coloring

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4.Hang the pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil rests on top of the jar and the snowflake is completely covered with liquid and hangs freely (not touching the bottom of the jar).  Allow the jar to sit in an undisturbed location overnight.
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5.  Wake up to the sight of the pretty crystals!!! You can hang your snowflake as a decoration or in a window to catch the sunlight

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Thanks again Pam and Troop Petrie kiddos for sharing your science experiment with us!

This week we read Good Morning, Pond, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. This book starts off with a frog leaping into the pond and waking up all the animals that live in and around the pond and ends with three children coming to see all the animals in the pond. Emily loved acting out the different sounds and motions of the various animals in this story, of course the frog was her very favorite. I liked that it was written in a semi cumulative story form. It made if a lot of fun to read and easy for Emily to follow along.

I picked this book out because Emily loves frogs at the moment and I thought that she would enjoy reading a book with a frog in it and then making a frog project to go with it. I love projects made out of paper plates so I thought it would be fun to make a frog out of one. To go along with this book.

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How to make your own paper plate frog

First, Emily painted the front and back of a paper plate green.  While the paper plate was drying Emily colored in black circles on the top of two green bottle tops. (We had these in our huge bottle top collection.)  I drew and cut out frog arms and legs on green construction paper. Emily received Do-a-Dot markers for Easter (She was so excited!!) so she wanted to color in the frogs arms and legs a little more with them.

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After all the pieces were dry, Emily folded the paper plate in half and I made a small slit in the middle of the fold to slide the tongue which I cut out of craft foam through. Then Emily glued on the arms, legs….

… and bottle cap eyes.  Isn’t the finished product so much fun!  Thanks again to Mommy’s Adventures for sharing their story+art or “stART” project with us! Do you have a project you’d love to share with the QM readers? Feel free to email it to me! admin@quirkymomma.com

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Capes

These are so easy to create and make terrific gifts!  Basically, take a rectangle of fabric, finish off its edges, then gather the top and sew a band around the top.  Viola!  You have a cape!  I’ve even made them with no-sew stripping.  The kids have used these capes as well, capes, but also as aprons, a puppet stage to hide behind and covers to the entrance of their “caves”.

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Hats/wigs/crowns

Having something silly on their head is just addictive for them!  We have gone through phases with cowboy hats, whimsically decorated hats, ball caps, fussy wigs, princess crowns, even putting all the ribbons and bows we own in their hair at one time (we got several comments grocery shopping that day).  My youngest is the one most enthralled with hats right now, she’s even put pants on her head as a makeshift hat.  I think she loves how the pant legs bobble on her back.  One of the favorites is an easy to make “braid hat”.  This was made before I began blogging, but you can easily replicate it with yarn.  Make braids or stringy hair and glue it to a hat.  Lots of fun!

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Vests

We have several different types of vests in our collection, a few handed down from ring-bearers of weddings past, a few itchy ones, but by far the kids favorite vests are a pair of old swimming lifejackets.  They have been consistently favorite items for nearly two years of pretend play!  They have worn them in the bathtub (filled and empty) pretending they are “at the lake”.  They have used them in reenacting “westerns” and horse-back riding.  Currently, the life-jackets are coveted as props for playing “Diego and Alyssa” animal rescuers.

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Flouncy dresses

If you have girls these are a staple!  My girls will wear their flouncy dresses/skirts 24/7 if I let them!

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Shoes

We have a big box of old shoes (waiting to be handed down to the next Quirky Kid) it also includes a few bigger sizes that are hand-me-downs from their cousins and some old high heels, Daddy’s old boots, etc.  The kids absolutely love playing with this big box.  They wear the shoes, but have also used them to create a “shoe road” and used them as a stand and homes for their animals/dolls.  We’ve even used them to create letters and of course to practice matching!  Interesting shoes are so much fun!

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Sheet or boxes

A sheet is great for pretend play.  It can become a tent, a turban, a dress, a swimming pool, the dog kennel, my youngest especially enjoys using it to play hide-n-seek and hiding wherever, just under the sheet.

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For my youngest, while she does color with crayons, today she was more interested in banging them so I helped her color in her page. She’d hand me a new color every few seconds and I’d tell her the name of the color, have her repeat it back to me and then scribble like mad till she picked out the next crayon. She loved it and thought I was “so silly.”  It is the highest compliment my toddler gives someone. After we colored them we got on our art shirts and mixed up our shaving cream paint. As I am trying to encourage my youngest to not finger paint, there is a time for finger painting but also a time for more orderly – aka clean – fun, we got some old makeup sponges out and used those to help spread our paint.

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I love how the paint makes the crayon jump out at you! The finished product of our painted crayon works of art are beautiful! 

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What you need to make Jello Popsicles:

• Box of Jello – we have used cherry, lime and strawberry.  I bet all the flavors would taste great!  Note: the red colors do stain clothes!  We learned that the hard way.
• Orange Juice – 1 Cup. Love that the new Minute Maid bottle is so easy to pour!  This also adds to the health benefit – these could be great during the flu season, hydrating the kids and giving them vitamin C and other vitamins!
• Fruit – we’ve mashed bananas, added pureed peaches, strawberries, blueberries, etc.  Be creative! ETA: I was asked quantities, and it varied each time we made them. Probably a cup or two.
• Hot water – 1 Cup

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While I boiled a cup of water, Z mashed the fruit.  Then I gave him the hot water and he dumped the jello in it stirring for a little while.  Add the Minute Maid and fruit.  Then fill the popsicle cups (we filled mini-dixie cups with the leftovers) and freeze for a few hours until frozen.  So simple!

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Thanks to Minuet Maid for participating in this post and to Jen at Whole Foods, check out her giveaway of a popsicle maker!

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Grab 4 bottles of bubbles and food coloring. I was fortunate enough to satisfy my obsessive nature by matching my dye to the bottles. You don’t have to be so picky!

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Open the bubbles and squirt half a bottle of coloring into each bubble container. I didn’t take this task outside. It’s messy, so you should go outside before you squirt food coloring all over your dining room table!

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Speaking of messy: do you have an art easel taking up too much room inside? If you want to make your deck the coolest place on the block, move it outside for the Summer! It’s so much easier to clean up paints and chalk dust, and we end up doing tons more artwork if I know we aren’t going to make the house a disaster. We have these: No-Spill Paint Cups With Lids and I use half of them for paint, and the other half hold our chalk. The lid keeps out any moisture, and I don’t have to bring our supplies back and forth.

Back to the bubble paint: take out the wands and change the kiddies into old clothes. The goal is to blow bubbles aimed at the paper, and when the bubble pops it leaves a great design. My kids thought it would be better to take the Jackson Pollock route.

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Looks like they had a blast!  Thanks again, Lawrence Girls and Daddy Too for a fun craft idea!

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What were our edible paints? Random dips from our fridge (including French’s Honey Mustard, Ranch dressing and ketchup). I hoped that the dips would mix together, that ranch salad dressing and ketchup would make “pink”, or that ketchup and French’s Honey Mustard would make “orange”, but that was not the case. Although they did not blend well,  the kids still had a great time!  We cut up a mixture of veggies for our “paint brushes” and had fun stamping different textures and playing with our food.

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As the pictures show, my youngest was ecstatic to be included in her siblings “craft” time and I was thrilled she devoured her “trees”.  Not only was this a great toddler/early preschooler craft, it was also a great way to encourage her to eat her veggies. Want more edible painting fun with your toddler?  Check out our painting your pancakes post.

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I Spy:

We had I Spy toys (like the shakey bottles and books), but we also played a version of I Spy while driving.  Even my 17m old loved participating!  Each age level played in a different way.  With my four year old I could describe items and have her guess what she was looking for… with my almost 3 year old I’d ask him to hunt for all the “gray” items in our car, or all the places where he could see trash on the side of the road (or in the car, that was helpful come clean-up time).  He also loved pointing out each and every water tower we drove by.  With my youngest, I Spy, was a bit more obvious.  I see a red truck (as the red truck passes us) we’d all point and she’d shriek joining in the pointing fun!  This was a great way to keep conversation flowing when your mind is drowsy.

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Box of Books:

We had a morning and an afternoon “quiet time”.  In the morning I gave the kids books to read during the quiet time.  The older kids got to share a box of books between their seats, my youngest got her single book to play with and read (hopefully, dozing).   They also got a snuggle item.  The first day this was difficult.  The kids did not want to have a quiet time and kept asking for  items/whining.  I am amazed at how quickly kids can learn a new routine!  By Day 2 they knew what quiet time meant and by the last day of driving they anticipated it and had book requests and settled right in!

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Complicated snacks:

Giving a simple snack (like pretzel or a cookie) works, but we found that snack time could double as play time.  We got snack sized bags and would put a mixture of snacks in them.  The kids got to play I spy with their food – they loved that!  Also, apples given whole take a long time for them to eat.  Other complicated snacks we enjoyed included fruit leather with another item (ex: pretzel stick) and the kids could play pretend with their food, making a scroll, a Tee-pee, pretending the fruit leather was a blanket for their toy, etc.  Come back later for a post on how to make your own fruit leather!  It’s in the works!

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In-Car Potty:

Two of our three kids are potty-trained (and our third thinks she is – but is no where near full control).   This potentially could mean tons of stops for their tiny bladders!  We would limit drinks till half an hour before our next stop (we stopped every 2 hours, one a quick pull-off and in-car potty time, the other a get-gass and coffee stop).  Having a potty in the car meant that we didn’t have to unpack the kids, we could just pull off into a rest area or onto the side of the road, let the kids go in the training potty chair, dump it (if it was liquid, solids we disposed of) and get back on the road in under 10 min.  It was great to not have to worry about bringing multiple young children into a public bathroom as often.  The Bambino potty is pretty low, perfect size as it fits nicely under the back seat.   I also like how it is one-piece, no nooks and crannies, just wipe out and store!

What are some of your sanity-saving road trip tips?  Please share them in the comments!

Thanks to Evelyn for the use of a photo!

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We learned that not all toilet paper tubes (even if you consistently buy the same brand) are the same height.  Before we began we sorted the tubes – short ones in one pile, taller ones in another.  My son loved picking all the scraps of leftover paper off the tubes.

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Then we had great fun experimenting.  Is it easier to build the tubes one on top of another, or one on top of a group?  I loved watching them figure out weight distribution.  It was easier to balance a tube on the intersection of three other tubes.  We also learned that it is difficult to stack tubes on top of each other if they are laying on their side… but not impossible.  My son is a quick problem solver and figured out that he could bend the tubes to make them better building surfaces.

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Have you played with your trash lately?