I love you, Pinterest!

As a summertime stay-at-home-mom living in a state where it's almost unbearable to be outside between the hours of 11am and 4pm (unless of course you want to melt into a puddle in the yard), I'm always on the lookout for fun, time-filling activities.  In our household, where Daddy works from home, quiet activities are almost a must.  Educational is an added bonus.  A tall order, for sure, but that job has become a MILLION times easier since I discovered Pinterest.

Here's a sampling of a few of the Pinterest projects we've done lately, along with links to the original sources (just click the headings).

Fun With Pipe Cleaners

Molly picked the colors.  I bent them or cut them to appropriate lengths and shapes.  Molly constructed the letters.

We made it all the way up to L before she started to lose interest.

She found colander weaving a lot more interesting and worked with such intense focus.

Jello Play Dough

The recipe was very easy.  We used lime and strawberry jello to make green and pink, which were both lovely and smelled great!

I was afraid that such yummy smelling play-doh would invite taste-testing, especially when the only play-doh toys we had were kitchen utensils, but the kids were so interested in playing with it that no one thought to eat it.  Yay!

Older cousin, Isaiah, enjoyed the strawberry variety and the egg-separator made a great tool.

Cousin Corbin turned his strawberry snake into a strawberry beard.

Molly's favorite tools were the baby link rings, which make great impressions when pressed into the dough.  Our dough kept well for the last month.  We simply kneaded in more flour when it started to get sticky.  The recipe made a TON of dough, enough to send home half with the cousins.  So we'll probably halve the recipe next time.

 Fingerpaint Name Art

Supplies: Extra-large art paper, painter's tape, tempera paint, plastic cups, kitchen sponges (cut in half), old t-shirt smocks, table cover

Molly and I worked together during Ian's nap to pre-make the names.  She loves making letters and spelling her own name, along with Ian's name now too.

Ian's painting quickly digressed into paint-eating.  Thank goodness it's all non-toxic.

So proud of the final result!  The painter's tape didn't peel off as cleanly as I would have hoped.  If we do it again, I may try masking tape.  I'm sure either tape would work fine if you used canvases as the original post mentioned, but I went with the art paper we had on hand at home.

Ian's didn't end up as originally intended because he was eating way more paint than he was putting on the page, but the blue painter's tape looks ok anyway.

Not too shabby for a thrown-together afternoon project with on-hand materials.  Almost daily Molly will point to the paintings and say, "Ian! I-A-N.  Molly! M-O-L-L-Y."  I think we may try it again when Ian's a little older and use real canvases.

Mess-Free Fingerpaint

Supplies: gallon ziploc bags, tempera paint, white paper (for the background), tape

This kept me a little saner than our first fingerpainting project because it was completely mess-free.  Molly enjoyed practicing letters.  Ian enjoyed mixing colors.  To be honest, the attention-span for this project was MUCH shorter.  Without the mess, their interest was lost quickly.  But the nice thing is, I could put the bags back in our art box and take them out another day to try again.

Time-Out Bottle

Supplies: Glitter glue, glitter, clear tacky glue, re-purposed water bottle, super-glue or duct tape for the top

Purpose: To give our strong-willed toddler a visual timer for time-out that can also be used to calm her down in the midst of a meltdown.  We use it both for disciplinary time-out as well as for chill-out time during a tantrum.  When I hand her the "sparkle bottle", I shake it up and say, "I know your feelings are all mixed up right now, but you need to sit here and watch the sparkles settle.  Let your anger settle with the sparkles.  You can come back and play when all the sparkles are settled and your feelings are calmed down."

This is the fully settled bottle.  It took a while to get the correct ratio of water to clear glue.  My first attempt had a 20-minute settle time, which might as well be 20 hours to a toddler.  After dumping and adding water several times, I got the settle time down to 4 minutes, which seems to be just about perfect.  It's nice to know that I'm almost guaranteed that any tantrum will be over in less than 4 minutes.  Molly loves her sparkle bottle too.  I think she likes having a tool to help her deal with feelings that seem out-of-control to her.  We've since added duct tape to the lid to prevent any unfortunate accidents.  I considered super glue, but I'd like to be able to add time in the future.

Sandwich Sushi

 This is not my photo.  It's from the Martha Stewart website.  When completing a task like this with toddlers, taking pictures is definitely an after-thought.  Since my sandwich sushi was for the under-3 crowd, I julienned my vegetables much more finely.  Ian's molars aren't fully in, but he had no trouble when they were very thinly sliced.  I used carrots, cucumbers, and celery.  I also mixed up the spreads a bit.  I did some with garlic hummus, some with sour cream, and some with mayo + S&P.  Neither of my kids are usually fans of raw veggies, but these were a hit!

Countdown Chain

This last project I totally made up myself (although I'm sure a million moms have done it before me).  I didn't find it on Pinterest, but perhaps I'll make it my first original pin.  I call it "Countdown to Gramma & Poppy".  Last week, for the first time EVER since moving to N.C., we made the 12 hour drive to N.Y. to visit my family.  The last time we were there was when Molly was 10 months old for my little sister's wedding, but we were flying.  It also happened to be the week we found out we were expecting Baby #2.  So, technically, Ian has been to Gramma & Poppy's house when he was only a little poppy seed, but now we've made it official with a week-long visit.  Every day leading up to our trip Molly would say, "Time to get in the car?  Go to Gramma and Poppy's house?" and I sadly had to say, "No, we're going in a month....3 weeks....2 weeks..."  Like most 2-year-olds, she doesn't quite get the whole time thing.  Tomorrow and yesterday mean the same thing.  "Next week" might as well be a year from now, and "next month", well forget about it.  I needed a way to visually show her what I meant, so I came up with this countdown chain.

Please excuse the crooked cuts, lined paper, and sloppy numbers.  The idea came to me in a flash and I acted immediately, grabbing supplies that were in arm's reach. Next time I will probably use scrapbook paper and bigger numbers.

Molly had so much fun tearing off the bottom ring each night and counting the remaining days until we left for Gramma & Poppy's house.  Not only did it give her a better sense of time, but it's also a fun counting game and exposes her to numbers greater than ten with a visual connection.  As the chain got shorter, I moved it to a lower hook, but when it was long, we had to keep it out of the reach of Ian The Destructor.

Thank you, Pinterest, for filling my summer with good times!