Paper Roll Hearts

An Easy Valentine Maxtivity

This is a really cute and super easy activity.  All you need is a couple of toilet paper or paper towel rolls, tape, paint and paper.

Bend and tape your rolls so that the end looks like a heart.  They have now become your heart stamps.

Place your paint on paper plates and dip and stamp hearts all over your paper.

This project makes a supper cute handmade Valentine card for someone special.

GAK aka SLIME

We have been busy playing and I have a lot of catching up to do here on the blog.
This fall at the beach Max made Gak with his cousins.  They all loved it and played with it for weeks afterwards.  You can make it too, it's super easy.

Materials  Needed 

Elmers Glue 

Borax 

Large mixing bowl

Plastic cup (8 oz size works well)

Spoon

Measuring cup

Food coloring 

Water

Zipper-lock bags (to store your Gak)

Water

Step 1

Add entire bottle of glue to mixing bowl.  Fill empty glue bottle with water, recap and shake.  Empty glue/water mixture into bowl.

Step 2

Add food coloring.

Step 3

Measure 1/2 cup of warm water into the plastic cup and add a teaspoon of Borax powder to the water. Stir the solution.  This Borax solution is the secret linking agent that causes the Elmer’s Glue molecules to turn into slime. 

Step 4

As you stir slowly add the Borax solution to the glue.  It will start to bind together.  Keep adding as you mix.  Eventually you will abandon the spoon and need to mix by hand.  

Step 5

Play!  You can add cookie cutters , stamps, cutting tools even cars and trucks to the fun!  When done seal in ziploc baggie.  It will keep for several weeks.

Pipes

We were at the Home Improvement store the other day and Maxton asked for some pvc pipes.
He said wanted to build a waterside with them.  We bought a few pipes and some fittings and this is what happened.

I cut them into smaller pieces using a saw.

We laid them out on a board and then used brackets to attach the pipes to the board.

  

I left them loose enough so we could rearrange the pipes if we wanted to.

He took it apart and changed it around in many different ways.

This activity kept him busy all afternoon.  

When it gets warmer here I am going to make this a part of his sand/water table.

It eventually became a duck pond. :)

Melted Crayon Art

Melted Crayon Art

You will need:

A canvas

crayons

hot glue gun

hair dryer or heat gun

Hot glue crayons to you canvas.

Use hairdryer to heat them until they begin to melt and run.

Keep going until you get the desired effect.

"it's melting"

Things I learned:

It takes a while to ready this Maxtivity.

The melting is slow process.

Ignore the letters on our canvas.  I was hoping to peel them off and reveal the white under the melted crayon.  That part was an epic fail.  

It turned out pretty cool but Max grew tired of waiting on the crayons to melt after about two minutes.

DIY Felt Board

I made this super easy felt board and gave to Max as a Christmas present.   It has been getting lots of play time so I thought I would share the project with you.  

I failed to take any before pictures, but it is a really easy project.  

You will need:
an artist stretched canvas ( i used a 11x14 but I wish it was a bit larger)
enough felt to cover the board ( you can buy this by the yard)
staple gun

Just cut your felt to size and stretch tight around the canvas.  Staple all the way around on the back side.

I picked out some of Maxton's favorite books and cut out the characters from felt.
He is "reading" Brown Bear in the below photo.  As he tells the story he puts up the animals on his felt board.  I also bought some pre cut letters at a local teacher supply store, they were a little pricy but I didn't want to cut out all the upper and lower case letter.

spelling his name

This Maxtivity encourages open ended play and is a great way to develop language and literacy skills.