Day to Night sensory bin

Making a MESS is the BEST!

 Graham and Parker had a lot of fun this afternoon in our outdoor play environment. When we were on our way inside to get cleaned up, They said to me "this was the best day ever!" I love when I hear that! They say this pretty often, but it still counts each and every time!! I am glad that almost every day is the best day ever to them!! The focus today was on our water play cove. We love every part of our outdoor play environment but today we mainly used the water play cove. They also played in the sand table and sandbox, and on the trampoline.

Glime

Graham and Parker decided to pour some clear glue onto white paper, they were making all kinds of designs with it. So I suggested that we add salt to the designs, so that we could spray liquid watercolors over the salt later. They loved that idea! So we now have our salt and glue designs drying to be sprayed with liquid watercolors later!  The plastic storage container that we used to salt up the glue drawings, still had salt in it. So they asked if they could add more. I let them pour in more salt, then they wanted to add baby powder and shaving cream.... so I let them. They mixed it and played with it for a while. Then they wanted to add some liquid water colors and then.... white school GLUE! So, uh..... I said ok!  They added that all and mixed it all up. It became one of the coolest slime mixtures we have made up yet!!!  It is a gritty, dry but wet when squished slime. It sticks together in big freaky stringy chunks, and is really funky to play with!!

We call it GLIME!!

They played with it for about 15 minutes, then decided to add a little bit of water to the plastic container the glime was in. The addition of the water created a swamp like environment. So they added some more of their little action figures/men/animals. They always add their action figures to everything they do and play with.

See the other slimes we invented, fluffy slime and mega slime HERE

recap on ingredients for Glime: baby powder, sea salt, white school glue, liquid watercolors, shaving cream

get SLIMED

These are just highlights of play from the past week.

I decided to try and make something similar to this product from Discount School Supply. So I bought some hair gel and plastic storage bags from the dollar tree with some glitter, straws, duct tape, and hot glue and made marble maze bags. 

How to make marble maze bags:

I started by turning the bag inside out, then cutting up some straws. I cut the straws into various long and short sized pieces. Then I fired up my hot glue gun and started gluing the straws into a double sided maze formation. Once I finished gluing  I turned the bag inside out again to put it back to it's normal state. Then I dumped in two containers of hair gel from the dollar tree, a bit of glitter, several drops of liquid water color, and put two white marbles in as well. Then I closed the bag and sealed it with duct tape, squished it all around to mix everything well, and it was ready to go!  It looks best on the light table, it shows up so nicely and helps the child to really see everything inside the bag well.  I recommend using a light table with these marble maze bags 

They made their own sensory bin!! My boys are not into sensory bins unless it is one of our outdoor water and sand tables with fun stuff to play with. I have made the cute themed sensory bins for indoor play but they are totally not into them. They really like to choose what they play with as well as when and how, they have been that way always. So today I poured this mixed color corn kernel mix into the yellow bin and left it on the kitchen table. They managed to locate it and start playing with their men in it. Then I moved it to their room/ play room and they added some colorful ping pong balls from the dollar tree.  They played in it for over an hour. So essentially they made their own sensory bin, and enjoyed it!!

Here are some pics of Graham and Parker having fun with water beads, fluffy slime and mega slime. I did not get to take photos of all of the activities we did because the slime was so messy. I almost ended up ruining my camera a few times. We had a bin of coffee grounds with various scoops and bowls, giant measuring cups and small ones too. We also had all of the usual scented and colored water play activities going on too. Parker ended up taking some of the fluffy slime on to the trampoline on his own and having a lot of fun rolling and sliding around in it. He was bouncing on his behind and making his own fun sensory experience. I closely supervised him though to be sure he did not get hurt. I closely supervise them all of the time anyway though, so that's a regular thing. Towards the end of play time, Garland decided to paint herself blue, as well as the side of the inflatable pool. She kind of looked like Mel Gibson in braveheart. It was really hilarious!