Fun with the Kids Friday: Kool-Aid Glue Painting

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I had some bored kids recently pacing back and forth, ranting and raving, and altogether being rather unpleasant.

I think we have grown weary of winter...and by think I mean know.

We were actually seeing some of the grass and then it snowed. Oh grass, it was nice to see you for awhile.

So our recent answer to being stir crazy was some painting fun.

What made it so fun you ask?

Uh first...Kool-Aid.

Second...GLUE.

Combine one Kool-Aid packet and a bottle of glue and you have sticky, colorful, wonderful smelling paint.

Then after some stirring and lid replacing, it turns into the one of the most fun painting mediums ever.

Plus it also is an excellent answer to the stir-crazies.

Just roll up the sleeves, put on T-shirt Painters Smock, and start squeezing the Kool-Aid glue all over a giant piece of poster board.

Sometimes it takes so much concentration, one's tongue involuntarily must stick out.

This was a great activity for a stuck-in-the-house afternoon.

I will say that while all the boys enjoyed it, my almost four year old enjoyed it the most. He started first and ended last. Then he went back later...gasp ... smock-less and ended up covered in Kool-Aid glue paint.

I couldn't be mad, he was having fun, being creative, and had this look on his face.

Kool-Aid Painting passed the test. Good fun had by all.

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Magnetic Fridge Puzzle

Between the hours of 4:30 pm and 5:30 pm in our house is a period of time I like to call the witching hour.

Does this happen in your house?

About 4:30 the natives come up and are a little restless. They are carrying pitchforks and torches...okay more like Nerf guns, but you get the picture of insanity I am painting.

In the Chaos I have to repeat the same conversation over and over and over and OV-AH again.

Middle: "Mom I am starving!"
Mom: "Great! I am making dinner right now."
Little: "I need something to eat with my teeth."
Mom: "Perfect. Making dinner."
Middle: "Mahhhhm. I am STARRRRRVING! I need food now."
While climbing through the panty Little: "I want a treat."
Mom: "Nope. Making dinner."

Repeat conversation.
Pulling my hair out.
Repeat conversation again.

So when I came across THIS PIN while searching my For The Kiddos pinboard for this weeks A Pinteresting Wednesday candidate, well let's just say there was some major celebrating. By celebrating I mean, clapping my hands ever so quietly since Bean was asleep.

So the project seemed easy enough.

Take a puzzle. Luckily we have several sitting around.

Grab some sticky back magnets. Again, lucky me I had some laying around.

You will probably want to make sure all the puzzle pieces are there. That is some kind of miracle at our house.

Cut up the magnet strips, one for each puzzle piece.

Peel the paper off the magnet pieces, adhere to puzzle pieces by pressing the sticky side of the magnet to the back side of the puzzle piece firmly.

I was prompted to take the whole project a little further when I had the sudden horrifying image of puzzle pieces scattered about and sliding under the fridge. Poor puzzle pieces. In my head they had no home to go to.

I am not sure why it became imperative for magnetic fridge puzzle pieces to have a home, but it did.

So I made them one out of their existing box.

I cut a rectangular chunk out of the top, so the picture is right side up and facing the front.

Then I took the bottom of the puzzle box and cut it in half.

I hot glued the bottom into the box top like so.

Next I rounded up some stronger little magnets.

Then I hot-glued them to the back.

Then I stuck it strategically on the fridge to snare all ravenous natives.

And what do you know?

Victory. It worked.

Food-seeking rampage averted.

One pretty fun activity completed.

The Magnetic Fridge Puzzle was a hit. The only slit bump in complete puzzle fun was that sometimes the pieces were hard to get together without the piece popping off the fridge. That is when a little Momassistance was needed.

When the puzzle was done, dinner was pretty close to being done as well.

Plus Middle was so happy with finishing the puzzle by himself he didn't even notice he was STARVING anymore.

I am thinking there will be more Magnetic Fridge Puzzles in our future.

Boredom Buster: Rice Krispies Legos

This idea was originally supposed to be a part of my Project No More "I'm Bored!"

Well, the last little bit of Summer was so busy and jam-packed that there really wasn't an "I'm bored!" to be heard.

Since I still really wanted to do this activity, I set aside some time to make it happen. Even after I "set aside some time", it still took me almost an additional week to "make it happen". Hahaha. Oh well.

We eventually got to all our Rice Krispies Lego building fun. The much anticipated activity totally lived up to the hype. A totally boredom buster when there is boredom and a fun activity when fun is needed.

Making Rice Krispie Legos was really easy.

I gathered enough Rice Krispie cereal, marshmallows, butter, and food coloring to make four batches of Rice Krispie treats.

My original intention was to make blue, green , yellow, and red. Eh, well, red turned out more pink. The boys didn't seem to mind.

After I made each batch, I turned the pan over onto a sheet of plastic wrap. The whole pan of rice treats just dumped out in a solid brick. I then wrapped it up and let it set on the counter to firm up.

Now you simply let it set over night...I uh wanted to make sure it was good and set so I let it set for a couple of days...totally meant to do that.

After they have set and are firmer, unwrap each brick and start cutting.

I cut mine into rows and then cut each row in either small squares or rectangles. You know like the different size Legos.

Then I put them in bags according to color where they proceeded to store for another several days waiting for me to find the time. I think my boys were getting to the point where they didn't think we were ever going to build with these.

I was good to my word and we finally got around to building with our Rice Krispies Legos.

I of course made them all wash their hands...because I knew an equal amount of building and eating was going to be happening.

Then they started building.

Fortresses.

A fleet of ships.

AND...Um...your guess is as good as mine...

Oldest did bust out some kind of robot. He did request the use of toothpicks to make the arms stay on.

He found out that his robot tasted pretty darn yummy.

They boys and their friends had a great time. They enjoyed the building almost as much as they did the eating. I enjoyed watching them have fun almost as much as I enjoyed eating a lot a few treats myself.

Legos--good.
Rice Krispie Treats--good.
Rice Krispie Treat Legos--awesome.

Boredom officially busted.

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Bubble Bath Paints

Have you ever had one of those days where by the end of said day you can't recall really sitting down the whole day? One of those days where you are pretty sure smoke is coming from your ears and not out of anger but out of a blown fuse in what used to be your brain.

I had one of those days. Amazingly enough it was still a really productive day. I got a lot done, but they were all surprise projects. Tasks more like it. So I had not prepared for them, pumped myself up if you will. There was no self-induced pep talk to start my tasks off right.

For that reason, as I type this out my brain is having trouble conversing with my fingers and you are lucky that the post doesn't start looking like this..djapiob sjiw lsj;oigj jjjjjzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

PS that was my head hitting the keyboard from instantaneous uncontrollable slumber.

Since I am 30 seconds away from having a perma indent on my forehead in the shape of a space bar, I am keeping this little post short and sweet.

Here we are on A Pinteresting Wednesday. The day of the week where I share a completed project from one of my Pin Boards. One of the thousands of projects I have good intentions of doing/trying. Hehehe.

This was a very recent pin. LIKE I saw it, pinned it, and did it all in 30 minutes.

What can we glean from this?

This project is SUPER easy.

Not only was is super easy, but it was an immediate hit with the bath-taker in our house.

I mean what kid doesn't like Bubble Bath Paint.

All you need to gather is:

1 bottle 15 oz baby bath wash (clear)
7 TBS cornstarch
small containers
food coloring

Simple. Now mix cornstarch into baby bath wash until well mixed. Pour the mixture into separate containers...these are about 1 cup containers and I filled four.

Mix in a couple drops of each color. Stir well.

Put lid on and wait until bath time...if you can.

Little wanted to take a bath immediately. Thank heavens I talked him into waiting until after dinner and when Hubby was home.

The paint can be used with a paint brush or with their hands.

Good times had by all.

I give this project a happy, if somewhat exhausted, two thumbs way up.

How has your pinning been going? My pin boards grow by the hour day. So many good ideas, so little time.

Now off I go to snuggle with Hubby on the couch and fall asleep watch some TV.

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Giant Paper Airplanes

We are still in kickin'-the-boredom-out-of-the-house mode. We pretty much will be for the rest of the Summer.

Pinterest is a great source of projects to do with your kids. Love, LUHVE it.

My For the Kiddos board is chalk full of stuff to do with my Little Men.

This week I decided to do THIS PIN with the boys.

I went to The Mart and picked up a couple of packages of lightweight poster board. I also go one regular sized poster board. You know the really big ones they sell separately.

I gave each boy a large and small piece. Then I dumped out some crayons and told them to go crazy.

After they were all done coloring, we folded up our pieces of poster board into all different kind of planes. The traditional old-school paper airplane folding was the most popular.

Since the poster board is heavier and stiffer, I taped the nose of the airplane together and also the back of the airplane.

Then we went outside to test out our planes skills.

This was the really big one. Surprisingly, it flew the best.

Middle was a little disappointed that his plane didn't go clear across our giant backyard. I had to explain to him that halfway across the yard was still pretty awesome.

We folded Little's up all fancy. It was kind of a sinker, but he still loved it.

My boys loved all the giant paper airplane making so much that they played with them in the house the rest of the day. They also continued the paper airplane making the next day using regular printer paper. Our house has definitely caught the paper airplane fever.

Love Pinterest and all the great ideas out there.