Exploding bags

This one is a ton of fun - especially if you have boys (How they LOVE to destroy things!) It's our version of the baking soda and vinegar volcano that you get to watch working, make a pop, and without all that red dye. Once we got this one started, we had to do it about 8 times, so you may want to make extra!

Put a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in 1/4 of a paper towel.

Fold the corners into the center of the baking soda and tuck in the edges.

Pour about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of white vinegar into a zip top sandwich bag.

Add your baking soda packet, zip it up, and lie it on the ground.

The bag begins to expand.

This is the exciting part! It pops and spills the fizz.

Baking soda and vinegar react this way because the acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda to form carbonic acid. Carbonic acid falls apart into carbon dioxide and water. The bubbles coming from the escaping carbon dioxide cause the fizzy reaction.

Pool Noodle Fun - Without the Pool!

Family Fun magazine has been a favorite around here for over 10 years. If you've never heard of it, you should check it out here. It's packed with all the kid stuff you could ever need. Before Pinterest, I had an entire 2" binder devoted solely to Family Fun articles, recipes, and activities. I'm now, slowly, moving those all over to Pinterest. This summer they had a great article about how to make outdoor games and obstacle courses with pool noodles.

I think my 17-year-old and I had as much fun with these as the little ones did. It was super easy and by buying the noodles at the dollar store, under $20. I wish we had been able to play with them more, but with the weather being so hot this summer, we were kind of an indoor bunch. I hope they stand up to the weather and that we can use them next summer.

Pollock Painting

Did anybody else see that tumbleweed rolling through this blog? Yep. It's time to get those swept out. We love, love, the series Getting to know the world's greatest artists by Mike Venezia, so much so that I actually BOUGHT his books to have here at the house! That is a big deal for this penny pincher. So, when the book on Jackson Pollock arrived it was pure excitement around here. We mixed up some cornstarch paint, inspired by a post I saw over at Domestic Charm, and headed outside. Here is the ensuing mayhem.

You can't really tell, but they were dribbling a Pollock-esque painting on the driveway.

Let the slinging begin...

Wish you could see the "paint" more...

Then they kind of painted each other.

Then they kind of painted the van...wish I'd rolled the window up first!

Really it was a great time - clean up included and the boys remember who Jackson Pollock is so much more with adding in the activity!

Random fun & a craft

If you don't mind a lot of running around and laughing, this one is a hoot!  They are called Wobble Balls.  If you have kids, you probably already have way too many of the supplies on hand to make them.

I know, they just look like balloons.  Here's what you do. Take about a 1/4 - 1/2 inch ball of clay or 

Play-doh and roll it into a "snake." Put it into the opening of your uninflated balloon. Once it's completely inside, work it back into a ball and blow up & tie off the balloon.  The weight of the clay throws off the center of gravity of the balloon just enough that the thing goes all over the place!

Needless to say, it kept them occupied and happy for a bit!

This was just a fun craft that I wanted to try out from Pinterest. The link originally came from a blog called Cotton and Curls. This blogger claimed that you could cut out a cute design onto freezer paper, then iron the waxy side of the freezer paper onto a shirt. This supposedly sealed the edges of the design tightly enough that you could paint fabric paint onto the shirt with a sponge brush and it wouldn't bleed.  I had my doubts, so I tried it on a shirt that I was planning on donating anyway.

Guess what? It worked! I'm thinking that this may be the perfect remedy for all of the boys shirts that got past me and into the washing machine and dryer and now have stains forever set down the front of them.  I could paint on little ties or mini bodies with their regular-sized heads coming out of the necks! Awesome!

And, well, this was just a random shot, but it made me smile.  I hope it does you, too. Julius saw this and asked me to take a picture.  At first I didn't see it.  The tissue paper ball is making the shadow of a heart on the wall. :)

Home school History Fun

These are the pictures from our latest stop "Around the World." We are still in North America. As you can see, it is the Spirit of Saint Louis.  It is a construction paper-covered milk carton with cardboard and craft stick wings taped onto it.  It lasted for, oh, about 2 minutes after this photo was taken...which I expected.  I mean, who tells a 6-year-old boy the story of Charles Lindbergh, hands him an airplane and expects him not to see how far it can fly?!  Not me.  That's why I take pictures.

Here, we had just talked about the history of writing in the Mesopotamia.  They were supposed to be practicing their cuneiform writing - like the Sumerians.

Julius was MUCH more interested in the Egyptian style.

The twins, well....I...ummm...let's move on...

This was fun. We talked about the Old Kingdom in Egypt.  This is GREAT boy stuff! They put organs in jars - pulled out brains through your nose - there was buried treasure and thieves. I can't make up stuff this good! I told them each to go get one of their stuffed animals and we'd make it into a mummy.  The one on the right is just a doll that I'd sewn for them a few years ago. The one one the left  is a Rio Angry Bird - you can't make that stuff up, either.  This picture was taken immediately upon the completion of the wrapping, because I knew what was coming...

...this is what the "mummies" looked like before I even made it across the room to set the camera down. Mothers of boys, take heart. :)

Some great quiet books

I'm kind of a sucker for things that keep my kids' interest and require little effort on my part. After reading a post over at All For the Boys (a great little blog, by the way), I decided that I'd write a post of low-effort, high-interest quiet books. Here is the one I saw over at All For the Boys this morning:

This one is no-sew!

This one at Homemade Holiday Gifts would take a bit longer, but is all hand-sewn and would keep an older child more engaged.

B-rilliant! A binder, sheet protectors, age-appropriate worksheets, and  dry-erase crayons. It couldn't be any easier than that! Thanks I Am Momma Hear Me Roar!

This one is SUPER cute and, again - no-sew! This would be a great one for doctor's offices and the like as the swish of the velcro may not be welcomed at church. Very cute Kojo designs!

Hope that gives you some good ideas! Interestingly, I learned a few things from this post, as well #1 - apparently some women define "quick and easy" as 3 hours of work.  Wow.  Now more commentary needed.  #2 - Quiet books are HUGE with the Mormons.  Seriously.

Fun Science

We've been doing a lot of fun science-y stuff lately.  I mean, part of the fun of home schooling is, well, the fun!

Magic Milk or Milk Painting, as the boys liked to call it. Great lesson on surface tension.
See the tutorial here.

We both decided that this one really looked like Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. (This happens to be his favorite painter, because his middle name is Vincent.  He remembers the name because of the book Vincent van Gogh by Mike Venezia.  He has a whole series of books out called Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists.  Our local library carries many of them.  He mixes period paintings and the artist's works with hilarious cartoons.  My boys love them!)

Making mini volcanoes with baking soda and colored vinegar in droppers. He TOTALLY felt like a scientist.  If only he had a lab coat... 

This week's lessons learned

I learned some valuable lessons this week.

Lesson #1 - Sometimes, it only takes a few drops of food coloring and a pancake to turn the morning around.

Lesson #2 - Ivory soap really does turn into this in the microwave!
See the tutorial here.

Often, the guys cutting down and chipping up the trees outside have more to teach your boys than you do.  Don't fight it.

Mucky, messy boy fun

There are days when I wonder if I have lost my mind and this was one of them.  We have a book of Kid's Concoctions and they requested that we make what they call "Magic Muck."  I'm not sure what came over me, but I agreed.  By the time they were done, there was muck everywhere.  And, for those of you who have small boys, you know that this is, by no means, an exaggeration.  Here are the photos.

Now, really, the sweet smile on the face in that 1st picture explains exactly why I allowed them to do this.  And, really, this stuff is pretty awesome, messes aside.  It changes from a liquid to a solid and back again.  You can pick it up in your hand and squeeze it and it feels like a hard ball, but if you open your hand, it "melts" back into a liquid.  If you poke at the liquid, you can see it become hard and crumbly.  I'll admit it :  I played with it myself for a bit before tossing it.  Here is the recipe:

Add 3/4 cup cornstarch to 1/3 cup water (colored w/ a few drops of food coloring, if you'd like, but it will stain hands), but DO NOT stir.  Allow the cornstarch to sit in the water for about 2 minutes, then let the fun begin! 

Even more busy bag ideas

So, apparently we have been too busy doing to blog about it...or Christmas shop...(ahem)...

Playdough snakes into alphabet letters.

Gluing beans and pasta onto a turkey

Great $2 investment - wooden alphabet beads.  The boys made a necklace after matching the letters in their names

I would never have guessed on this one, but they loved putting on and taking off the nut on these screws so much, it occupied each of them for 30 minutes!

Our paper craft decorations

Another great buy at less than $3 - Trader Joe's Letter and Number cookies.  I had the little guys name the letter or number before they could eat each cookie and it was spelling for Julius.

The 22 days of Christmas

We made cards for 5 of our days and are going to put a pic of the boys in each one.  I just hope to get them mailed in time!

We bought a $5 gift card for a guy Jacob goes to school with that's had a tough year and took cookie balls to his coaching staff - which we LOVE!
We sent some bath salts to my nephew's teacher.  My nephew has autism and, let me tell you, special ed teachers get a bad rap.  They are, in my experience, wonderful, dedicated people who are asked to do a near impossible job - multiple children, with multiple disabilities, on multiple levels of functioning - absolutely tiring!

We made chocolate mustache pops and peppermint bark to one of our favorite families in the world.
We gave a bottle of wine to one of our deacons and his wife - amazing people!
Today, we are going to make some truffles for tomorrow's gift and hand out candy canes to random shoppers.