Floppy Rubber, or Flappy Blubber?

What IS Flubber, anyway? It's absolutely NOT edible. It's a fun, squishy, rubbery substance, and is exactly the consistency of a product called Mars Mud that we bought at a toy store last summer. It's not as messy as Playdough, but since it has Borax in it, it is not for little kiddos who might eat it. It is a very fun science "experiment" for observation purposes and high on the "gross-ometer" too. Abby, Madeline and Erik loved it.
Flubber
(I halved the recipe I had, since I only have one bottle of glue)
1 c. white glue
3/4 c. warm water
liquid water color tint (if you use food color, it will stain everything - table, hands, etc.)

1/2 Tbs. Borax (powdered laundry booster)
1/2 c. warm water

Mix the glue, water and coloring in one bowl very well, and the Borax and additional water in a seperate bowl (until all the Borax powder dissolves). Then, pour the glue mixture into the Borax mixture, and observe. Set a timer for 2 minutes and check consistency again. Then, this Mama scooped the Flubber out of the bowl with my hand kneaded it on the table, and divided it up into three for the kiddos (3, 4.5 and 6.5 years old) to enjoy! I gave them several different shapes of containers to make "cakes" in - they used crayons for candles, and Bento lunch picks too. Fun!

Dough Nuts

The kids love messing with dough — bread dough, biscuit dough, cookie dough, play dough and salt dough. This week I made three batches of play dough (red, yellow and blue) for color mixing, and a batch of salt dough so we could create some fun shapes to bake, paint and keep!

We often made salt dough ornaments at Christmas time when I was a little kid, so the smell of salt dough takes me back. The kids loved it, and we had enough to send some of each kind home with our little friend Alexandria, who came over to play today.

Playdough Recipe
(from Playtime - it's a great, soft dough and easy to make!)
1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
1 c. water
1 Tbs. oil
2 tsp. cream of tartar
food coloring (several drops per batch)

Mix and stir over medium heat. The mixture will begin to clump. When the mixture becomes a thick dough, remove from pan to cool a bit, then knead on a lightly floured surface. Store in a Ziploc bag or sealed container.

Salt Dough
3 c. flour
1 c. salt
1.5 c. water
1 Tbs. light corn syrup (I used Agave syrup though...)

Knead the dough by hand until it has an elastic consistency. Roll and cut or shape as you wish, then dry by baking at 250 degrees for more than an hour for flat shapes and longer for 3D shapes. Once they are cool, paint with acrylic paints then varnish with clear coat.

Rainbows, Hearts & Crayons...

... all-in-one! Rainbow-colored, heart-shaped crayons. Fun to make. Quick & easy. And... they clean out the crayon bucket!

Put broken, peeled, crayons into silicone mini-muffin pan (and mix up the color variations) Melt at 250-degrees F for about 10 minutes. Take out and allow to cool/harden for about 20-30 minutes. Then, pop out of their molds and amaze all the wee folk you know! Ooooh... Ahhh!!!

Thanks Jen!

Madeline's been loving the colored stringing pasta that Jen gave her last week. I let her string it on some laces that came with a set of giant lacing beads I bought for last summer (but had to put away because she wasn't quite ready for lacing yet). Now she jumped right in and can't get enough... she was even "fixing" my string for me.

Jen says you can use yarn for lacing too , with tape wrapped around the end or dip the ends in glue and dry overnight for easier lacing. Or you could use old shoe laces (or pick up some new ones at the store). Wow, you could even dye your laces while dying the pasta...

Colored Pasta (for stringing or artwork)

2 c. or 16 oz. (per color) pasta of different shapes and sizes
Food color (about 5 drops per color batch)
1/4 c. rubbing alcohol per color
Several glass bowls

Pour rubbing alcohol into each bowl. Add 5 or so drops of food coloring into each bowl, one bowl for each color. Drop the pasta into the bowl and stir gently for a few seconds. Let sit for a bit and stir again, then pour onto paper plates to dry for several hours. The colors will brighten as the pasta dries.

A Recipe for Fun...

We had 1/2 a bulk egg carton left from Christmas, so I made Madeline a sorting "game." She loves it. I hot-glued one item in each cup and put 5 or 10 of each of them in a jar for sorting. I found some fun things to use, including some of the pittance of random foreign coin we've collected over the years. Also, dried rose hips, coffee beans, hard Finnish licorice diamonds, pasta, navy beans, "teeny tiny marshmallows" (as M says), and a rainbow of buttons. M gets to eat some little marshmallows from the bag (she always wants 5 at a time), when we're done with the game. I think she likes that she gets to play with it when Erik is napping... and that he's too little to do it.