Homemade Finger Paint and First Finger Painting Experience!

Sophie and I had our first real cooking together experience last week and we both really enjoyed it.  We decided to make fingerpaint to use in our God Made Everything color book.

I searched Pinterest for a recipe for homemade fingerpaint and found a fabulous recipe at Easie Peasie.  Fortunately I had all the ingredients in my pantry, so I gathered them up and put them all on Sophie's table.  She helped me dump all the ingredients into the pan and stir it all up.  She really loves helping and did a great job!

She also had a great time playing in cornstarch that spilled on the table in the process!

While I was heating and stirring the paint on the stove, I gave Sophie some ice cubes to stir on the ground.  I kept wondering if heating it was doing anything to the liquidy mixture...it just didn't seem to be thickening.  But maybe about 5 minutes in it started getting gelatinous and when it thickened it did it quick!  I divided it out, mixed in our colors, and let it cool.

The whole process was really easy and took maybe 15 minutes (plus cooling time).  And I love that if (...when...) she tries to put it in her mouth there are no ingredients in it that will hurt her.

Now for the really fun part!  I put her yellow sun page out along with a container of the paint and showed her how I dipped my finger in and rubbed it across my paper.  It didn't take long for her to figure out how it worked!  I was worried she wouldn't like it because she's not usually a fan of having messy hands, but she really seemed to enjoy it.

I'm glad I braved the mess to try this fun activity!  It's definitely one we'll repeat.

This post is linked up at:

Tender Moments with Toddlers and Preschoolers at The Chaos and the Clutter 

God Made Everything! Color Book

EDITED March 1, 2014:  A printable version is now available at The Activity Mom!  Be sure to check it out!

I have been brainstorming a while for some creative ideas to teach Bible truths to Sophie, even at such a young age.  I wanted to make sure that I was speaking truths about God as often as I was telling her that something was red, blue, yellow, or green.  I knew that in order for me to be consistent with it I was going to have to be intentional and have a plan.

For several weeks I've been using "God Made Everything" as a Bible theme to talk about with Sophie.  I figure this is a pretty concrete idea for her considering we see all the things that God made all around us every day!

As a way to have activities for this theme and tie it to our weekly(ish) colors, I decided we were going to make a God Made Everything color book.  For each color we explore, I'll pick something that God created to help her remember that color.  So far, we have red ladybugs, blue water, yellow sun, and green trees.   I am trying to choose things that we might encounter pretty regularly (although as we get into more challenging colors we'll have to branch out more).

The pages are simple.  I am SO not an artist.  I got my inspiration from online coloring pages (links below) and made images as simply as I could.  The words are repetitive and simple.  For example, "God made red ladybugs.  God made everything!" Then, during our day when we need a crafty distraction, Sophie will decorate the pages, either with her do-a-dot paints, crayons, or finger paint.  I laminated the pages, had Sophie help me make a cover, and tied it all together with ribbon for now.  Eventually I may spiral bind it, but we have many more colors to explore and add first!

I also made a piece for her flannel board for each of these objects.  These stay on her board all week and we talk about all the things God made.  I ask her if she can find certain items and she enjoys putting them on and off the board.

Most importantly, we talk about these things and look for them during our day.  When we go outside and see the green trees, I talk to Sophie about how God made the green trees.  We go touch leaves and tree trunks and count trees in our neighbors yard.  I try to bring everything back to the idea that God made everything.  It has been really good for me to have a focus to share with her.

Check out one way we use the book during Tot School during Orange Week.

It would be easy to do a similar book for shapes, animals, alphabet, or numbers.

Feel free to use my cover to make your own version of the book!
(After I made mine I decided vertical stripes would be cuter - so the printable has vertical stripes instead of horizontal!)

Here's a close up of the pages, flannel board pieces, and links to the coloring pages I used for inspiration and templates.

Red Ladybug

Blue Water 

(I didn't really have a pattern for this one...I just made some waves!)

Yellow Sun

Green Trees

Orange Fish (added 8/10/13)

Purple Flower (Added 8/17/13)

Rainbow (Added 9/8/13)
(PS. Drawing a rainbow is harder than it looks - don't judge!  Never claimed to be an artist! ;))

Pink Pig (Added 9/20/13)

Brown Bear (Added 10/4/13)

I'm excited to read this with Sophie as we continue to add pages!

For tons more ideas be sure to visit these sites I'm linking to this week!
Theology Thursdays at My Teacher's Name is Mama

Tot School Gathering Place at 1+1+1=1 

Tot School Tuesday at See Vanessa Craft
Tuesday Tots at Rainy Day Mum
Link and Learn at No Time for Flashcards
Show and Share Saturday Link Up at I Can Teach My Child

Titus 2sday at Time Warp Wife

Trivium Tuesday at Living and Learning at Home

Tender Moments with Toddlers and Preschoolers at The Chaos and the Clutter 
Sunday Showcase at Learn Play Imagine

Ladybug Color Sort

The past two weeks we've been focusing on the four colors Sophie has been exploring so far: red, blue, yellow, and green.  When I stumbled across an adorable ladybug color activity by way of Pinterest, I had to try it out!

A Little Bit of Quiet has a fabulous tutorial of how she made her ladybug color sort game and shares her templates as well!  Her version is absolutely adorable!  (Note: when you click the download link it will have you request permission to view the documents.  She sent me an email quickly to access the documents.  I, however, had waited until the last minute and had been planning on using this activity the next day, so I ended up making my own templates.  Hers are way cuter - just plan ahead a little better than I did and she'll save you some work!)

I decided to put mine together a bit differently, because I didn't have a button maker and my goal was for it to be a flannel board activity, so I modified things slightly.

I printed off my ladybugs on white cardstock and cut them out. Then I laminated the circles, hot glued them onto my felt, and cut around them.  It took me maybe 30 minutes to get my ladybugs all ready to go.  It would have been faster if I'd had a circle punch the right size, but I didn't.

Then I freehanded my leaf pattern (I wanted all four leaves to fit across my flannel board so I went the long skinny route) and cut them out of my flannel.  I think the stitching on the leaves of the original project was what mostly sold me on the adorableness of this activity!  I enjoyed getting to pull my sewing machine out and do some really simple freehand stitches to embellish my leaves.  I know that Sophie totally won't care, but it made me really happy.  Lol.

This was my first project for Sophie's flannel board and I have learned (at least) one thing the hard way.  The 5 mil lamination I had at the time is too heavy for the felt to hold for toddler play.  I don't know if the 3 mil would do better, but I'm hoping so.  I'll let you know the next time I try it!  So this has ended up being a floor game as opposed to a board game. Oh well.

Sophie seems to enjoy it, even though the matching is still a bit advanced for her independently.  She really likes playing with the ladybugs and we'll be able to use this to review our colors for a long time! As A Little Bit of Quiet shares as well, they would be great for counting, simple addition and subtraction, and imaginative play down the road.

I started another flannel board project this week which I will share on the blog soon!