Rainbow Water Beads {fun & fail}

A few days ago, my son & I made up a tray of rainbow water beads to play in. Since I only had clear water beads, we attempt to color them - which was met with some success & some failure - but lots of fun too!

First, we tried coloring the beads with Kool-Aid (see our other Kool-Aid endeavors) - the idea of scented & colored water beads was enticing, but didn't work out... We tried to soak a teaspoon of clear water beads in water with two packs of lime Kool-Aid. We ended up with just slightly hydrated, sticky little green orbs ...

They never did get any larger than this... so we threw them out. With an older child... this might have been a great intro into a fun science experiment with the water beads (i.e. what happens to the water beads when we use different liquids to hydrate?) I'm pretty curious myself... so I might just do the experiment with my 3 year old anyway...

Instead of Kool-Aid, we resorted to traditional food coloring gels, hot water and ziplock bags. We hydrated a tablespoon of beads with several cups of water & a generous addition of food coloring for several hours. Then, I rinsed the beads in a colander before pouring them into our pan for play.  Initially they looked beautiful....

And my son had a great time playing in them....

But after a day or two, the colors faded and the whole bin was a drab shade of greenish-grey...

The moral of the story is... if you want rainbow water beads, buy the rainbow water beads that are already colored...  even though our colors faded, the beads were still quite fun!

DIY Tabletop Light Box {3 Simple Steps!}

(This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.)

So I've been wanting this Table Top Light Box for ages...

Unfortunately, the price tag has been a bit prohibitive... We have a larger DIY light table made from an Underbed Storage Box that works pretty good -- we followed the general directions for the spray paint method over at Teach Preschool for the first light box... my son plays with it nearly everyday!

A few tips on making a larger version w/ spray paint:

1. The plastic primer is NOT optional - you must use it in order for the other paint to stick to the plastic.
2. Scuff & clean the surface of the plastic bin with sandpaper before priming! We learned this the hard way actually... even with the primer, we had blotches of paint flake off -- especially places where my son put heavy items or tried to sit/stand on the bin :(
3. Buy a big enough light for inside - we used a corded 18-Inch Fluorescent Light from the hardware store - it works pretty well! the smaller battery operated lights didn't seem to give off enough light for the price (+ the cost of batteries!) 

So... on to our DIY table top light box!

The other day I saw these 12"x12" plastic Scrapbook Paper Boxes at our local craft store for 40% off & I thought -- "Whoa! That would make a great mini-light box!" i.e. half the size of that tabletop box above... but for a fraction of the cost! I went ahead and purchased the plastic container and a set of White LED Lights. Since I used a 50% off coupon for the lights, the bulk of the materials for our table top light box cost less than $20!

I used a quick method for this version of a light box - also based on info over at Teach Preschool! Just 3 easy steps and your little one will be enjoying their very own light box in no time!

You need: 
A 12"x12" clear plastic Scrapbook Paper Box
A string of 50-100 White LED Lights
Aluminum foil
Wax paper or Parchment paper
Clear tape

1. Cut a piece of wax paper or parchment paper to fit inside the BOTTOM of the box. Then tape around the edges to hold it in place.

2. Cover the inside of the box (i.e. the top & sides) with aluminum foil & tape the edges to keep in place - make sure the shiny side faces inside the box for the light to reflect off of!

3. Arrange the LED lights on the LID of the box in a 'coil' of sorts & tape the cord down. You can drill a hole in the box for the cord if you want.

4. Then you're ready to go!

Overall, this quick method took about 20 minutes total & the result was pretty good! While I think that I prefer the 'spray paint' method mentioned above, this method allows for me to use the plastic box for something else later if my son completely loses interest in the light box (which is highly unlikely!)

I'd love to hear about your own DIY light box and light table ideas... please share!

Another Rainbow Bin {Alphabet Pasta}

All of the amazing rainbow inspired crafts & sensory bin activities that are popping up over on Pinterest have really given me spring fever! Unfortunately, winter has other ideas... primarily that he's never leaving & spring will never arrive!

Yesterday, while waiting for the snow to melt on yet another snowday, I made these fun rainbow alphabets for our sensory bin.

I love using Kool-aid for dyeing things (check out this recent post for more Kool-aid fun!) It always smells so yummy and the colors always come out beautiful. I used pretty much the same recipe and process that I used for dying the beans a couple of weeks ago.

Here's what you'll need:
6 boxes of alphabet pasta (my boxes were 12 oz each)
2 packs of Kool-aid for each box of pasta you intend to dye
extra food coloring for more vivid colors
1/8 c. rubbing alcohol per box of pasta
1/8 c. of very hot water per box.
Large Zipock baggies

How to:
1. Pour hot water, alcohol, Kool-aid & extra food coloring into baggie. Seal & shake until Kool-aid is dissolved.
2. Add pasta to colored liquid, seal & shake until coated. Only leave the pasta sit in the liquid for a short time -- less than 5 minutes preferrably as the tiny pasta begins to soften quickly & will start to stick together easily.
3. Pour pasta out on cookie sheet to dry. Allow to air dry for several hours stirring frequently to prevent pasta from sticking together.

We put ours in the oven to dry the rest of the way over night - CAUTION: Do not put pasta directly into oven, as the rubbing alcohol is very flammable!

It didn't seem to take very long to dry, but we did get some pasta clumps because I didn't stir frequently enough during the drying. I imagine if I did less pasta at a time, this clumping problem wouldn't have been as bad. When making sensory bin materials, I'm always making large quantities so that I can take them to school for my students when my son is finished exploring them... so a cup of each color just won't cut it around here! 

Here's the lovely alphabet bin that I made with the finished pasta. It reminds me of fruity pebbles in both look & smell.

I think that we'll pair this bin with Dr. Seuss's ABC book or Chicka Chicka Boom Boom sometime in the coming weeks!

A Peek at our Week...

We've been working on an All About Me/Feelings sort of theme. The kids have really been in to books lately, so we've been taking advantage of their attention for books and have been experimenting with some fun and wacky stories that I haven't ever used for this unit. I've been focusing on feelings pretty hard, because I have several students who really need to learn how to express their feelings through more words rather than through behaviors - usually challenging behaviors.

"I Aint Gonna Paint No More" By Karen Beaumont has been a real hit! The kids love the illustrations the rhyming sing-song story. I love seeing their faces when we get to the last part... "I'm such a nut, gonna paint my....." Only a few of the kids really get the rhyming aspect of the story and fill in the appropriate word -- BUTT!

 While we read, I usually give the kids dry paint brushes and have them pretend to paint their body parts while we read. This year, we followed up with making body tracings and coloring them in with crayons - our paper wasn't thick enough to withstand prek painting while taped on the wall; I'm sure the administration would have killed me if I let them paint their body pictures while taped up on the freshly repainted wall!

 I love the kid's rendition of their eyes, nose, mouth and ears!

We've also been reading the heck out of our "Pete the Cat" books lately! I took a chance and ordered the Pete the Cat paperback and audio CD bundle.

I've been working or setting up a listening center for my students, but audiobooks can be very tough for kids with hearing loss to listen to - often there's just too much background noise and/or sound effects for the kids to hear the reading over. These CDs are pretty good, with a nice reading pace, good use of music and sound effects for the most part and the kids have really enjoyed listening to them! They especially love that Pete sings fun jazzy songs!

Turns out that you can download the mp3 tracks right from Harper Collins' Pete the Cat page! They seem to be identical to the CD's that I got with my books from Scholastic.

This is really a great book to talk about feelings with - Pete doesn't get mad, or worried, he just keeps on walking and singing - because it's all good!! Fun lesson for the kids. We've talked about how Pete the Cat would deal with friends taking toys, pushing, yelling etc.

I also introduced a new sensory bin for the next couple of weeks. I have several kids who get occupational therapy this year and need to work on a wide range of fine motor skills. I've been wanting to make kool-aid colored noodles for a while, so I had a perfect opportunity as I couldn't come up with a great "all about me" or "feelings" themed sensory bin. I thought about doing a photo tutorial of how to dye the noodles, but my kitchen was a disaster and I just couldn't bring my self to clean it up or show it off. So check out the great photo tutorial over at MamaMiss if you want to know how to do it!  Here's our colored noodle bin:

Here are the kids going to town - they played for a good 30 minutes and I think that they might have stayed another 30 if I would have let them. There were tons of opportunities for fine motor practice including stringing noodles & buttons on pipecleaners and/or string, pouring, dumping, using the tongs to move noodles, putting them in containers with different size openings, scooping and stirring with the spoon etc.

Here's last week's Shredded Paper Sensory Bin -- it was SO simple, but also entertaining! However, it was incredibly difficult to clean up off of our carpeted area!

And last, we also stickered letter M for Me!  Also a great fine motor activity. 

There's a Peek at our Week! What are you up to in your classroom this week? Please leave comments or links to your blog - I'd love to see what you're up to!

New toy!!

I've been wanting one of those digital drawing tablet & pen gadgets for a while now, but I'm one of those people who always finds a reason not to spend money on myself - my family, kids and students always come first. My husband finally convinced me to just get something for myself for once, so I did - my very own Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet! I was completely antsy the entire afternoon - like a little kid on Christmas! As soon as I got home, got my son settled and our things put away... I plugged it in. I was skeptical and had prepared myself for a steep learning curve after a warning for the sales guy... surprisingly, it's easy to use! It only took me a few minutes to get used to drawing on the tablet and seeing my lines on the screen. I'm so excited about this thing!

I've been working on my own original clipart for some of my TpT ideas and hopefully my new Bamboo tablet will help me take my ideas digital without so many steps. I was messing around with my tablet tonight and came up with this fun Rainbow Alphabet poster:

Rainbow Alphabet Poster

I've also been working on these foldable 3-D Paper Farm Animals. I'll be adding the whole set to my TpT store soon! Just in time for spring Farm Themes...

Foldable 3-D Paper Pig