Dollar Ben Bargains - Building Blocks

Our Experience: 

I feel that all the best crafts and activities for toddlers come from the dollar section. After all the rip, break and lose soo much. Today we are busting out the dollar building blocks. 

We have not ourselves invested in Legos as of yet simply because the cost a pretty penny and my toddlers would lose them. We love the idea of Legos so when I spotted these at the bottom of a Target dollar section I had to have them.

The kids are definitely enjoying these blocks. I say money well spent.

Always take time to scan the dollar section anytime you're there you never know what neat things you'll come across.

Colored Rice Sensory Activity

You Need:

WE used this paint (Walmart)

• Rice (white rice will show the color better)
• paint
• Ziploc bag
• water (just a little to thin paint)
• Baking sheet
• A large Tupperware (or something similar)  
• Cups
• little toys (we used cars)

Directions:

1. Put rice in to Ziploc bag.
2. Add add. Just a squirt. you can add more if you want a darker color.
3. Add a little water, just a little you don't want to make it too water just thin it enough to coat all the rice.
4. Zip and shake and knead the bag until rice is fully coated. This is where you can decide if you want to add more paint or not.
5. Pour rice on to a baking sheet and let dry.
6. Once dry pour in to a lager Tupperware or something similar. We used the cover from a sheet birthday cake.
7. Add toys and cups and have fun.

This is brown minute rice.

This is white rice.

Our Experience:

It was supposed to be glow rice but it didn't glow very well. It might have glowed better if i added more paint but i wanted to save some paint for other projects. I added too much water in the first bag of white rice i made and i had to soak it out with a paper towel, so be careful with that part. Besides that Haven had a blast with it. He buried his cars, poured rice in and out of different containers, he added googly eyes and raced his cars in it. Nearing the end of the play session he thought he wanted  to out his feet inside it to see what it felt like. He liked the feeling and decided it would be a good idea to just sit in it. Made me wish i had a bigger container and more rice. Definitely going to that one days sounds fun. I saved the rice and put it up for another day because this activity was a success.

Homemade Playdough

You'll need:

• 1 cup water
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 Tbsp cream of tarter
• food coloring
• 1 cup flour 
• saucepan

Directions:

1. add: water, oil, cream of tartar & food coloring in saucepan. Heat until warm.
2. remove from heat, then add flour.
3. knead dough until smooth. 
4. *Optional: we kneaded in a little glitter after the dough was formed, just because.

Storage:

Store dough in a air tight container or Ziploc freezer bag. The cream of tartar makes the dough last six months or longer so don't leave it out.

Bingo Marker Art Activity

Super fun, super easy.  All you need are bingo markers and paper. I bought our bingo markers at the Dollar Tree, so that makes this activity super cheap also. Bonus.

We let free and got pretty in to our art making session and pretty messy. I'm a spotted multicolored Mama right now. We where doting pretty hard to make a splatting effect and we achieved that effect on paper as well as all over ourselves . So I'd say wear old clothes and do this activity out doors.

I think this activity is a keeper as long as you have some clean up time available, which is the case with most crafty activities, so no big deal.

Homemade paint for the titty bittys

This is our experience with this recipe for homemade paint.

Like it states in the blog name I'm pretty graceless. I threw this together with  Eriksen crying and Haven going crazy behind me. It came out a bit clumpy but it still worked for its purpose. I got the recipe from  http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/

You need :

5 cups cold water
2 cups flour
1\4 cup salt
food color

instructions:

1. put water and flour in sauce pan, heat low (I think this is were I might have messed up) sir until smooth.
2. stir in salt.
3 Let Cool
4. Pour  some in separate cups and add color
5. have fun.
It makes a lot there is so much more left in the pot.