Minifigure Sticker Finger Friends

Before we watched The Lego Movie I set the younger children up with finger-sized minifigure stickers (just pictures of The Lego Movie minifigures I pulled off of Amazon, copied to a single page in Paint, printed onto sticker paper as a 5''x7'' picture - so they'd be small, and cut out)...

...so they could pick five each...

...to stick to their fingers...

...as sort of finger puppets.

During the movie, when any of their characters appeared on screen, they could act along - or just cheer, with their little finger friends.  And, after the movie, when they got tired of finger puppets, they could stick them down onto sheets of blank paper and draw their own story around them.

Note: This sort of activity is not suitable for toddlers or babies.  Printable stickers come off easily and might be swallowed by young children sucking on their fingers.

Summer Fun 2014 - Roasting Marshmallows With a Magnifying Glass

Technically, it's more burning, than roasting...

...but it smells fantastic, is a ton of fun...

...and just generally a great way to spend a (properly parentally supervised) summer afternoon.

Lego Movie Surprise, Corn Starch Oobleck Lego Dig

My youngest three (ages 7-11), who didn't get to see The Lego Movie while it was in theaters, have been counting down the days until it's released to DVD. I saw that it was going to release early on Amazon Instant View, and decided to pre-order it without telling them.  Instead, I put together a few Lego themed crafts, and snacks to subtly hint at the coming surprise.

The movie came out yesterday, so in the morning I had special dino-digs ready for them.  I mixed up cornstarch and water Oobleck, like I have in the past for fossil finds, but placed Lego minifigures into the goo, instead of dinosaur bones.

I didn't have time to spend trying to work the Lego pieces (which float) down into the goo as it hardened, so instead I filled the small cups I was using as molds, just over halfway with the liquidy mixture, plopped the Lego pieces in - one minifigure's worth per cup, and covered them up with dry cornstarch...

...smoothing it down with a spoon, so it would mix enough with the liquid to become part of it, while still staying solid enough to keep the Lego pieces from floating back to the top.

 

 As usual, I let the oobleck dry overnight, before popping the digs out of the cups, to present to the children with knitting needle "digging tools" and small paint brushes.

I didn't add any sand to the cornstarch this time.  Sometimes I not only add sand but also corn syrup, baking soda and vinegar, using a recipe for homemade watercolor paint minus the coloring. I didn't want to risk adding anything this time that might remove paint from the Lego men.  Just cornstarch and water alone worked fine, but it did make for a crumblier (much easier) dig.

For a couple of our digs, I let the children use a water filled squirt bottle to free the Lego pieces...

...by turning the solid cornstarch partway back into oobleck.

That was so much fun, that it wasn't long before...

...all the newly freed minifigures were back in the goo...

 ...and once again...

...in need of rescue.

Shadow Wall in a Picture Frame

Before I put away the glow-in-the-dark paint we used for our Lego man-sized shadow room, I slapped a few coats onto a piece of cardboard cut from the back of a cereal box...

...just the right size to slip into an 8''x11'' frame - the kind with a stand up tab in the back...

 ...so the children could have some fun...

...leaving shadows of their own.

It might not be as dazzling as the shadow room at the children's museum, but it's still a lot of fun - fun that can be easily stored away for another day, once they are done.

Again, we used an ultraviolet flashlight (being careful to close our eyes for the "flash")  in a very dark room to create our shadows.  We tried it with a camera flash too, but that just didn't work as well as the ultraviolet light.

The Children's Museum At Home - Making A Mini (Lego Man Sized) Shadow Room

In honor of one of our favorite children's museum features, and an old, but still awesome post by Filth Wizardry, we decided to kick off the summer fun this year, by building our very own shadow room - scaled down just a bit.

We cut one side off of a Pop-Tart box (yes Mom, I'm still feeding the children a steady diet of sugar and food coloring), and painted the back "wall" with a few coats of glow-in-the-dark paint.

After a quick test run in a dark room with a ultraviolet flashlight...

...to make sure it worked (the idea with a shadow room is to strike a pose in front of  a special wall, waiting for the flash of light, set on a timer, before stepping away to see your shadow left behind)...

...we covered the rest of the interior walls, and the outside of the box with black construction paper, and a few silver stars - to make it snazzy.

And just like that the costumers were lining up.

Tips for use of your own mini-shadow room:

We used a Streamlight TwinTask 3C flashlight, "borrowed" from the Man of the House, for our shadow room, but there are a number of less expensive ultraviolet flashlights out there, that I can only assume would work just as well.

If you want a nice dark, and semi-long lasting shadow, you need to place your shadow box in a very dark room.  We have a Harry Potterish play area under our stairs that worked well for us, but any windowless room with the lights off will do.

Once all the tiny toys in the house have had a go at leaving shadows on the wall, your children will ask for full-size version.  Before you give into the excitement of the moment, and paint an entire wall of your house, come back tomorrow for a kid-sized, but still-keeping-it-simple option.

Gearing Up for Summer Fun

It's been crazy busy in our house for the last few weeks.  Not too busy to have fun, just too busy to find time to share any of our goings-on.  School is winding down though, which means my experiment into part-time work outside the home (as a paraprofessional for a local private school) is winding down as well.  The children and I have already started brainstorming a list of simple, summer fun ideas to keep us active, but hopefully a little less stressed through the summer months.  We have a major move looming in the near future though, so we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, here's a quick look back at a few of our favorite fun-times from last summer.  Just click the images to open the posts, and hopefully find some inspiration for your own summer fun to come.

Cardboard Tube Playhouse

An Old Fashioned Picnic

Sugar Cookie Sudoku

Pom-Pom Creatures

Drinking Straw Voice Boxes

Brownie Bake-Off

Bubble Stations

Gummy Creations

Finger-Knit Magic Worms

Bubble Chalk

Craft Feather Quill Pens

Scented Sidewalk Chalk

Window Word Finds

Barbie Salon Science

Cornstarch Dino Digs

Chalk and Rocks

A Bubble Gum Blowing Contest

Really Big Paper Airplanes

Founding Fathers "Go Fish"

Paperclip Pals

Sight Word Sewing Cards

Gummy Belly Bear Cookies