Free Fun Friday: Pumpkin Pie Playdough

I used to enjoy making pumpkin pie playdough with my kindergartners...and I'm thrilled that Hannah is old enough to enjoy things like playing with playdough now. We had fun making pumpkin pie playdough last week when Lilah was here to play. It smells yummy, if baby eats it (which Hannah is pretty good about not doing) it's okay, and it is so much fun to play with, esp. with fall cookie cutters. Here's the recipe (of course if your kids are older, they will love helping your measure and dump the ingredients!):

Playdough

1 c. flour

1/2 c. salt

1 c. water

1 T cream of tartar

1 T oil

food coloring

Cook above ingredients over medium heat until mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan & becomes playdough consistency. Knead until cool. Keep 3 months unrefrigerated.

The above makes "regular" playdough. To make it pumpkin pie playdough add a little bit of pumpkin pie seasoning and orange food coloring.

For more free fun ideas head over to Run the Earth, Watch the Sky

Free Fun Friday: Discovery Bottles

Over the past few weeks Hannah and I have been making fun discovery bottles. I save a variety of different sized clear plastic bottles...knowing that we might be able to use them for something. My favorites are water bottles & spice bottles. Here are some ideas for making 4 different discovery bottles with your little one:

• Fill a bottle with equal amounts of water and oil, then add food coloring. Mix it up them watch it separate. (Did I mention to glue that top on?! or at least tape it up good with some packing tape)
• Add dish soap and food coloring to a bottle filled with water (see picture below)
• Add glitter and food coloring to another bottle filled with water
• Add food coloring with some small plastic animals that float and sink to a bottle filled with water.

(I let Hannah choose the color...but it looks too much like a sample...the next day I added a little bit of red food coloring, now the bubble bottle is orange :))

For more free & fun ideas head over to Run the Earth, Watch the Sky

Free Fun Friday-Concert in the Park

Every Tuesday at Capitol Park there is a free concert! We took in our first one of the summer this week...and had a nice time together just relaxing as a family. Amazingly, Hannah sat on the blanket the WHOLE time...she really loves music! We enjoyed some Irish music and Hannah loved to clap her hands.

There are so many FREE FUN activities going on all around us (esp. in the summer)...we just have to find them. If you don't live in Redford...I'm sure that your city has free fun activities too. Just log onto your cities website (and the others around you: there are tons of great things to do all around metro Detroit) and see if you can find some free fun. What kinds of free & fun things have you been doing this summer?! For more ideas for local fun head over to Run the Earth, Watch the Sky and share your free idea too!

A self portrait of our family. There was a man from Redford there taking pictures for our yearly calendar and he took a shot of our family too...who knows..maybe you'll see us on this years calendar :)

Seth has been picking up the camera more these days, and I'm glad he has...I just love this shot he got of Hannah!

Free Fun Friday-Playdough

I love making homemade play dough. It's great because it's soft, it's okay if the kids happen to eat a little bit, it's fun to make with your kids, and it's almost free!

So here's the recipe:

1 c. flour

1/2 cup salt

1 c. water

1 T cream of tartar

1 T oil

Food Coloring

Cook over medium heat until mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan & becomes play dough consistency. Knead until cool. Keep 3 months in a Ziploc or sealed container (unrefrigerated).

measuring...

playing with play dough for the first time, and yes...she did try to eat it.

For more free fun for your Friday head over to Run the Earth, Watch the Sky

Free Fun with yogurt stackers

Hannah loves playing with these yogurt cups that we have transformed into stackers. We build with them and she knocks them down. She also has fun using them as nesting cups and stacking them inside of each other. She takes one and a time and moves it to the next stack. Yeah for a FREE toy! For more free fun head over to Run the Earth Watch the Sky.

Free Fun Friday

As I've mentioned before...I love reading Kristi's blog. Every Friday she does Free Fun Fridays on her blog. We are going to participate for the first time. :) To see more free and fun activities for your friday check out http://runwatchplaywait.blogspot.com/.

Today I'll share 2 ideas...one activity and one craft...both can be done with materials you have around the house!

Fun with a paper towel roll!
Hannah loves to play a game with a scarf and paper towel roll. I stuff the scarf inside and then she has fun pulling it through. This game is great for babies 6-12 months. It's good for hand-eye coordination, fine motor development, and the babies love to see something appear and disappear!

For more fun with a paper towel...use it like a horn or a megaphone. March around the house or just dance making music!

I can't resist sharing a free craft idea as well. One of the many favorite activities when I taught kindergarten was making fabric collages. We did a whole unit for science on fabric. We learned about the different kinds of fabric. We made feely boxes. The kids had to put thier hands in the box and without looking pick out two matching fabrics. They loved exploring the different textures and feels and learning about all the different kinds of fabric. To help them learn more about the texture and feel of fabric we made fabric collages. I just had tons of different scraps of fabric and let them go to town cutting and pasting them. Some made abstract collages while others created pictures with different shapes that they cut out. It was neat to see how creative they would get!

Clearly some put more time and effort in than others...but all had fun!