More Magic Potions

I really enjoy repeating activities that have already gotten a stamp of approval from my three year old. This magic potion activity is a twist on a previous activity that we tried with vinegar and baking soda. 

My little guy has been feeling under the weather, but this week the weather has been unseasonably gorgeous for March in New England. So I decided to set this up on our new deck and brought him out to enjoy some of the sunshine. I spread baking soda along the bottom of the pan and he was able to pick from four different colors of vinegar. He started out with a tiny medicine dropper. 

It was love at first sight for him. He played with the little dropper for quite a while, layering colors on top of each other. 

But soon, he requested the turkey baster we had recently purchased for activities like this. He spent quite a while squirting vinegar into the baking soda tray.....

and the other part of the time mixing the colors to see what he could create. 

Once he had poured all of the bowls of vinegar into the baking soda, he spent a great deal of time running his hands through the mixture and letting the baking soda drip from his hands. 

Logan took this activity in a whole new direction, and I love how inexpensive and easy it was to pull this activity together!

Rainbow Stew

To help celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, my little leprechaun and I whipped up some rainbow stew. I had never made it before, but it required stuff I already had on hand. 

Here's what you need:

• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of corn starch
• 4 cups of water

Pour all the ingredients into a pot and heat until it thickens. Our "stew" was very hot so I had to let it cool for a while before proceeding to the next step. 

Once it was cooled, I filled as many Ziploc bags as I could. I let my little guy squish it and explore it without any added color. Next I added some food coloring to various areas of the bags and sealed them shut. I do recommend squeezing as much air out of the bag before sealing and then taping shut. 

We created three different bags. The blurriness in this picture is not your eyes playing tricks on you, but I had to include it because Logan's wrist still looks like a baby's in this picture, if I squint hard enough.  

We made one bag orange and the other green. Logan had the best time squishing the bags and watching the colors magically appear. I must admit, I too thought it was quite fun! 

The last bag Logan suggested we add all the colors. It looked just like rainbow stew! 

This experience is great if you want to give your kids a sensory experience, but aren't too fond of messiness. We love the mess here, but we did this activity close to bedtime (hence the Scooby Doo pjs), and I didn't feel like busting out the vacuum for the 5,000 time that day!  

Rainbow Craft

Occasionally the kiddo will see me scouring the Internet for ideas. The other day I was looking at La-La's Home Daycare rainbow craft, and he became extremely excited and requested that we make our own version. I simply cut out a cloud shape and rainbow colored construction paper. Logan glued the strips of paper down in order and then he ripped up a couple of cotton balls to make the clouds. Once it was dry, I punched a hole in the top and hung it from a hook in the ceiling. And voila! A super simple, cheery rainbow craft!

Wordless Wednesday- A Boy and his Dog

Pin It Tuesday- Saint Patrick's Day

Happy Pin It Tuesday! Mommy Head Adventures, Crazy about my Baybah, and Crazy Cool with a Side of Crafty host a link up party for things that you have seen on Pinterest and are loving! This week I am focusing on all things lucky, green, and/or Saint Patrick's Day related for the little ones!

The first thing I pinned is Alphamom's shamrock hat! I need to be honest, I love anything that resembles a hat that I can stick on my kiddo's head and commemorate by taking a picture. The fact that this is created out of a paper plate makes it even more fun! Click on the link to get even more ideas for other holiday hats! I think I'll be making them all!

Source: AlphaMom

I may have mentioned a time or two that I adore hand print art. Logan is growing so quickly that I like to remember what his hands look like at any given point of time. This little leprechaun from Meet the Dubiens is completely adorable!

Source: Meet the Dubiens

Another leprechaun activity is is one from Crayola. I can already imagine my peanut drawing the face on him! I'm sure it would be a frowning face, since he just learned that he can draw them and insists on drawing them on everyone! 

Source: Crayola

Finally, these rainbow car painting are so much fun! I love that this activity is great for a variety of ages and the results will be different but beautiful for each individual! 

Source: Coffee Cups and Crayons

Want to see what else I am pinning? You can follow me here!

Color Mixing with Pudding

We are continuing our color review and talking about rainbows this upcoming week! One tasty way that we practiced mixing colors is by using pudding. I purchased a  box of pudding and separated a couple of scoopfuls into three bowls. 

I added food coloring to make the primary colors for our experiment.* 

The kiddo was super excited and hungry for his snack that day, of course! I had Logan take a scoopful of two colors and plop them onto his plate. Next he got to swirl his spoon around to see what color magically appeared! My cat, Smudge, seemed impressed by the activity too!

Of course, sampling was necessary. (Please ignore the painter's tape, we just installed a new dining room window)! 

I then washed the remainder of the pudding off the plate, so we could start again. 

This activity was so much fun! We created all the secondary colors, and at the end we took all our left over pudding and mixed it together to see what color developed. Since Logan only had about three spoonfuls of pudding total, I was able to give him some yummy uncolored, left over pudding for the rest of his snack. 

*We usually do not use food coloring that often in our foods, but I allow it from time to time. I know that there are people out there who do not use it, but there are also ways to dye food naturally  if you would still like to try this activity. A simple Google search will yield lots of ideas on how to try to attempt this activity naturally!

A New Look

Welcome friends! I just gave You'll Thank Me One Day a new look. I updated the About Me and Popular Post pages! It was long overdue and I feel so excited about some new changes and fun activities that are to come! I would ADORE some feedback if there is anything that is not working or if you have some wise words of advice!

xo, Justine

Rainbow Sensory Bottles

This week the kiddo and I are talking all about rainbows and colors! One night while he was sleeping I mixed up these sensory bottles. I wanted all the colors of the rainbow, but I ran out of bottles so I left out indigo. I sealed the bottles and taped them, but if you are working with younger or a large group of kids, I would definitely hot glue the caps.

I wanted to make a couple of different kinds of bottles, so I used oil and water, pieces of foam, water beads, and glitter in the various bottles. When Logan woke up in the morning, he made a beeline for the bottles. 

He immediately investigated each one. His favorites were the oil and water and the ones containing glitter. 

He visits them throughout the day and seems to really enjoy taking a quiet moment to observe the contents of the bottle. He has also incorporated them into his imaginative play. He pretends that they are magic potions. Have you ever made sensory bottles? What do you put in your bottles? 

Stuff my kid says #19

The other day it was just Logan and me at dinner time. I didn't feel like cooking, so I asked him, "Logan, what would you like for dinner?"

He turned to me and responded, "I think I'll just have acorns. I'm a chipmunk."

Sticky Wall

One afternoon, after playing with Daddy in the basement, Logan came upstairs to find this invitation waiting for him. We had lots of left over Valentine's Day hearts in our craft supplies, so I decided to use them up, but this activity can clearly be adapted to practice any shape. I simply hung up some clear contact paper with the sticky side facing outwards. I secured it to the wall using painter's tape (from the dollar store). I learned the hard way not to use regular masking tape on the walls! 

The kiddo got right down to inspecting the supplies. There were lots of different kinds of heart shapes, pom poms, cut pipe cleaners, and tissue paper. He started this activity right away. His favorite thing to do was to re-position the pipe cleaners and pom poms. 

I left this out for the whole day and he revisited throughout the day. I did have to end up taping the pipe cleaners down because they kept falling off, and "messing up" his line. 



Logan actually really enjoyed this activity and it was interesting to see how each time he visited it, that he focused on something different. This activity could also be easily adapted to fit any holiday, color, or shape theme!