Pink Raspberry Play-dough

I am behind on my blog posts, but am hoping to post some of the activities I’ve done over these past couple of months. During the month of February, I made raspberry play-dough for Valentines. The more obvious choice was chocolate, but I had already done that for the month of January. The raspberry smelled good and came out a pinkish reddish color.

Here is the recipe that I used.

• 2 cups flour,
• 1 cup salt,
• 2 table spoons vegetable oil,
• 2 table spoons cream of tartar,
• 1.5 cups boiling water
• A few drops of raspberry extract,
• A couple drops of red food coloring.
• A few drops glycerin.

• 1. Mix dry ingredients.
• 2. Stir in oil.
• 3. Add water and mix until lumps are gone and it comes together.
• 4. Then kneed. Add scent, food coloring and or glycerin for shininess at kneading stage.

Store in an air tight container.

Valentines Sensory Tub

Here is a Valentines sensory tub for February. I put a bunch of random things in there. Most were heart shaped, but others were flowers, pink or loosely related to Valentines Day.
There are little jewelry boxes, a cute little bag, pipe cleaner hearts, jewels, flower candles, rubber duckies with hearts on them, a flower bouncy ball, a red glass heart, a cookie cutter heart, heart shaped key chains, flower key chains and a pink cupcake. I also included some envelopes and pencils. Inside the envelopes are heart and rose stickers, small pieces of blank paper and some sticky address labels. They can pretend to write letters trace some of the hearts and flowers or just make cards with the paper and stickers. I used shiny stones as the base, but didn’t have enough of them. I figure there’s quite a bit for them to explore. They can put some of the jewels and stones in the bag or boxes, squeeze the duckies, pretend to send mail, squeeze the stress cupcake, compare and sort the different flowers, compare the textures and sizes of the objects, pretend to give Valentines etc.



I only have one picture of this tub. I was in the middle of taking pictures and carelessly and stupidly dropped the camera on my kitchen floor. Now, the lens is frozen outside of the camera and the button that you press to take the photo won’t do anything. I feel really horrible about it since it was also my boyfriend’s camera and it was the one that we found that was the easiest to use. There won’t be many pictures on the blog for a while until I can buy a new one. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the sensory tub idea. I know Valentines Day has passed, but it's still February.

Melting Hearts

What you’ll need:

Tray of ice cubes,
Bowl of colored water,
A small amount of salt,
Extra bowls for pouring and transferring,
Small spoon
And an eye dropper.

For the ice cubes, I chose heart shaped for Valentines Day and I colored the water red.
The purpose of this activity is to compare ways of trying to melt the hearts. Will the water, salt or water and salt together melt the hearts faster?
Another thing about this activity is it’s great for fine motor skills while scooping and squeezing the eye dropper.



On the top left, there are the ice cubes. Next to them is the red water. On the bottom left, there is the salt, and then the empty bowl that the salt can be transferred too and finally on the bottom right corner, there is the other empty bowl for the red water. The water is transferred with the eye dropper and the small spoon is used for the salt. The kids can take apart the ice by themselves. That is one of the things I like about silicone trays is the ice is easy to take out because it doesn’t stick.

What happens when red water is added to the hearts?


What happens when salt is added to the hearts?


Finally, what happens when you combine everything?

Valentines Match

Here's a Valentines memory game. You can cut the pictures out, put them on card stock and laminate them to make them last.

 

All images found from: Google Images.