Project 52:27 • Touchy Feely
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Oklahoma summers are no joke. With the heat index in the 100s nearly every day, we've seriously cut back on our outside time. And Beau is an outdoors-lovin' boy with lots of extra energy.
So what's a mom to do?! Get creative, that's what! One of my dearest mentor friends is an incredible homeschool mom of four and she sent me an excellent list of ideas for explorative play that Beau and I could do indoors.
I'd always wanted to try out the Neon food coloring I'd seen at the grocery store, so the first project on our "to try" list was Rainbow Rice.
I got a 10 pound bag of plain white rice from the store and put about 2 cups in an empty jar along with a few drops of food coloring and 2 TB of rubbing alcohol. The lid went on the jar, and I got to shakin'! Once the rice was all colored, I spread it out on a foil-lined cookie sheet to dry. I ddin't want to run the oven, so I just put it out on the porch. (I did this after Beau went to bed, so the sun wasn't even shining and it still dried within 30-45 minutes.) I repeated this process with several colors.
The next morning, we dumped all the colored rice into a bin and put the bin on a big towel in the living room (easier cleanup!) The first thing Beau did was grab his tractors and diggers! Since then we've had hours of fun playing with the rice and he will even ask for it when we talk about what we are going to do for the day.
For as easy as this was to put together, it's sure holding his attention! And once the thrill wears off, we've got a long list of other things to try! Hopefully that will tide us over til Autumn!
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Check out some other folks doing Project 52: Lucas & Mahina; Shawna at StyleBerry; Wicked Kate; WokAbout
If you are participating in this year's Project 52, leave me a comment and let me know...I'd love to link up with you!
