Marvelous Messy Fun that Preschoolers Love
Share fun and giggles with your children. These engaging ideas will captivate and stimulate your child’s senses and ignite your child’s thirst for learning.
- Finger Painting with a Twist. Try different finger paints besides the traditional store bought kind. For example: Chocolate pudding paint. Just buy a can of ready-made pudding from the grocery store. Or Jello finger painting: Mix together 1 package of Jello and 2 Tbsp hot water in a small bowl being careful not to overmix. Let cool 5 to 10 min. before using. Paint on tin foil for a neat effect. For some more edible food craft ideas visit create-kids-crafts.com.
- Play Dough. Play dough is fun to squish, squash and create with. No need to go out and buy some, there’s a great recipe below. Make an easy playdough rose for an idea: 1. Roll out a thin, long snake and press it flat. Loosely roll it up like a rug from one end to the other. Spread and press each layer out a bit. 2. For the leaves, flatten a piece of play dough with your hands. Cut out 2 leaf shapes with a plastic knife and press them onto the bottom of the rose. For a photo of the playdough rose and other cool playdough creations for kids (little and big), visit Discover-Preschool-Activities.com.
- Bubble Blowing without Tears. Here’s a great recipe that uses “tearless” baby shampoo that won’t sting eyes if bubbles get splattered in little eyes. 3 cups water, 1 cup baby shampoo, 1/3 cup light corn syrup. Mix all together in a large bowl.
- Oobleck. Who says small children have short attention spans? This alone fascinated my 2 yr. old at the time for 45 minutes. Recipe: 1 cup cornstarch, 1/3 cup water, 5 to 7 drops food coloring(optional). Mix water and food coloring together. Slowly add cornstarch. Do not stir. Let the mixture stand for 1 to 2 minutes. Pick a handful of the oobleck up and squeeze it until it forms a hard ball. Open your hand and the oobleck will turn from a solid back into a liquid. If it gets too dry after awhile, just add a bit more water.
Kool-Aid Playdough Recipe (Adult assistance and supervision required)
1 cup flour
½ cup salt
1 small pkg. unsweetened Kool-Aid (6 g pkg)
1 ½ Tbsp cooking oil
1 c boiling water
Mix flour, salt, oil and Kool-Aid. Add boiling water; stir and knead until cooled and smooth. Store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. This playdough will be the color and scent of the Kool-Aid you used.
Remember to supervise little kids with these ideas to ensure that with some of the ideas they don’t put things in their mouth.
Rachel Vince is a busy and happy homeschooling Mom of two young children who feels blessed at having a second chance at life, seeing through the eyes of her children. For more favorite ideas that kids will enjoy visit her web site at Discover-Preschool-Activities.com. This article may be reprinted in full so long as the resource box and the live links are included intact. Copyright – All rights reserved.