Ball Art. The idea is to dip a ball in 
paint and then roll it around on a paper inside a pan. We used a ping pong ball and a golf ball; the golf ball definitely works better. Looks pretty cool, huh? We used blue paint since blue’s a “B” word.Notice that I still have my jammies on. Mommy thought it might get messy, and sure enough, I decided to make ball art on the floor! This photo is just the start of the mess; Mommy had to put the camera away before it got blue, too! And here’s a photo of me getting clean in the bath afterwards!
Bunnies. Daddy brought home real bunnies – Ginger and Pepper! This REALLY works for me! I follow them around and offer them cabbage and water wherever they go. The jury’s still out on whether this works for Mommy, since she has to clean their cage. I’ve offered to help (i.e. had a fit when Mommy wouldn’t let me in the cage), but to no avail. We’ll get pictures up when Daddy gets the camera back to us.
Baking. We made pizza – I got to oil the pans, spread the flour, pat the dough, spread the sauce, and sample all the ingredients. Another day we made biscuits – the rolled kind instead of the drop kind Mommy usually makes. I spread flour and helped roll and cut them. We put veggie sausages in some and sprinkled the others with cinnamon sugar. This works great – as long as Mommy doesn’t mind the extra time and cleanup involved!
Bubbles. Mommy made bubbles (¼ c dish soap, ½ c water, 1 Tbs sugar) and blew them for me. I tried blowing, but it is REALLY hard. Once I get this figured out, we’ll make bubble splatter art.
Balloons. I painted with tempera paint on a big balloon while Mommy held it for me. That was fun!
Then we tried this glue/yarn/balloon thing Mommy has seen on a bunch of blogs, where you wrap the balloon with gluey yarn, wait for the glue to harden, and then pop the balloon. But when the only small balloon she could find was a water balloon, we knew the idea was doomed. But we had fun anyway, and just used glitter glue instead of trying to get a wonderful stiff effect. Here is the yarn after most of the water leaked out of the balloon.
Baby Powder. I sprinkled a black baby bottle shape with baby powder and then covered it with contact paper. I had lots of fun sprinkling powder EVERYWHERE! But the powder killed the stickiness of the contact paper (of course, silly Mommy!), so Mommy just used glue around the edges.
Butterfly. I painted a half sheet with some tempera paint that Mommy had strategically dripped on the paper. Then she folded it the other way to get the Rorschach effect. She was amazed at how realistic it turned out, but then, I am a pro!
Boat. I used tempera paint on a boat Mommy had folded. I had a hard time with the 3D thing, though. I couldn’t figure out how to hold it while I painted. So Mommy says next time she’ll let me paint the paper before she folds the boat.
Stickers. Mommy gave me stickers of “B” things to put on a piece of paper. She was amazed that I put them on the paper instead of in my mouth! Nicely spaced and everything. Well, I put one foam butterfly in my mouth, but that was all.
Binoculars. Mommy used double-sided tape and two toilet paper rolls to make binoculars. I had fun looking through them! But then she had me work on them with oil pastels (she won’t do that again for a while – I wanted to eat them) and then paint, and I had a hard time with the 3D thing again.
Beehive. When I saw this empty Gatorade container, I immediately wanted to paint it! So we made a beehive by painting it yellow, and then put glue on it. I held the yarn while Mommy turned the hive around.
Bee. And then Mommy had this bright idea to make a bee from an egg carton piece and wrap yarn around it for stripes. I did the painting, but it really looks more like a bat, don’t you think? But “bat” is a “B” word, too. Pretty sad all around.
Box. I fell in love with this little box, so Mommy let me paint inside it. Then she wrapped it with this cool wrapping paper she found, with lots of “B” words like bear, balloon, butterfly, and book.
Coloring. Mommy noticed that while I may not be coloring in the lines, I was deliberately coloring the object on the paper whenever she gave me coloring papers. Here are some examples of a backpack and a bear. Pretty cool, huh?We're already at work on the “C”s, so check in again next week! And as always, Mommy is looking for more ideas, so bring them on!
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**I know I should be giving people credit for most of these ideas, but I've picked them up all over the place so can't remember or figure out who. So if you feel you deserve the credit, let me know and I'll give it to you. Some key sites I've used:
www.everythingpreschool.com
www.softschools.com
www.first-school.ws
The Artful Parent blog
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