Rainbow Water Xylophone

E(2) and I had a great time making a rainbow water xylophone last weekend!  (since we hadn't done this activity in more than a year, I decided it was time...we repeat a lot of our activities around here...if it's fun, repeat!)


First, E poured water into 7 glass baby bottles (leftover from my breastmilk storage days).


She added food coloring to each bottle of water.


Then she made music!  She quickly handed the mallet to me and said "Play the music, mama, so I can dance!"




Here's a quick video of E having fun with her rainbow water xylophone!


She discovered that she can make music on the porch railing, too!


We decided to leave the rainbow water xylophone on our outdoor table as a fun centerpiece, and they girls have had fun playing with it every day at mealtimes!

Pumpkin Pie Playdough

Making pumpkin pie playdough is one of our Halloween traditions. (see here and here for the recipe) We were excited to include E when we made it this year. 

O loved mixing the ingredients together with her hands.



It was especially fun to mix in the colors (a fun lesson on mixing red and yellow to make orange) and pumpkin pie spice. 



E stood nearby in the Kitchen Helper.  She loves to be in the Kitchen Helper when we are in the kitchen.  I've kept it on the lowest level since she likes to climb in and out of it by herself.  She LOVED smelling (and tasting!) the pumpkin pie spice container while we were making the playdough.



While I was stirring the playdough on the stove, O mixed the colors from our water xylophone.  This was another fun lesson on mixing primary colors to form secondary colors. 



It's so much fun to knead the warm dough.



Then the playdough cookie making began!

Water Xylophone

O, E, and I made a water xylophone this afternoon. O poured water into the glass baby bottles in progressive amounts. After the bottles were filled with water, we added food coloring to make them beautiful :) The girls had fun making music, and O did hand over hand to show E how to play the xylophone.


After we finished making music, we poured a little water from each bottle into mugs. We folded paper towels and dipped them into the colored water to make art. O enjoyed this part of the activity more than the making and playing of the xylophone.



Our colors were not very vibrant since we only used a few drops of food coloring in each bottle, but O was still very pleased with her paper towel art!