Straws & Box Lid Marble Maze

My niece(7), O(5), E(1), and I made marble mazes using straws, box lids, and glue. This idea came from Family Fun Magazine (I LOVE that magazine!).

The girls cut the straws and glued them into the box lids to make the mazes. Super simple and fun (for some!).

My niece really enjoyed this activity, but O was not that interested. E(1), however, was VERY interested. She insisted that she make a "bahbble maze,too!," so she and I worked together to make one for her.

Here is my niece's maze.

O decided to take the easy way out and make a non-maze.


Here's the maze I made with E. I put down the glue, and she put the straws on the glue.

Ocean Playdough

We are vacationing at the beach this week, so the girls and I made ocean playdough to have during our week at the ocean!

We used the basic homemade playdough recipe and added in blue food coloring, clear glitter, and vanilla extract. It's SO much fun (and it's SO easy) to make homemade playdough that I don't know why we don't make it more often. I think it should be at least an every other month activity!

Here is the recipe and instructions for the playdough...

1 c. flour

1/2 cup salt

1 T. cooking oil

1 T. cream of tartar

1 c. water

Food coloring of your choice

Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)

Stir ingredients together well. Just measure them into the saucepan you will be using to cook the dough, but mix them well before heating up the pan. Over medium heat cook the dough, stirring constantly until it forms a ball.
Let the playdough cool and then knead until it's smooth.


The girls loved pouring and mixing the ingredients, and then they waited patiently while I cooked the dough on the stove. O LOVES kneading the warm dough (and I do, too!).

The ocean playdough was perfect for our week at the beach since we've had some very rainy days. I brought some ocean animal cookie cutters, ocean stamps, and small ocean animals to go with the playdough (as well as a few traditional playdough tools...rolling pin, spaghetti maker, etc.).

O(5) LOVED making blue mermaid hair.


E(1) loved creating underwater scenes.




Playing with the playdough was a screened porch activity only since it makes such a mess. That suited the girls and me just fine because why would we want to be inside the house when we have a beautiful view outside!

Drawing a Rainbow

O(5) had fun taping her markers together and drawing with them! This is an Art Jar activity, and she was so excited when she drew this one out of the jar! However, the most fun part was taping the markers together. For some reason, she lost her enthusiasm when she started drawing.

After she drew with the washable markers, she "painted" over her drawing with water.

Spin Art

The girls and I have had lots of fun making spin art over the last couple of weeks using a set that my sister gave O(5) for Christmas (she found it super cheap at World Market on Black Friday).

This is a very simple art kit. It comes with a spinning top and papers to put on the top. You spin the top and squeeze the paint on as it spins. Lots of messy fun! If you sqeeze too hard, the paint goes everywhere, and it does NOT come off of skin easily and probably won't come out of clothes at all.




We made art until we ran out of paint. I think I'll be able to easily refill the bottles with liquid watercolor, which should (hopefully) wash off a little easier. The girls were very proud of their artwork, and O plans to send a spin art painting with each cultural exchange package.


Next, we need to try salad spinner painting again. We haven't done this since we made our Rachael Ray video, which means sweet E(1) has never made salad spinner art...well, we can't have that, can we? :)

I didn't include a link to Amazon with this product since it is terribly overpriced. It also got some bad reviews. I would have given it a bad review if I'd paid 10 dollars for it, since it's basically a cheap plastic spinner, paper, and paint. We've had LOTS of fun with it, and it would be fairly easy to make your own.

Blow Gun Game

My mom (aka Guhguh) and O(5) share a birthday, so we always spend the day with my mom on their birthday. This year O went into the playroom (at my mom's house) with the intention of drawing a picture for my mom for her birthday, but was struck by the inspiration to make a blow gun game for her instead! (we learned about blow guns on a recent camping trip during which we toured an Indian village).

O(5) used straws and q-tips to make the game. She cut one end off of each q-tip, and cut about a quarter off of each straw. The small parts of the straws were the "blow gun holders" (to hold the q-tips when they were not in use, and the long straws were for blowing the q-tips. She told Guhguh that when she got tired of using the blow guns, she could match the straws.

Guhguh was very excited by her gift, and she and O had fun trying to blow the q-tips into a bowl. I was very impressed by O's creativity!

Loading the blow gun.


Firing away!

Our Art Museum

The girls are SO proud of the "Art Museum" that I set up with their summer art projects in our den. I labeled each painting with their names, ages, and art medium. We set this up before O(4)'s bday party, so they could share their art with their family and friends. O says she wants to keep our Art Museum up FOREVER!

Painting Canvases

As a part of "Art on the Beach" week, the girls painted canvases. E(1) painted a very abstract painting, and O(4) said she was painting a landscape. We've been reading about Monet, so she was painting a landscape like we read about. Her interpretation of what she saw was VERY different than the way I would have painted it!

They had fun, and I have 2 more masterpieces to hang on my walls!

Golf Ball/Ping Pong Ball Paintings

On our first "Art on the Beach" morning, the girls painted with golf and ping pong balls.

To do this activity, we dipped the balls in paint and then rolled them around on the paper in a large container. O(4) was not very interested in this activity (some glittery gel that was in the bag of paint caught her eye, and she only wanted to play with that), but E(1) enjoyed it.

Painting with Medicine Droppers & Liquid Watercolors

The girls really enjoyed using medicine droppers (they call them "shotmakers" since they pretend to give shots with them) and liquid watercolors. I diluted the liquid watercolor a little bit with water in an ice cube tray. I gave the girls white cardstock since the paper needed to be thick in order to not tear. They got right to work!