Polishing Pennies

Polishing pennies was another perfect "P" activity for "P" week! We haven't polished pennies since O(5) was E's age (2), so it was time! O and I enjoyed looking at the pictures of her polishing the pennies before we began this activity.

First, E poured a half cup of white vinegar into a bowl. Then, she poured in 1 tablespoon of salt. She and O took turns stirring the mixture, and then they dropped in the pennies.

We made the mistake of leaving the pennies and other coins in the vinegar and salt solution for too long, and they turned green! Oops!

Mirror Polishing Work

Since O(5) LOVES the polishing works at school, I decided to set a few of them up at home for her and E(2) to do. E LOVES this work! She polished the mirror at least 15 times in a row when I first introduced the work to her!
First, spray the mirror with water.

Then, dry it with a little cloth. (we used tiny flannel wipes leftover from the girls' diaper days)

She also really loves to spray herself in the face with the water!

A Review of Icosoku Jr.

I am excited to review our first item for the Timberdoodle Blogger Review Team! I LOVE browsing the Timberdoodle catalog and website, so I'm thrilled to be a part of their review team.

Our first item that we are reviewing is the Icosoku Jr. I've been reading about the Icosoku for more than a year, but I didn't think O(5) was ready for it. So, I was very excited to see the Icosoku Jr come AND even more excited that Timberdoodle sent us one to review!

I put the Icosoku Jr. in a basket with the triangle pieces off, so that it is ready at all times :) To play the Icosoku Jr. you randomly place the number buttons on the ball, and then match the dotted tiles to the buttons. This is harder than it looks, but it's lots of fun!

O calls herself a "mathematician," so she was initially thrilled with the Icosoku. I explained what to do, but then I left her alone to finish the puzzle. She was easily frustrated with me not right there to help her. Since then we've played with the Icosoku Jr. together many, many times, and now she says she "LOVES it!"

Now that she has gained confidence in herself, she enjoys it more and plays it more independently.

This is a great travel puzzle (game, toy,...whatever you want to call it), and I'm looking forward to taking it with us on our upcoming vacation.

While E(2) is much too young to understand the number concepts on the Icosoku Jr., she really enjoys snapping the number buttons and tiles into place. I watch her VERY closely because it wouldn't surprise me if she decided to put a number button in her mouth.


This is a great fine motor excercise for both girls, and they are fine tuning their concentration skills and their ability to pay attention to details as well. O also is working on her addition and logic skills. So many things are going on when completing this puzzle... You can watch a video demonstrating the Icosoku here.

Timberdoodle sent the Icosoku Jr. to review at no cost to me. I was not paid for this review, and the opinions expressed are my own.

Exploding Bags...Maybe Not

After our fun experimenting with vinegar and baking soda, I decided to let the girls try another vinegar and baking soda experiment (also found via Pinterest at this blog).

First, the girls each put 1 tablespoon of baking soda on a small piece of paper towel and folded it up.

Then we put a half cup of white vinegar and a fourth cup of warm water in the bag (the water wasn't that warm by the time it finally made it to the bag). We sealed the bag, backed up, and waited.

The bags got really big, but they never actually popped...until E(2) stepped on them! The baking soda was old and the water wasn't very warm, which probably made the reaction less strong than it should have been. That was ok though, we still had fun!

Puffy Paint

Making puffy paint with the girls has been on my to-do list for years (probably at least 3!). I was inspired by Pinterest and "P" week to go ahead and do it!

E(2) and I made the paint one morning while O(5) was at school. We mixed together 1 cup of white flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of water. We stirred the ingredients and then divided the mixture and added paint.

After stirring the paint to mix it really well, I put it into squeeze bottles.


The girls had fun painting after O got home from school. O said she was doing an "Action Jackson" (Jackson Pollock) style painting.


Puffy painting eventually turned into finger (hand) painting!




I also learned a valuable lesson...always check the weather before leaving paintings outside on the porch to dry overnight. They got soak and several blew away :(

(I'm not linking to one particular blog, since I've seen this recipe on countless websites and blogs and in several craft books)

Science Thursday...Fun with Baking Soda and Vinegar

Both girls LOVE doing science experiments, so I'm trying to make sure we do AT LEAST one science experiment per week. We started out with something simple and FUN! (this idea came from Pinterest...surprise, surprise!)

I filled a baking pan with baking soda and gave the girls 3 glasses with colored vinegar. I also gave them a spray bottle with colored vinegar, a couple of glasses, and a couple of pippettes. Then the fun began!



They pretended to make make baking soda and vinegar milkshakes...yum!







They loved this activity so much, and they would have played with it for hours if we hadn't run out of baking soda. This is definitely one of those "why didn't I think of that???" activities (since making baking soda and vinegar volcanoes is one of our regular activities!).

Pouring Pigs

O(5) loves to help me think of activities for E(2) to do during our Alphabet weeks, and she came up with the idea for E to "pour pigs!" Great idea, big sister!


E(2) LOVES pouring the 2 tiny pigs from one glass to the other and back again and again and again...




Then she cuddles them and carries them for a while. She said she needed to put them in their pig pen :)

Reading Power Tower

My mom and I made a Reading Power Tower when we made the math one. O(5) LOVES this one, too, and she's getting lots of fun practice reading sight words!


We took turns reading all of the words to make a huge tower!


She loved knocking it down!