Salt Drawing

Sometimes, when JS is not interested in drawing using colour pencils and papers, I would get him to draw on his magnetic board. So there was this day when I did not have any specific plan in mind but we had some spare time for a little fun. I have read about writing and drawing using salt so I thought JS might like the idea too. True enough, he loved it! 

Since we just dyed some salt a few days ago, we mixed all of them together for this activity. 

Here are some of the things he drew. 

I don't quiet get it but he kept on saying that this is a Jelly Bean. 

This is obviously an 'I'....

and this, a square, but JS says it is a house. 

I think this looks like a smily face or a smiling lion, but again, JS says it is a Jelly Bean.

And he says this is a seahorse while I really figure out what it is. Perhaps a dragon?

Playing With My Favourite Things - Eggs and Ice!

JS is an egg lover. Not that he likes to eat them but he is more into the object itself. Thus he is attracted to anything that is shaped like an egg, including toy eggs and Kinder Surprise Eggs, which is an addiction that I am finding it a challenge to make him quit! No, we do not buy it for him but he is addicted to watching the videos on YouTube. 

Due to his interest in eggs, he has been more than eager to help me crack them for cooking. He had also tried scrambling them for omelettes and whisking them for pancakes. He also loves to peel the hard boiled ones. 

So far, all the activities he did with eggs were for cooking (except for toy eggs, of course) and I thought he would definitely love the idea of making some ice pops with them, not for eating but for art. On top of that, ice is another of his favourite thing to play with. I was sure that the combination of these two items would make this activity more appealing to him, which was undoubtedly true. He actually cried when they melted. 

We started off by filling in water into some empty eggshells. He found a tiny funnel the day before and asked what it was for so I decided to let him use it in this activity. 

JS pouring water into the eggshells using the help of a funnel.

Next, he put a popsicle stick into each of the egg, popped them into the freezer and left them there for a few hours. 

After his nap, he was all ready to check out the eggs. 

He tried to peel the shell but it would not come off. We wiped the eggs with a wet towel and viola it could easily be removed! 

As he peeled the eggs, I quickly put some clay into the egg tray for him to stick the ice pops on. 

Just for some extra fun, we added more colours to the ice pops by putting on some coloured salt we made the day before. 

I said they looked like ice flowers, but JS said they were trees. Ok, so they were trees in the river... because when the ice melted the water filled up the holes in the egg tray and made it looked like a river. 

When the ice pops began to disappear... JS started to cry! "My ice pops! I want my ice pops!" he said. I had to calm him down and tell him that we would make them again. 

Salt Colouring

The first time JS used a weighing scale was about a year ago when I thought him how to make pancakes. At that time, I simply let him "play" with the tool without knowing it's main purpose which is to help us measure the correct amount of flour we needed to make the pancake. 

Two months back, I introduced to him the skill of measuring with a ruler (when we made a plate of spaghetti) and this time round, I thought he would be able to pick up the skill of measuring with a weighing scale. Since we were making coloured salt, I thought I would introduce this skill to him by getting him to measure the amount of salt to be dyed. 

JS wanted to use 4 colours so I told him to prepare 4 bags of salt, each of them weighing 100 grams. 

Next, he had to use a dropper to put some water into 4 of the holes on the palette where he would mix with the paints he has chosen earlier. 

Then he used the dropper to add the paint mixture into a bag of salt, 

fasten it with an airtight bag clip 

and mix the contents evenly. 

After his nap, we made an artwork with the coloured salt. 

I gave him a piece of A4 paper (I chose green because it seems to be the contrast of the colours he used for the salt) and a roll of double-sided tape to work with the salt. 

Pouring the excess salt back into the bag was also a new skill he picked up from the activity. 

So, this is what he did.