Marble Madness

We made our own marble runs with recycled materials (plastic cups & plates, cardboard boxes & toilet tubes), purple duct tape, and hot glue.  We used our Hungry, Hungry Hippos game marbles.  The kids had loads of fun.

Radiant Rainbows

 Gather paint color swatches from your local hardware store (these ones are from Lowe's but we've seen them at Home Depot and Walmart, too).  PS They're FREE!  Cut into pieces.  Set colors into seperate piles.  Glue each color grouping onto a strip of cardboard.

 Voila... a colorful rainbow!

PaTtErN, PaTtErN, PaTtErN

Not sure if it's just developmental or our latest obsession with Nick Jr's Team Umizoomi but we're totally into patterns.  Kelsey loves when I break into song, "It's pattern time..." and then follow through with a verbal pattern of any random object (ex: car, car, truck, car, car, truck, car, car...).  She likes to come up with her own and we give super simple ones to Sydney, whom seems to be catching on pretty quickly! (Ex: Dora, Boors, Dora, Boots, Dora...) Anyway, we used those glass decorative beads usually used in flower vases, to make some patterns of our own.  This activity lasted FOREVER!  We all took turns making and completing the patterns.  (Just a few, posted in the pic above).  Sydney had more fun counting the beads.
She can count to 13 (skipping 6), so cute to hear!

Pretty Pastels

 Sometimes these ideas are so obvious and simple we forget to include them in our art experiences! We recently purchased white and black paint; I decided to make pastel tints for the kids (just added a little white to each color).  FYI: a shade is when you add black to color.  Nothing too exciting, just a different spin on an everyday activity.

 Kelsey was set on mixing all the colors together.