Sensory, non - toxic, washable mess and loads of fun!
Where: Meetup "Working mom of tots"
Open: Saturday or Sunday | Look up for the next Meetup :)
Visited : Saturday, August 11, 2018 | 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM
Bubu loved playing in the water, mixing it with a brush or the measuring spoons. Well it's a great activity though, I will try again when we grows up a lil.
Jennifer aka Jenny hosts this wonderful meetup called Working moms of tots. I have been to some of her earlier ones too. It's always a fool-proof plan - generally we meet at a park, museum, pool play area where the kids are busy in play and the moms get some time to chit chat and make new mommy friends. This one was different from the rest. Jenny was very generous to open up her home to allow the kids to paint her fence.
Paint!!! Don't panic it's was a super genius plot. The kids got messy, they had a tactile activity and to top it, all this was washable. So what do you need to make washable paint. A box of chalk which is non toxic, water (every 2 grated chalks need 1/2 cup water), grater to grate the chalk powder (literally takes few seconds per 2 chalk) and painting tools like paint brushes in different sizes, paint rollers, mixing trays. Oh ya and a fence to paint on!
Activities we did
#1 Mixed the water and chalk powder to make paint
Jenny had grated 2 chalks of each color. Me and Bubu added 1/2 cup water to yellow, purple and green chalk powders to make paint and mixed it thoroughly. Bubu loved watching the dry and wet materials meet and stirring fascinated him. He was trying hard to imitate it every time he had a brush or anything in his hand.
#2 Painting the fence
As I demonstrated and helped him paint with the paintbrush Bubu was stunned. He was more interested in exploring the colored paint than painting. He touched the brush tip. Tried to sneak it to his mouth to taste, etc. His painting activity actually lasted only for 15 mins max. I guess thats what 14 month old do.
Other kids who were around 2 - 3 years of age actually loved this part of paining. They started with trying different colors and at the end I guess the boys were on a mission to paint the entire fence green whereas the girls were painting purple. They wrote their names ,random letters, emojis were starting to show up as the time progressed. We also had a neat freak in the group and she convinced some of the kids to start clean up so some started to pour water on the fence.
It was a creative chaos. It was fun watching different personalities, the followers vs the leaders, the opinions, the plans. All in all it was a great team building activity.
#3 Playing in water
This is what he enjoyed the most. Jenny had a couple buckets around with measuring spoons. Bubu loved stirring the water and picking and pouring with the help of the measuring spoon.
Cons
No cons this time, but a good to know is : We ended up using I think half of the box (linked above) so we were grating chalk as needed.
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