Cheap Fun

My friend and counselor in Primary, Sundi, is such a creative mom. The other day I was going to be babysitting four extra kids for a long time, and she gave me some ideas of things to do with them. I'm going to pass them along, because they've been great. (I never did get to them when I babysat.)

-Edible playdoh. This isn't an exact recipe. She starts with about 2 c. of peanut butter, but I used a bit less. Next you add powdered milk and mix until it's not too sticky. Then you mix in powdered sugar until it's playdoh-like. It's still a little sticky, so she has a little pile of powdered sugar that they can coat their hands with. Then you give them pretzels, choc. chips, M&Ms or whatever to decorate with. They can make snowmen, faces, etc. My kids loved it.

-Pudding finger painting. I knew about this, but I tried it with some old food storage vanilla pudding, and colored it different colors. Before we'd just tried chocolate.

I'm just going to cut and paste the other things she suggested here:

-If you have sidewalk chalk, you can get it wet and it makes chalk paint. My kids LOOOOVE it this way.

-Experiments. We do a "sink/float" experiment where you fill up a large bowl or bucket with water, and then you gather different things from around the house. Drop each one in individually and see if it floats or sinks.

-Rice drawing. You fill up a casserole dish, or a cookie sheet with a lip around it, with rice. Then, using chopsticks or toothpicks, you write letters or draw things. Or you could fill up a bowl with it and add small objects for them to find with their fingers.

On an unrelated note: I just stole this picture from my friend, Kelly's, blog. I went to Women's Conference at BYU with my friends and had such a fabulous time. I wish I could say I was going with them next year, but I'll be nursing. But I can't wait to join them again in 2011.