Summer.

Lazy days of summer.

Except for toddlers and preschoolers, going full throttle year round is pretty much the norm.

So as many of you know I have a 2 and 4 year old. Neither are in any kind of summer camps or other structured activities other than swimming lessons for my daughter. So we have a good bit of downtime right now, which is nice. BUT different. For all of us.

We needed some sort of activity to do during the hot afternoons. For reasons I don’t fully understand, if I take a few minutes to do a project with the kids the # of meltdowns they experience decreases. So it was worth it for me. And I found that not only did they have fun doing projects but I did too.

I am fortunate enough to have a couple great mom friends who gave me some awesome craft and science project ideas. I took all the ideas, ordered the supplies in bulk off amazon and split them 3 ways. My daughter loved helping me split up supplies for her and her friends. I have to hide my box of supplies up super high and away from both my kids because they love just sorting through it.

So, this is a review site. None of these ideas are my own, I am just taking an idea from another blogger and letting you know how it works for a pinterest fail type mom like myself.

First, head on over to Buddy and Buggy for the instructions, which can be found here.

You will need:

• Baking Soda
• Vinegar
• some sort of pan or tray (I used these off Amazon – love the size, perfect for little hands and limits the amount of supplies needed)
• -ice cube tray or small cups for vinegar
• food coloring
• Pipettes, spoons, medicine dropper…or something similar

So baking soda and vinegar is like $2, trays were $6 but I’ve washed and used them for multiple projects already. I could have easily used something I had around the house.  I had the food coloring on hand. I didn’t have ice cube trays but I did have shot glass size red solo cups I was going to use for a sensory bin that I have still yet to make. I probably need to buy some pipettes, but we just used medicine droppers and it worked fairly well.

I first just put a small layer of baking soda in each tray for my 2 kids. They loved just that…making hand prints in it, feeling the texture. Nice sensory input. So we did that for awhile. Any way to extend the time the kids are interested in the project works for me! Next the actual experiment itself.  Both kids mesmerized by the colors and the bubbles.

I added several layers of baking soda, letting them repeat the experiment as much as they wanted. I used one nearly full box. When I ran out of baking soda I grabbed a few cotton balls and gave it to each of them. They loved seeing how the liquid was absorbed and changed the color and texture of the cotton ball.

The cotton balls made a gross and gooey mess. So naturally the kids loved it. I gave them spoons to stir the slop, and again extended our experiment.

Hind sight is 20/20 of course and here’s what I would do differently next time:

• do this outside or at least cover table in a cheap plastic table cloth or even a towel to cover my table and help with clean up
• buy pipettes. The medicine dropper was a little difficult for my 2 year old to handle independently. It also gave a bit too much liquid if you’re not careful

Pro’s

• anything with vinegar and baking soda is fun and this is no exception. The colors really pop against the white baking soda.
• You very likely have everything you need already and even if you don’t supplies for this project are really cheap.
• Play with just the baking soda for awhile, add cotton balls at the end if you want to extend your project time
• Introduce your kids to science concepts and ideas while also having a great time

Thanks Buggy and Buddy for this great toddler friendly experiment!!! Check out more arts and crafts here.