recipe: soap bubbles

http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/craftyrecipes/a/blhmbubbles.htm

Materials Needed:
1/2 cup dish soap
1 1/2 cups water
2 teaspoons sugar

Instructions:
Mix all 3 ingredients together. Don't stir or shake too much! :-) Store in a sealed container. Experiment with blowing bubbles using different items.
Tips from Mark: 1 cup warm water, 1/4 cup blue dishwashing liquid, and 1tsp. salt (If you have some glycerin at home add a teaspoon of it to make even better bubbles). Combine well, but do this gently. Use as you would any other bubbles



http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/activities/a/bubbles.htm
Best Bubble Solution
1 Cup Water
2 Tablespoons Light Karo syrup or 2 Tablespoons Glycerin
4 Tablespoons Dishwashing liquid

Mix together and have fun!

recipies: invsible ink

http://inthetrenchesofmotherhood.com/?p=99
This is a really simple one.
Squeeze some lemons or limes into a glass. This juice will be the ink.
Give them a small paintbrush or a Q-tip to use as writing implement.
Have them write the message on a sheet of white paper. When the “ink” dries it will be invisible.
To make the message reappear, hold the sheet of paper over a heat source. A hot water bottle, heating pad, in front of your wood burning stove, a heat register are some ideas.

puppet: with raincoat

This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Materials:

• paper bag (squared bottom)
• eye stickers (googly eyes would be fun!)
• construction paper cut in thin strips to make hair (red, black, brown, yellow)
• construction paper cut in the shape of a rain hat, rain coat and rain boots (red, orange, yellow, pink etc)
• markers, crayons for decorating
• glue
  

Instructions:

• place paper bag so that its bottom is facing the ceiling
• make a face on the bottom part of the bag (eyes, nose, mouth)
• use glue to add the paper "hair" (curl the paper around your finger if you want curly hair)
• glue the hair around the face
• glue the hat over top the hair
• glue the boots on the "bottom" of the puppet (the open part of the bag into which you'll put your hand later)
• glue the coat over top the boots and under the "chin" of the face [Note: the images shown have the boots glued overtop the raincoat.]
• decorate the construction paper as desired!

Puppet without decorations:

Easter Bunny

This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Materials:

• paper plate
• coloured construction paper cut out as ears
• small pink craft pom-pom
• cotton batting (coloured in same colour as ears or white)
• eye stickers (googly eyes are fun) or you can draw the eyes on
• markers or crayons or pencil crayons to draw the face (and perhaps eyes) on plate
• tape
• white glue
  

Instructions:

• draw a face on the front of the plate complete with whiskers
• tape the ears to the back of the plate
• glue the pom-pom on the nose
• spread white glue around the face (and ears)
• tease out the cotton batting and apply to the glued areas
  

recipe: Oobleck

Recipe found here: http://skiptomylou.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/oh-the-places-you-will-go/

If you quickly smack oobleck with your hand it immediately turns into a solid, instead of splashing or moving. If you slowly move oobleck it reacts like a liquid.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of cornstarch
• 1 cup water
• a few drops of food colouring (optional)
  

Instructions:

• mix ingredients together
• try it (hit it then pour it off a spoon) before adding more than 1 cup of water

Animal Headband

This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Materials:

• the colour of paper that you choose should match the animal you are trying to make (for example, white paper for a zebra, orange paper for a tiger)
• strip of construction paper approx 55cm long and 5cm wide (should be long enough to make a band around the child's head)
• 2 pieces of the same coloured construction paper approx 7cm long and 4cm wide from which to cut ears
• 1 piece of the same coloured construction paper approx 20cm long and 2cm wide from which to make a tail
• 1 piece of black coloured construction paper approx 7cm long and 4cm wide from which to cut tail end
• black crayons or markers to make stripes
• scissors (have the adults precut the ears and tail pieces for the pre-schoolers)
• glue
• tape

Instructions:

• lay the long strip of paper out flat
• glue on the ears in about the centre of the strip
• have the child draw stripes (as required) using the black crayons or markers
• measure the long strip around the child's head and tape in a circle to make a good fit
• glue on the black tail end to the tail
• glue the tail on the back of the headband

You'll note that this headband is too small for our model:

Note the added detail of fringing the black tail end:

Napkin folding

Resources for napkin folding:

• http://www.mypapershop.com/folding-napkins/
• http://www.napkinfoldingguide.com/
• http://www.partydetails.com/napkins.asp
• http://www.schonwalder.org/Menu_Z1_napkin.htm
• http://www.tiptonlinen.com/presentations.html
• http://weddingdetails.com/planning/napkins_content.cfm

Courtesy of "Impress your guests -- tuxedo napkins" by Cecily Ross in the Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 10, 2007. Style section page L9.

(FYI, I couldn't find instructions for the Tuxedo Folded Napkin featured in the article. When finished, it looks like the upper 2/3 of a gentleman's tuxedo / dinner jacket.