Hello lovelies! This week’s Discover & Explore theme has me in a tizzy…it’s HALLOWEEN time! If you are a blogger, be sure to link up your Halloween play and learning activities and crafts at the end of this post- if you aren’t, you’ll have a whole collection of activities at your fingertips to try with your little ones. Either way, it’s a win-win! Now I’d like to share one of the ways we’ve been getting in the spooky spirit- Sparkly Spider Web Play Dough!
To make this play dough, I mixed up a double batch of homemade play dough (HERE is the basic recipe I always use). To this mixture I added two packages of lemon-lime Koolaid (we happened to have a stray packet in our pantry) which gave the play dough its green tint and a faint lime smell. I have also used food coloring and liquid watercolors to color play dough with great results- just whatever you have on hand! Next I added a generous amount of silver glitter (provided to us by Craft Project Ideas.com) and kneaded it in thoroughly. When that was finished I divided the play dough in half and flattened each half onto silver trays for the twins. To accompany the play dough, I trimmed silver pipe cleaners (also from Craft Project Ideas.com) to various lengths and arranged them in silver cups along with a few handfuls of spider table scatter that I found at JoAnn Fabric and Craft. And there you have it- an invitation to create sparkly spider webs!
The twins had a great time with this activity- LOTS of pretend play and language happened while they were exploring the materials, and they kept at it for an hour and a half, which is a big win in this busy mama’s book! It was the perfect activity to set them up with while I attempted (and succeeded for once) to cook dinner…score one for the spiders!
Both of the twins went vertical when building with their pipe cleaners- here is a “cage” one of them built to house the creatures. This was actually a great fine motor exercise because they had to learn to hold the pipe cleaners just right in order to keep them from bending when they were trying to push them into the dough. It was also a good exercise in taking a deep breath and asking for help calmly instead of screaming when they got frustrated 😉
Here is one of Will’s creations- he explained that the Mommy and Daddy spiders were cleaning the web while the little boy spider was watching.
The sister spider was hiding in a cave because she was afraid of the loud noise 😉 Apparently spiders use vacuums, too!
More spider fun from Twodaloo: Spooky Mirrored Sand Play, Spider Learning Table
Halloween Play Ideas: Scrap O’Lantern Collages, Simple Pumpkin Play Ideas for Tots, Five Little Pumpkins Finger Puppets, 10+Activities for Real Pumpkins
The Homemade Play Dough Recipe Book
If you love play dough as much as we do, I highly recommend that you check out The Homemade Play Dough Recipe Book written by Cathy James of NurtureStore. It is a super creative e-book packed with amazing ideas regarding all things play dough, including:
- all the recipes you need for the activities in the book including non-cook and cooked play dough, gluten-free dough, salt dough, modeling dough, and real bread.
- ideas for 52 weeks of loose parts play, in a printable poster format
- a whole year of play dough activities, arranged seasonally. There’s an idea for every week of the year including sensory and imaginary play, storytelling, art ideas, small worlds, math activities, reading and writing ideas.
And now, it’s your turn. We’d love for you to share how you Discover and Explore: HALLOWEEN!
Please read the following guidelines for sharing:
- Share family-friendly posts related to the weekly topic — kids activities, book activities, crafts, recipes, nature outings, free printables–anything that might be helpful to those wanting to put together activities based on this week’s theme
- By linking up, you are giving me permission to share your post including one photo in our weekly feature post and on social media channels. I WILL BE SHARING YOUR POSTS ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND G+, so be sure you are following me so you don’t miss out!
- Visit 2-3 other posts that have linked up, find some new ideas & meet new friends!
- If you are linking up, please be sure to link back with the Discover and Explore button or a text link to help us get the word out and built our collection of resources to share with you!
The linky will remain open for a week. Then all co-hosts will feature activities in a separate post on Fridays and share featured posts on the Discover and Explore Pinterest Board. If you aren’t already, please remember to follow us so you’re sure not to miss those feature posts. And don’t forget to stop by and visit my lovely co-hosts to see what they are sharing for this week’s theme!
KCEdventures * Fantastic Fun and Learning
Teach Preschool * Buggy and Buddy
- October 16–Dinosaur & Fossil Fun
- October 23–Creating with Natural Materials
- October 30–Science Experiments
Ooh! This is so pretty. What a fun idea for Halloween.
What fun! my girls also love spiders (at the moment) whilst my husband is terrified of them!
This is so cool! What fun! I will have to try it with my son.
We’ve been really into playdough lately, but I haven’t thought of adding pipe cleaners to the play options. It’s a great idea, though. We’ll have to do it!
Lovely idea. I wonder if the twins have seen the very pretty cobweb page of ‘Aaaarrgghh! Spider! by Lydia Monks (at least, the page is very pretty in the hardback edition). I might try to link this activity in with that book. We’re house-hunting at the moment, so I’m looking forward to catching up on past posts when we’re settled! Couldn’t resist looking at this one straightaway though
Such fun!! I love the sparkly aspect of it, as well as the fine motor play. The spiders don’t even eek me out one bit.
It is amazing how fun spiders can be to play with - and not at all scary. Saying that I do like that there was a spider hiding in the cave.
LOVE your pretty sparkly web - what a fun idea =)
Thanks for linking up to TGIF! I hope to see you linked up again later today.
Have a great weekend,
Beth =)
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