I recently found a hands-on toddler activity idea on pinterest that I decided to try with Avery. I was feeling guilty about the amount of "quality time" we were having this late in the pregnancy and needed to come up with something other than Disney to keep him entertained without leaving the comfort of the air conditioning. Avery was very excited to get to try something new and use his stool to help out in the kitchen. This craft involved mixing equal parts flour and water, adding food coloring, and then dipping cotton balls into the mixtures.
You then put the cotton balls on a pan and bake at a low temp (the instructions said 150', but my oven would only go as low as 170') for 45 min.
Waiting the 40ish minutes for these babies to "harden" was the worst part. Avery must have asked me at least every 5 minutes if the cotton balls were done yet...
I kept testing them, and sadly they never really got very hard on the outside. The idea was that the outside would harden, and the inside would stay soft, and therefore they'd make excellent "balls" to smash with a toy hammer. What little kid doesn't love smashing things?!?
Hardened or not, we weren't going to let all our effort go to waste, so we "smashed" (or mushed) them anyway! Bailey even licked a few to see if maybe they were at least edible. Avery was disappointed, too, that eating them wasn't part of the plan...they did come out of the oven, after all.
Look, mom! Sticky!
Oh well. At least these were all inexpensive ingredients we had around the house, and Avery was entertained with something new for a while. Better luck next time!
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