Jelly - fingerpainting and slush

I've seen a few posts on jelly (jello) painting  and after our recent yoghurt finger painting, I thought we would try jelly. I made up a small amount of jelly using some jelly crystals and some boiling water. I popped it in the freezer to help cool it down quickly. It was pretty thick, next time I'll add a little more water. I had strawberry in one egg cup and lemon and llime in another. I put some of both flavours on a piece of paper and left the egg cups to the side.

I didn't say or demonstrate anything to Luath.  I just let her decide what she wanted to do with it. She spent most of the time playing with the egg cups. She did do a little bit of picking up the jelly, putting it into an egg cup. I showed her some finger painting and she did a tiny bit of painting.  I was surprised that she didn't try to eat any of the jelly. The egg cups were in her mouth a fair bit, her fingers went into the cups and the jelly.

Jelly Painting this year's Turner Prize Winner?

I also put some of the jelly, made up "properly" into icicle moulds and left in the freezer to set. It hadn't set very well when I took it out later. I let Luath have a play with it while I made dinner. It was a bit like a jelly slush. It was actually a better texture for moving about her chair's tray. Still no eating, maybe she is like me and doesn't do jelly!

I quite like the idea of jelly body painting, but I'll wait until Luath seems a bit more interested. 

Fingerpainting and first time crayons

Finger painting
I have planned to do some finger painting with Luath for a while, today I was spurred into making it an activity for this afternoon. I read why finger painting is so good for children (and adults!) at dilly-dali art , a link from the Educators' Spin on It and previously have seen toddlers painting by using milk type puddings and yoghurt. Since we have yoghurt in the fridge, and some food colouring in the cupboard, I chose that option.

The food colouring we have is the type you write with, a gel, so it didn't really work too well at colouring the yoghurt. As soon as I took the yoghurt pot out of the fridge, Luath was obviously thinking "great a snack". She got quite confused as I put some of it onto a tray in front of her minus a bowl or a spoon. I ended up giving her some in a bowl and a spoon so she could have some. She did make a few swooshing movements through the yoghurt on the tray. Not sure the end result was too different from when she eats yoghurt as she has taken to holding the bowl up to her face to try and lick the bottom of the bowl.

Next time I'll mix the yoghurt with better food colouring and I think I'll do it out of sight so she might concentrate more on the painting and less on the eating.  Or I will try another link from the educators' spin it, for edible paint by Imagination tree, check out the blog for some great photos.
 This is the recipe by Imagination tree

* 2 cups of corn flour
* 1 cup of cold water
* 4.5 cups of boiling water
* Liquid food colouring
Method:
Mix the cornflour with the cold water and stir together. Pour in the boiling water and stir between each cup. It goes really strange (you are basically mixing a hot oobleck goop) but keep stirring and it literally seems to "melt" into a wonderful, custard-like consistency. We then separated it into individual jam jars before adding colouring, but you can do it however you like and this is the stage to add colour.

First time with crayonsWe also did another craft activity today - using big crayons for the first time. A few scribbles and some experimenting with holding the crayon in either hand. Her grip was better with her left.. The pencil case and it's zip was a huge hit. As is the norm for things, the crayons at times were heading for Luath's mouth but not as much as I thought may happen.


Recognisable craft outcome at then end of both activities = nil
Enjoyment by Luath = unsure, loved eating the yoghurt and was quite interested in the crayons and pencil case
Activities to be repeated = 100% yes