This is a part of Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting. It is an erratically maintained write-up of crafts that I try. I rate each craft based on a complex algorithm that graphs ease of setup and cleanup against its ability to hold the attention of a child. If you like to make your child's Halloween costumes, cakes from scratch, and other elaborate crafts, this blog is probably way too simple for you.
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Name:
Alex Elliot
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MA, US
About Me:
Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 3.5 year old and a 1 year old.
I'm very excited to introduce a "sub-blog" to Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting called Flexible Parenting: Crafts for the Clueless. This will be an erratically maintained write-up of crafts that I try, see or hear others trying, or read about in a magazine. I will rate each craft based on a complex algorithm that will graph ease of setup and cleanup against its ability to hold the attention of a child (specifically AT LEAST one of my children). If you like to make your children's Halloween costumes, cakes from scratch, and other elaborate crafts this is not the blog for you. I'm posting the first post on both blogs. After that I will only post the crafts on the Crafts for the Clueless blog, but I will let you know when it is updated.
When my older son (OS) was 18 months old, an occupational therapist told me about this "amazing" craft. Toddlers really like different textures as well as different sensations like warm and cold. Her idea was to take cool whip (this can also be done with shaving cream) and to spread it on a table or high chair tray (presumably while the child is in the high chair) and let the child play with the cool whip. Alternately, (environmentally friendly people skip this sentence) you can cover a section of your table with saran wrap to make for an easy clean up. As an extra bonus, dye the cool whip using food coloring. To hit the ultimate level of excitment, she suggested that you then let your child smear the cool whip on the front of the dishwasher door. Yes, you did read that right! She also suggested filling the bathtub with jello, but I nixed that one as soon as she finished telling me about it.
I was okay with parts 1 and 2: buying cool whip and adding blue coloring. This was the very first craft that I had ever done with OS and I was quite excited about it. I carefully prepared it and put it on a low table so that he could have hours, or at least 15 minutes, of fun while exploring the neat texture of the cool whip, the cold sensation, the blue color and the sweet taste. OS had no interest in it whatsoever(although he loved doing it using shaving cream at community playgroup where it was a big hit with the kids). Not wanting to pressure him, I quickly backed off, but left the craft out for him to enjoy at his convience. Then I left to run errands. When I came back my husband informed me that one member of the family had really enjoyed my craft. I was beaming from ear to ear. I had achieved motherhood perfection by choosing the absolute best first craft for OS. My husband quickly burst my bubble when he said "Gandalf loved it!" Apparently our DOG had eaten it.
In terms of crafts, this one was relatively easy to setup. As a concern with using shaving cream, if your child gets it in his eyes, it will sting. Obviously you don't want him to eat it either. I have heard of people doing this craft with pudding as well. Particularly with chocolate pudding, this sounds like a nightmare with possible laundry treatment. The two parts that really made me the least interested in repeating it were the need to stock foodstuffs that I don't ususually have, and having a sticky child and table. My only tip would be to do it right before bathtime.
A. Elliot's Ratings: Ease of setup/cleanup (1-10 with 1 being most difficult): 4 Attention Getting (1-10 with 1 generating least interest; this excludes dogs): 1
I bet my dog would love this craft. Don't know about any human family-member. :-)
-J