A Winter storm blew in late last night, leaving about 10 centimetres of the white stuff on everything and wrecking havoc on everyone's morning work commute. We've been lucky here in Calgary, as tomorrow it will be December and this is the first real sign of the start of Winter. Usually it will rear it's ugly frosty head closer to October.
Even though R's play school is literally a five minute drive (15 minute walk) away, there was no way I was going to bundle up both kids to trek out in the slippery roads today.
So today is our first Snow Day of the season.
But that also means I have to find a way to (quietly) occupy a 3 year old for a few hours while her baby sister naps. Enter cotton balls to the rescue.
This is literally the easiest craft, aside from drawing or painting, and leaves very little to clean up when it ends (or when the kids moves on). It's something I recalled doing in Kindergarten, and if it's good enough for Kindergarten...
Materials needed:
- paper (we have a stack of blank letter/computer paper we got for cheap)
- white glue
- paintbrush
- cotton balls
- markers or crayons or paint
I began by quickly drawing a picture of a snowman on the paper (this can be done by your child, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling before R tired of the instructions), then I mixed about a tablespoon of glue with a dash of water in a small bowl.
I then "painted" the glue mixture over the snowman and handed a bunch of cotton balls to R to stick on. The results? Fluffy, snowy snowmen to show off to Daddy when he gets home (and 15 minutes of busy quiet time per picture)!
I toyed with the idea of letting R dip the cotton balls into the glue mixture, but then thought of the potential for glue on fingers, the table, the floor, her hair, etc., and decided painting it on beforehand was the way to go. Because the glue has been thinned a bit with the water, it makes the paper tacky without being thick and gloppy with glue. After a while I also cut up the cotton into smaller pieces to make it easier to handle and stick (and to use up less cotton balls).
After the snowman we continued on our snowball-gluing streak and made pictures of a snowy tree, a snowy winter scene with a house and fluffy clouds, as well as a fluffy rabbit, before finally petering out and moving on to reading books, instead. Fine by me.
All the cotton ball-gluing gave me a chance to start a pot of chicken soup with the leftovers of our chicken dinner a couple days ago, the spoils of which R is enjoying for lunch.
How cozy is that?
Even though R's play school is literally a five minute drive (15 minute walk) away, there was no way I was going to bundle up both kids to trek out in the slippery roads today.
So today is our first Snow Day of the season.
But that also means I have to find a way to (quietly) occupy a 3 year old for a few hours while her baby sister naps. Enter cotton balls to the rescue.
This is literally the easiest craft, aside from drawing or painting, and leaves very little to clean up when it ends (or when the kids moves on). It's something I recalled doing in Kindergarten, and if it's good enough for Kindergarten...
Materials needed:
- paper (we have a stack of blank letter/computer paper we got for cheap)
- white glue
- paintbrush
- cotton balls
- markers or crayons or paint
I began by quickly drawing a picture of a snowman on the paper (this can be done by your child, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling before R tired of the instructions), then I mixed about a tablespoon of glue with a dash of water in a small bowl.
I then "painted" the glue mixture over the snowman and handed a bunch of cotton balls to R to stick on. The results? Fluffy, snowy snowmen to show off to Daddy when he gets home (and 15 minutes of busy quiet time per picture)!
I toyed with the idea of letting R dip the cotton balls into the glue mixture, but then thought of the potential for glue on fingers, the table, the floor, her hair, etc., and decided painting it on beforehand was the way to go. Because the glue has been thinned a bit with the water, it makes the paper tacky without being thick and gloppy with glue. After a while I also cut up the cotton into smaller pieces to make it easier to handle and stick (and to use up less cotton balls).
After the snowman we continued on our snowball-gluing streak and made pictures of a snowy tree, a snowy winter scene with a house and fluffy clouds, as well as a fluffy rabbit, before finally petering out and moving on to reading books, instead. Fine by me.
All the cotton ball-gluing gave me a chance to start a pot of chicken soup with the leftovers of our chicken dinner a couple days ago, the spoils of which R is enjoying for lunch.
How cozy is that?
