Waiting room fun, ice paint and frozen jelly!!

Today I had to take Alyssa to the doctor as her eczema is playing up really bad, poor little lamb!  Whilst in the waiting room Arthur started to get a little bored, there are toys in the waiting room but I sometimes find once he starts playing he will have a melt down when it comes to leaving them!!  I remembered a post I saw last night from creative connection for kids, a fun game of body count, I combined that with good old fashion "mummy says" and managed to keep him quite and amuse a couple of other patients!

Once home I made a den in the garden for Alyssa, out of old curtains left in the house when we moved in, as the doctor said it was probably best not to put suntan cream on her, and gave Arthur the frozen paints to try.  I just put ready mix paint and water in a plastic tub and put it in the freezer, next time will make them thicker using ice lolly moulds or similar, as it did seem to work but there wasn't enough and it melted instantly!  Although it is very hot, 25+ degrees Celsius, Arthur had factor 50 on and seemed instantly to be turning pink after 10 -20 minutes, so we came indoors to cool off.

Part of cooling off involved playing with frozen jelly, a lovely idea from the imagination tree, I made the jelly yesterday and popped it in the freezer, however I didn't put it in a bag, I left it in the glass bowl it set in.  This activity was meant to to have taken place outside so I wouldn't have to worry about mess etc and hand cleaning could take place in the paddling pool, but oh well! It took a while to get the jelly out of the the bowl, but I warmed up a microwavable heat pouch and placed it on top to show Arthur hot and cold, as well as a few comical attempts of blowing on it and rubbing it to warm it to entertain him whilst we waited.  Once it dropped into the bowl he didn't really like the cold and kept wanting mummy to rub his hands, but as it melted he enjoyed the different noises it created, crunching, splatting, the noise as we rubbed our hands together, as well as watching it change, and just generally flicking his hands around getting it everywhere!! Definitely better outside with a pool to wash in, we probably would have found the ice stage over with a bit quicker as well as he didn't seem to enjoy that much, but did when it was a sloppy sticky mess!!

Overall the day encouraged his use of describing words, sensory play, a little bit of math in the morning and a bit science in the afternoon, cant be bad!!

The Den

Ice Paints

Melting

Frozen Jelly

Alyssa's turn

Squish!

Smoosh!

Squelch!