Boredom Buster: Halloween Sensory Play with Edible Gelatin Eyes

I made these gelatin eyes a few days ago and finally let Parker play with them over the weekend. He's been dying to get his hands on them since he saw me using Easter eggs to form them. I found this fun Halloween themed sensory play idea on the Fun at Home with Kids blog. Asia's blog is a great resource for sensory and imaginative play for toddlers and babies. She also has a book out! My photos are not as great as hers but it doesn't really matter because Parker had a BLAST squishing, throwing and stepping on these edible gelatin eyes. Ready to get started? Here is what you will need.

Edible Gelatin Eyes

Ingredients

1 packet of Knox unflavored gelatin

Food coloring 

Raisins

Cooking oil

Bottoms of plastic easter eggs or this eyeball chocolate mold

An old egg carton (not needed if you use the chocolate mold)

Instructions

1. Add 3/4 cup of boiling hot water and food coloring to one packet of Know gelatin. Stir until dissolved.

2. Oil the inside of your Easter eggs bottoms/mold.

3. Add one raisin for each. This is your pupil.

4. Refrigerate for 30-60 mins until gelatin has set. You can make these ahead and keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to play with them. I left mine in the fridge for 4 days. The raisins started looking a little creepy but otherwise the eyes kept really well.

I started by cutting open a trash bag and taping it to the floor to minimize the mess. Then I let Parker go crazy with whatever he wanted to do with them. At first he was nervous to touch the eyes but after a little instruction he was happily grabbing them and squeezing them in his hands. 

Parker loved moving the eyes from the floor to the container and then dumping them back out again. He did that at least 4 times. It was fun to watch him run from one side of the plastic bag to the other moving the eyes around. He kept saying, "Eyeball!!" After 20 minutes or so, he accidentally stepped on an eyeball and felt it squish under his foot. He thought that was so funny and began stepping on all of the eyes and saying, "Whoa!" 

He insisted on sharing the eyeballs with me and tried to stack all of them in my hand at the same time. 

The aftermath of our sensory play was a lot of gelatin pieces all over the floor. Thank goodness I thought to lay the plastic bag down before we started playing. This was a fun sensory play activity! Now I regret getting rid of all my chocolate molds.

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Boredom Buster: An Ongoing Art Project

Materials Needed

1 large cardboard box

1 set of washable markers

Couldn't. Be. Easier.

Enjoy!

Boredom Buster: Sorting Bugs

In preparation for this Bug Hunt Sensory Bin I spotted Mama Miss, I bought Parker a Safari LTD Insects TOOB. Since I haven't gotten my act together with buying a bin and some black beans yet, I let him sort the bugs in an ice tray. Actually, it's the fresh food tray I used to use to make his baby food in. Way to re-purpose right? He loved putting the bugs in the tray and did this for 10 mins on his own. Easy peasy.

If you haven't checked out the Mama Miss blog yet, you should! She offers a ton of fun kid ideas and free printables. It takes the hard part out of being a super mom.

Boredom Buster: Sandwich Bag Puppet

Another boredom busting project from the Creatology Mega Box of Projects: sandwich bag dog puppet. We worked on this while Grandpa made dinner. So easy. So entertaining. All you need is a glue stick and it's included in the box.

Boredom Buster: Creatology Mega Box of Projects

On Sunday, Tuan went to North Park for the big World Cup viewing party with the guys (yay Germany!) and Parker and I stayed home and had a lot of quality time. The first thing we did was head to Michaels to pick up some projects to work on. It was just our luck that all the Creatology products are currently 50% off and there is a coupon for an additional 25% off all purchases (including sale items). I picked up this Creatology Mega Box of Projects for $12. The first project we worked on was "life on the farm" and I basically handed Parker stickers to arrange on the farm template. I tried to explain where each of the animals likes to play but he had his own ideas about it. This held his attention for about 15 minutes which is about an hour in toddler time.

One project down and 29 more to go. It's a relief to know that I will always have something on hand to do with Parker when we have down time. No play dough making required.

[Gigante]

[He did this when I told him to hold up his artwork]

[Enjoying his art and snacking on pretzels]

[This is now proudly displayed on our refrigerator. A goat in the trees. A horse with a missing head. A chicken on the barn. A mouse in the river.]