Hi, Everybody.  I hope your holidays were merry, bright, shiny and happy!  As for me, I have finally come down with the cold Mr and Gator were suffering with over Christmas.  And I thought taking care of two rambunctious boys while I was healthy was an exhausting feat!  I’ve been doing my own napping during nap time and not a whole lot more.  You should see my house…. I’ll just say our Christmas tree is still up (it’s artificial) and leave it at that.  Eek, right?!

This week’s feature… well, it’s a little self-centered.  But, hopefully, you can benefit from it too… I’d like to point you to the Ready for Romance Series for some fun valentine ideas.  It’s coming faster than you might think.

Well, let me see what you’ve been up to this first week of a new year.  I hope yours has been a lot better than my week…

Link ’em up!  Annnnd….. GO!

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.
If you’d like to get more While He Was Napping, you can find me here:

This was a project from our Science Experiments & Art Projects Book that I made Little Monkey for his last birthday.  Okay, let me say this up front, I didn’t expect much with experiment and was hoping to be pleasantly surprised. 

We found the directions HERE and HERE.  They are the same directions at both links for the most part, just FYI.  Little Monkey helped me make our ball and my mom and sister each made one too.  Little Monkey and I used glitter glue, my mom used Elmer’s White Glue-All, and my sister used Elmer’s Blue Gel glue. 

The balls were even less bouncy than I anticipated.  It was kind of disappointing.  We also didn’t put them in baggies.  I wanted to see just how hard they would get.  Little Monkey ripped them apart the next day before they were completely dry, so… I don’t know how hard they would get if they’d dried completely.  They made better marbles than bouncy balls though.  Although the experiment didn’t work out like we were hoping, the balls were still pretty fun to play with anyway.  We used them as marbles and rolled them down a racing road toy Little Monkey has.  We will probably revisit this project and see if we can figure out where we blundered.  Or just make more marbles…   

This has been sitting in my draft folder FOREVER just waiting for some photos… I FINALLY got the pictures taken and uploaded.  So, here it is!  FINALLY!  Enjoy.

KID’S SCIENCE EXPERIMENT
& ART PROJECT KIT

For Little Monkey’s 3rd birthday – yeah, WAAAAAAY back last July – I made him a Science Experiment Kit, complete with a project book.  The boy loves to get his hands dirty (as long as it’s not in food) and is so dang curious he drives me crazy with all the ‘why?’s.  It makes Mr. Napping a little nuts as well.  I wanted something that he would enjoy, but also something that would entertain him for more than a week or two.  We have tons of toys and a lot of them just sit on the floor until they get stepped on and kicked aside.  I didn’t want more “stuff”.  We have done small experiments over the past few years, starting with the baking soda and vinegar volcanoes.  That was cool, but Little Monkey was a bit too small to really enjoy it at the time.  We experimented with water beads last January and that was fun, until Little Monkey thought ripping them apart was the new fun thing.  Then they went bye-bye for a while…

Anyway.  I went through my Pinterest boards and Google and gathered any and all ideas that were science projects or demonstrations and a few art projects as well.  I typed up the basic instructions and an easy-to-understand explanation (at least easy-to-me, so I can explain it later) and printed it off.  Sounds easy, but I spent several hours (think, like over 30 hours) putting it all together.  Then I went down the ingredient list for each project and made a shopping list.  There were several projects that used at least some of the same ingredients (Borax, baking soda, corn starch, and glue, to name a few) so the shopping wasn’t horribly expensive – most of those are pretty cheap anyway.  I put it all in a big box with the printed project book and wrapped it with a nice big strip of tape, because I’m super classy like that.

This has been fantastic as we have started Little Monkey School and during the days when I think I’m going to strangle the kid.  He usually just needs a little structure and attention.  We’ve had fun and made some cool projects together.  It was definitely worth the time and minimal cost.  It has turned out to be a great gift that is enjoyed by both of us (and sometimes Daddy, too!) with some educational value to it as well.

Download your own copy of the Project Book from HERE.  It’s a link to my shared files on copy.com.  I haven’t ever had any complaints or problems with this site, but if you do, please let me know.  Or you can email me at {whilehewasnapping}at{gmail}dot{com} or leave your email address in the comments with a request for this file and I will email you a copy as soon as I can.  You can then download it from your email.

{If you’d like to know more about Copy and their awesome cloud storage, instant upload and automatic back up and syncing features – never worry about losing your mobile photos, even if your phone is lost or stolen – you can check out this post or head over here to get the info from the source.}

Print it out and then you’ll be well on your way to creating your own Science Experiment Kit.  If you find formatting issues, let me know.  I’ve tried to check and make sure all is well, but it’s a lot of pages and I’m not perfect.  Because a lot of these projects are inspired by other bloggers, this is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.  Do not sell, alter or edit, or sell alterations of this book.  Please do not post the book anywhere else.  If you would like to tell others about this book, please link them back to this post – not the download page.  Deal?  Mm-kay, thanks.  And those 30+ hours I spent putting this together thank you too.  Seriously, though.  Please play nice.

And, to help simplify things for you, I’ve made out a materials list below.  Not everything is included, but what I left out are things that most people have on hand around the home, water, ice cube trays and muffin tins, for example.

Materials you will need in your kit:
–  Baking soda
–  White vinegar
–  Food coloring
–  Bar of Ivory brand soap
–  Balloons
–  Borax
–  Cornstarch
–  White glue
–  Craft sticks (popsicle sticks)
–  Ruler
–  Vegetable Oil
–  Alka-Seltzer
–  Flashlight
–  Clear Glue or Corn Syrup
–  Ultra Fine Glitter
–  Shampoo or Hair Gel
–  Dice
–  Marbles
–  Glow Sticks
–  Glow in the Dark Paint
–  Paper Clips
–  Pipe Cleaners
–  Small Nuts and Bolts
–  Magnets
–  Sand
–  Small Shells
–  Baby Oil
–  Colored Candle Wax
–  Flour
–  Salt
–  Shaving Cream
–  Sweetened Condensed Milk
–  Liquid Dish Soap
–  Jello
–  Nonfat Dry Milk
–  Peanut Butter
–  Honey
–  Crayons
–  Cola
–  Mentos
–  Polystyrene Beads

Most of these are used in more than one project or experiment.  Check out the book and choose what projects you want to include in your kit and make your shopping list from there.  I think I spent about $23 on supplies, but I had a lot of it already.  Cut costs by choosing a few experiments and just getting those supplies.  I did get a new container of corn starch and some of the other kitchen supplies and ingredients so that Monkey and I have his own stash to pull from when we do experiments instead of hoping I remember to replace it in the kitchen.