Babysitting Activities

I had my mother in laws foster child over for the day she is currently 5 years old, so I had to think of some activities we could do together that would be fun and engaging. The day included homemade playdough, a sensory bag for my little one, and some painting. I started the morning early and decided I was going to begin by making some playdough before she arrives, that way it had time to cool and her and I could decide together on what colors we wanted to go with.

1. To make the playdough I mixed these ingredients together in a pot;

3 CUPS Flour

2 TBSP Ceam of Tartar

1 CUP Table Salt

3 TBSP Coconut Oil (the only cooking oil other than olive I have, figured this was better)

3 CUPS Hot Water

2. I put the pot over medium heat on the stove and stirred constantly till it formed soft textured dough.

3. I set it aside on plastic wrap and wrapped it up till it cooled down enough.

4. Once cooled, I separated the dough into 4, you can do however many colors you like I thought it was just easier doing, and I grabbed to food coloring. I made a little well in each dough and let her drop the colors in and I mixed it together till we got the consistency. I tried starting with a small amount at first then add more till you get the color you desire, there is less staining hands and potentially other things. Which did happen with one that had been overdone with color. I have seen also if you're okay with one color for the whole batch, you can add color to the water. She decided to mix all the dough together to get one giant rainbow ball.

Afterwards we watched a bit of cartoons and had her coloring with pencil crayons, so I could have floor time with my 5 month old. Playing with toys and a homemade sensory bag. All you need for it is;

Zip Lock Bag

1- 2 TBSP Chia Seeds

1/2 CUP Water

Tape

Combine the Chia Seeds and Water in the bag and tape it to a board or high chair tray, like I did. If you wait a few hours the seeds swell and get that gel like consistency which is fun to squish. After a few days it looses it squish appeal and turns murky. But I do highly recommend trying this out for your experimenting baby.

After lunch I decided painting would be fun idea. I was going to get the little one to join by putting paint on paper then put in a zip lock bag. That way he could squish it and move the paint around without putting it in his mouth. I had tried once when he was 4 months old but I think he was still too young to have fun with it.

But it ended up being nap time for him so it was just her and I. I laid out a large garbage bag on the table just in case. I didn't have any paper plates or things to put the paint onto so I just got a plate and put it into my old reliable, zip lock bag. Helped making clean up a lot easier.