Shrinky My Dinky.... Oh What Fun

What a rainy, cold and yucky day! Tuesday’s are ‘no school’ days so I usually try to set up a play date or take the kids somewhere. However, when I saw the gloomy weather… I told the kids it was crafty day! A my daughter loves crafts, my lil’ guy does just enough to appease me and moves on.

I pulled out an oldie but a goodie craft – SHRINKY DINKS! I did this great craft when I was a kid. If you are not familiar with Shrinky Dinks this is the scoop. You get these sheets of plastic and you can draw with pencils or markers anything you want on them. Cut it out the pop it in the oven…and watch in amazement. Within 2 minutes the Dink will curl up, shrink, and then lay flat again. Then you take them out of the oven and they cool super fast. You end up with a very hard little piece of plastic that you can use for jewelry, sun catchers, mobiles, etc. My daughter and I did Shrinky Dinks for a couple hours. Here is the mobile we made and here are a few of my favorite ones we made. My son kind of colored on one, then gave up and played with cars.

After the Shrinky Dink fun my daughter wanted to move on to the next craft. I told her that Mommy had to make lunch and that she was on her own. So she asked if she could do her most favorite ‘Grown-up’ thing to do…. take pictures with my camera. She loves doing this so much that I have sort of made art of the pics she takes. She has the great frame in her room that holds 7 pics. Each month I put new pictures that she took into the frame. She is very proud of this ‘work of art’ and it is always the first thing she shows her friends. Here is a sample of the pictures she took today.

My Web Site – http://www.kidsinstl.com/

Added a bunch of activities to the calendar. Trying to get it pumped up with activities for spring and summer. Here is a list of some of the activities going on around St Louis the next couple of days. Go to the site http://www.kidsinstl.com/ for more detail.

Feb 28th
9:45 AM - 10:30 AMWhere Art and Play Go Hand in Hand
10 AM - 11 AMtoddler Storytime Sachs Branch
10:30 AM - 11:30 AMCreation Station - Transport Museum Association
10:30 AM - 12 PMPiwacket Theatre Emperor's New Clothes
4 PM - 5 PMDuct Tape Extravaganza - Weber Library
6 PM - 8 PMREI Climbing Pinnacle
6:30 PM - 8:30 PMEndangered Species Near You

Feb 29th
10:30 AM - 11:30 AMStory time Fun Baby Moon Boutique
11 AM - 11:45 AMWhere Art and Play Go Hand in Hand
11:15 AM - 12 PMDrop in Play Date Baby Moon Boutique
6:30 PM - 7:30 PMDon't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
7 PM - 8:30 PMTeen Afterhours: Chocolate Fever! - Sachs Library

Hey for all of you that are not in St Louis, I want to share one of the many other parts of my site that can be used by anyone regardless of where they live. Here are some of our favorite tips we recommend for children. From the home page click on the Parent Resource & Tips then go to 12-24 months button– To see the whole list check out our site. http://www.kidsinstl.com/
Parent Resources & Tips
12-24 months
Nutrition Tips/Strategies for Picky Eaters:

*For non-veggie eaters, blend the vegetables in a stock to make a hearty soup or grind the vegetables and blend it into meat e.g., meat patties

*For non-fruit eaters - make a fruit smoothie (fruit, milk and or ice-cream). Introduce it unfrozen or if you choose to freeze it, make Popsicles in containers.