Art Day - Fun Textures

We had a lot of fun at this week's Art Day. I wanted to do something different, so I tried to think of all kinds of different textures for them to mess with.

First we made some "cornstarch goo", a non-Newtonian liquid that behaves with dilatant properties. You can read more about it here, but basically the more you roll it or smack it, the harder it becomes, but if you just hold it still it will drip out of your hand. I remember being completely fascinated with the stuff in science class and I have to admit, it's still pretty darned cool! In fact, I think the mommies may have played in it more than the kids, though they seemed to like it too!
Next, we cut out shapes from clay. Zach kept bringing me heart shapes ~ what a sweetie! Leah even managed to teach Colin to use the rolling pin correctly! This was sort of my trial run to see if they might manage making Christmas ornaments for one of our art days and I think we will definitely be doing that - we can make and paint them all on the same day!
After that, we created little collages with tissue paper and glue. I think Adrianna's butterfly was probably the coolest, but she had a little help from mommy!
Colin mostly liked spreading the glue.
Lauren had some fun bleeding paper cut into leaf shapes, so we colored and painted a bunch of those and them sprayed them with water to watch the shapes spread.
And snack time included more fun textures: Jello and Rice Krispie balls.
Afterward, the boys were interested in our sleeping bags (still out from last weekend), so Leah showed them how to roll the bags up properly (which she called a "man job" - which they loved).
All in all, a pretty fun morning with friends!