Squishy Circuits

I was doing some research for my upcoming Mommy's Little Learners workshops and came across this brilliant kit!  Have any of your heard or used Squishy Circuits?  

Well...if you have play dough engineers in da house.  Check this out:

Squishy Circuits

This is a simple kit that has the recipe for Conductive and Insulating Homemade play dough PLUS all the fun tools that help young kids learn about and experience circuits.

The kit comes with:

*Battery pack

*motor

*2 buzzers

*5 LED lights in red, green, white, yellow and blue

I knew I wanted to implement these into my workshop...but first it need to be "kid tested" to get my "mother approved".

So this is where it gets REAL fun!  Why not invite some friends to explore with us!

First, we needed 2 sets of play-dough, the conductive and the insulating.  

This crazy bunch made the conductive play-dough using the recipe in the kit.

This crazy bunch made the insulating play dough using the recipe from the kit.

After the dough was made, we let the children go play for 20 while we, the nerdy-science moms, tried to figure this out.  And we did! 

Battery pack + 1 blocks of conductive dough + 2 LED lights = awesome, circuit connection

Now it was the little learners turn to try it all out.  And we got the same expressions and responses as the moms. 

After exploring with all the kids using the motors and buzzers, the older learners asked to be "dismissed" and trickled away to play.  And these were the last to stay.

Was it the science that kept them at the table?

Or was it the sensory thrill of the play dough?

Maybe the 1-on-1 attention that THEY were getting at this moment of time from just their mom...

Whatever it was the kept our little learners there, doesn't matter - what mattered was that this moment was precious and this day turned out to be pretty, darn perfect! 

We learned, we laughed, we played.

and it was all with great friends and an amazing "kid tested, mother approved) resource (Thanks Squishy Circuits and Ms. Sarah and boys!)

Family, FOAM and fun!

We had all be sick for a span of 3 weeks.  Before the sickness hit, I was laid up from surgery.  Things in this house were getting stale and icky.  Words being spoken in our home were not happy and were used purely out of frustration.

So on a sunny Sunday afternoon, everyone was feeling better.  I was feeling normal again...finally.  We decided it was time for some fun!  And all we needed was some FOAM to make that happen.

After posting pictures on social media, everyone was asking "how in the world did we make all THAT foam!?"  So what better way to remember this moment and share with you how we did it, than with a quick blog post!

**Keep in mind...we had researched this on YouTube a few weeks before.  This is NOT an original White Family idea!**

What do you need:

large, tall trashcan or bucket, water, baby soap (we used dish soap, which started burning eyes = goggles!), towel, duck tape, leaf blower with a hose attachment, trampoline is optional. 

Fill up your trash can about 1/2 way with water, add your soap (lots of it!).

Set in your leaf blower tube and attach it to the trash can with some strong tape.  We also taped a towel over the top to create more of an air pocket to make more bubbles.  It alway helped the bubble water not blow everywhere in the air.  

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Flip the switch on the leaf blower...keeping it up and away from the water!

And this is what you get!

(Can't you just hear the "OH MY GOSH!)

We took it one step further and the husband lifted it onto the trampoline.  

And that's when the FOAM FUN really began!

The picture below cracks me up!  I said "Throw up some of the bubbles"  And this is what I got...

the 5 year old throwing up the bubbles and the 7 year old...throwing up the bubbles!

BOYS!!!!

Clean up was easy...

And this is all we needed to get a great start to our week!  Who would have thought.

Happy Learning with your little ones!