Salt Dough Beads

January and February are NOT my favourite months in the Great White North.  If it weren't for viruses and illnesses I might be singing a different tune...maybe we'd get outside and enjoy the cold instead of staying inside, loathing a cold!
So, we have to find things to keep us busy!  Sophia and I made Salt Dough Beads!  This was a great project since she was home for a few days were were able to work on them over many days.  They were super easy.

Ingredients
1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup luke warm water
Directions
1. In a large bowl mix salt and flour.
2. Gradually stir in water. Mix well until it forms a doughy consistency.
3. With your hands, form a ball with your dough and kneed it for at least 5 minutes. The longer you kneed your dough the smoother it will be.

Store your salt dough in a air tight container and you will be able to use it for days.

Bake your creations at 200 F until they are dry. The amount of time needed to bake your creations depend on size and thickness; thin flat ornaments may only take 45-60 minutes, thicker creations can take 2-3 hours or more.

You can paint your creations with acrylic paints and seal with varnish or polyurethane spray.
You can let your salt dough creations air dry.

Snow Day Survival!!!

    
Today was out third snow day in as many weeks!  Between snow days and sick days, I'm having to come up with a lot of things to do while I'm trapped in the house with a 5 year old.  I'm a little out of practice.  These days, when she's not at school, we're either playing outside, visiting friends or at the Science Centre...we don't spend a lot of time in the house anymore!
The last day she stayed home due to weather, it we got about 20cm of snow, today it poured rain all day...weird weather!  So, we decided to make an equally weird experiment...SLIME!!


Cornstarch Slime
 
 What You'll Need

• bowl
• cornstarch
• water (the amount of water required will depend on the amount of cornstarch used)
• large spoon
• food colouring

What to Do

• Place the cornstarch in the bowl.
• Use the large spoon to stir the cornstarch while adding the water a little at a time. Keep stirring and adding small amounts of water until all the cornstarch is wet.  It won't be easy to stir, you might have to use your hands...it's weird stuff!
• Add a few drops of food colouring to the mixture.
• Keep adding small amounts of water and stirring until a thick slime forms.
• Pick up a handful of slime and squeeze it, it will feel hard, open your and and watch it run through your fingers!  It's messy but an easy clean up.

It is the ‘shear force’ which causes the slime to become thicker.   As soon as the shear force is removed, the slime becomes runny again.
Try mixing plain flour with water – does this behave in the same way as cornstarch slime? It is a little bit messier.