DIY Upgraded $1 Store Easter Magnets

I don't often go to the Dollar Store and now I remember why. They have a ton of awesome deals that I can never pass up because, come on, it's only $1! Well, right now they have these awesome Easter refrigerator magnets in stock. I bought one of each set: the Easter rabbit, and the 5 chicks.

As soon as we got home I opened up the package, popped them out of their forms, and stuck them on the fridge for my little one to begin playing with (why wait until Easter?). She was thrilled and immediately begin pulling them off and presenting them to me as if I had never seen them before in my life. She's pretty adorable.

While wondering if I could recycle the leftover magnet forms, it hit me (duh!) why don't I upcycle them myself?! I could cut them up and make extra (and educational) magnets for Rose. So that's exactly what I did.

I always have to remind myself not to get too fancy. Why put a lot of energy and time into something that my child will probably crumple up and ruin in seconds? So I didn't. I took some index cards and wrote out "purple", "blue", "pink", "green", and "pink" then cut them out. I cut out some funky shaped-magnets and hot-glued them to the back. In less then 5 minutes, I had made color magnets that corresponded to the 5 little chicks that I just bought. I also spelled Rose's name out and made each letter it's own magnet. Another plus, I still have 1 1/2 sheets of extra magnets left for future magnet-making.

Afternoon Activity: 2 Ingredient Fake Snow

If you search online for winter activities for toddlers, you will be bombarded with a zillion different “recipes” for fake or artificial snow. Rose and I are going to go ahead and make several of these over the next several days and post our findings on which snow is the best snow. Here’s day one:

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Shampoo
• 3 cup Baking Soda

 Activity:

We made a smaller version of this recipe since we will be making a lot of snow over the next week. Since the recipe is a simple 1:6 ratio, I began with 6 Tbs of baking soda and eventually added the 1 Tbs of shampoo later. But first Rose played with the baking soda. This is quickly becoming her favorite part of almost all of our activities. Whether it be baking soda, flour, salt, or whatever. I then added the shampoo and helped her mix it in. It should clump like in the picture below and you should be able to compress it into a shapes.

Rose then played around in the fake snow, while I made her a snowman using sprinkles for his face. I apologize for the lovey dovey face the snowman is giving. Unfortunately, all I had were Valentine’s Day sprinkles. Rose played with it for a couple minutes but quickly grew bored. That’s when I pulled the vinegar out. Rose and I melted that poor snowman sucker. 

Conclusion:

Pros:

• 2 Ingredients
• Smells lovely. I used coconut smelling shampoo.
• Multiple opportunities to discuss colors, sounds, textures, smells, and maybe even taste with little ones.
• Making it took around 5-10 minutes and playing with it took around 10-15 minutes.
• “Melting” the snowman with vinegar is fun and is probably the best part of the activity.

 Cons:

• Depending on which shampoo you use, the smell may be a bit overkill.
• Rose quickly grew bored with the snow itself. I don’t see this as big of a problem with older kids.
• If you do the vinegar step, you cannot keep and reuse.

Overall Rating: 5 Stars

I have no other fake snow to compare this recipe to yet, but I’d say that Rose’s overall experience with this activity was great! She enjoyed playing with the baking soda by itself at the beginning, and then had fun mixing in the shampoo. She may not have completely understood the concept of playing with the crumbly snow, but as soon as I brought out the vinegar and droppers she was back at having fun. The overall activity took around 30 minutes from beginning to end with a quick 10 minute clean up time. So it ate a good chunk of our afternoon boredom away.

Other Variations:

• I would definitely suggest this activity for a play date. Let each kid make their own batch of snow, then play with it, and finally let them turn it into a goopy sludge.
• Add glitter to the shampoo prior to mixing your two ingredients to make glitter snow.