Ushaka Marine World

We decided to visit our local aquarium in order to learn more about the many sea creatures found in the Butterballs favourite book (Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea)

Ushaka Marine World is one of the tourist attractions on our sunny coast and boasts an impressive array of sea creatures housed in an aquarium that's built to  resemble a sunken ship.

When walking through the aquarium, 
you feel as though you are at the bottom of the sea, 
peering into rooms that are now home to a host of different sea creatures.

The Butterballs spent ages staring into each tank...and they asked at least a million questions (Thank goodness for the information cards at the side of each tank!)

Tamlyn's favorite tanks are the Nemo tank, the seahorse tank 
and the cuttle fish tank.

 

Ethan loooves the shark pool and Turtle Lagoon.

The Butterballs happily spent an hour racing about from tank to tank, eager to meet the next sea creature!

Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea - Bath Activity

Most of Ethan's birthday gifts had a sea-theme so this month we decided to focus on Ocean-themed activities.

The Butterballs new favourite storybook is 

'Way down deep in the deep blue sea' by Jan Peck

The story is about a boy who goes diving into the 'deep blue sea' in search of treasure. He meets many sea creatures along the way, including a scary shark. After finding his treasure, the boy surfaces in his bathtub surrounded by his bath-toy sea creatures.

 An amazing book- perfect for 3-5 year olds. The colorful illustrations, clever rhymes and repeated refrains make for fun reading.

The Butterballs were eager to recreate this fun bath-time adventure.

We used the Melissa and Doug Sunny Patch Under Sea Treasure Hunt Pool Game, as well as an assortment of sea animal bath-toys.

The Butterballs insisted on wearing their flippers and googles too! 

As they met each sea creature, Tamlyn recited the appropriate part of the story (her memory astounds me!)

Ethan joined in for the refrain.

Pretending to dive in the tub has made the Butterballs so much more confidant about sticking their heads under-water.

This activity was loads of fun, and a great way to learn while cooling off at the same time!

 

Build-a-Bunny Bathtub Fun

Craft foam is one of our favorite art supplies...they can be used in hundreds of fun ways!!

Today, the Butterballs enjoyed a splashing-good session in the tub with their new bathtub activity.

Supplies : Sheets of craft foam, a few pom poms(for the nose), scissors and a sharpie.

Cut out a bunny head and ears from the craft foam, with little fingers-the bigger, the better.

Next cut out a few features using different colored craft foam.

Draw in the eyes and whiskers using Sharpies.

Fill the tub with water, bubbles, anything you fancy and you're ready to go!
Don't you just love easy-to-set-up activities :)))

The Butterballs were delighted with their colorful bunnies and quickly set to work assembling them.


To get the craft foam pieces to stick to the tiles, we simply wet the back of the shape with a little water. If we found that the pieces weren't sticking well, I smeared a tiny bit of soap onto the back and it stuck perfectly!

The craft foam bunny puzzle is waterproof and reusable. By including many different colored pieces, the Butterballs could create and recreate different bunnies each time.

The Butterballs LOVED building their very own Easter Bunny.
Ethan had lots of fun mixing up the features to create 'a special bunny' :))

 The bunny pieces now 'live' in the bathroom cupboard, ready to come out and play through the month.

Cost efficient, reusable, fun!!!

Easter Bath Bombs

The Butterballs totally LOVE messing around with Baking soda and vinegar!
Especially when I add coloring or bubble bath.
Today I decided to give them a different kind of fizzy fun with DIY bath bombs.

Supplies : Easter egg molds, Bath bomb powder

I followed this easy recipe to make the bath bomb powder:
 (makes 9 small eggs)

3tbl baking soda (bicarb)
4tbl cream of Tartar
2tbl Epsom salt
2tbl Cornflour
1tbl olive oil
11\2 tsp essence
few drops food coloring

Stir dry ingredients with a fork.
 Add liquids and mix till coloring is well blended.
 It should have a dry crumbly texture.

Adding water causes the bath bomb to fizz, leaving you with a bombed out bomb.

I made 3 batches:
the yellow batch was lemon-scented,
the pink batch was strawberry-scented,
and I used peppermint essence in the green batch.

It smelled absolutely delicious.
I had to watch Ethan like a hawk, to make sure that he didn't taste it, to check if it was as yummy as it smelt!

Next, I filled my egg molds, pressing the powder down firmly.

The eggs were left to dry over-night.

The next day I excitedly unmolded them,

 only to find that it didn't turn out the way I had hoped  :((

Instead of sticking together and forming a perfect egg, I now had 2 neatly formed halves!

They still smelt and looked amazing - the color and scent hadn't faded a bit.

All was not lost, 

I decided to used the bath bombs in the egg mold and treat the Butterballs to an Easter Egg Bath.

I filled up the tub and tossed in their plastic eggs.

I also included a bowl full of Bath Bomb Eggs.

As expected, the Butterballs began opening up the eggs and using them to scoop and pour the water.

It didn't take them long to discover that some eggs had a surprise in them!

'What's this Mama? It's so pretty' ...Tamlyn

' Mmmm, smells good, I eat it?' ...Ethan of course!!

 I told the Butterballs that it was like a special 'bubblebath' that makes only a little bubbles, and makes the water smell nice and their skin feel silky soft.

'Oooo, silky skin!' exclaimed an eager Tamlyn!

The Butterballs quickly dropped the first few bombs into the water and watched them dissolve.

They were disappointed that there wasn't much bubbling and fizzing

 so we tried slowly lowering the bombs into the water.

Ethan began giggling cos the fizzing felt ticklish.

Tamlyn was amazed that she could hear the popping and fizzing.

I saved a few bath bombs, for the Butterballs to play with later,

 and left them to their pouring and exploring.

After they had dried off, we decided to explode our remaining bombs on a plate

(where I could get a better photo!)

I poured a tiny bit of water into the plate and placed in the bath bombs.

The Butterballs were able to see and hear the fizzing clearly.

The fizzing is nowhere near as pronounced as a baking soda\vinegar reaction,

but it was still fun to watch.

It also smelled so much better than a vinegar\bicarb reaction!!

Afterwards, the Butterballs got to play with the pretty, sweet-scented water.

An all-round feast for the senses!

Bath Play - Puffy Shaving Foam Bath Paint

The week-end is finally here!!! 
Time to relax and have some fun with my favorite ButterBalls!!

In our home, bath time=splash time!

The ButterBalls LOVE a good splash (with most of the water ending up around the tub instead of inside it!)

Today we decided to do a painting activity in the tub (less time spent on clean-up duty) so we needed a recipe for clean messy fun!

I scanned through my resource file (where I save any awesome ideas I stumble across on the Net) and I found just the thing!

A super-easy recipe for Puffy Shaving Foam Bath Paint! 

The only ingredients you require are: shaving foam and food colouring.

When it comes to sensory play, BIC shaving foam is the most cost efficient (Dads shaving gel is only used as a last resort ;)

I found that gel food colour works better than the liquid because :

• You use less food colouring.
• Adding extra liquid to the shaving foam makes it lose its puffiness.

It took about 5 minutes to mix 6 different colours. I spooned them into the ButterBalls paint palettes, filled up the tub and let them at it!

They wasted no time getting started.

My little perfectionist ditched the paintbrush cos it made her pictures 'ugly'.

Ethan on the other hand preferred the paintbrush and didn't use his hands at all. He stopped a while to enjoy the flowery scent of the shaving foam before deciding to chase a stray blob of paint using his paintbrush as a net.

Tamlyn's love of pink and purple was clearly evident!

Ethan just wanted to mess around.

Guess which palette is Ethan's!

Once all the paint had been used up, Ethan entertained himself by playing pouring and stacking games. 

Tamlyn just splashed in the 'pretty water'.

Even clean-up time was fun. 

Definitely doing this again ...maybe on the windows next time ;) 
Great start to the weekend!!