Painted myself into a corner - any help tonight!

[acnebride]

I've volunteered to 'lead' a Messy Play session tomorrow morning while the normal leader is on holiday. It's for 2 year olds upwards. Having played telephone tag for a couple of weeks, she has now GONE on holiday, I don't know where her stuff is so I'm going to have to make my own entertainment. I'm a bit clueless. There's usually quite a strong theme to this group. Can you help me think beyond -

newspaper to protect everything (can I actually do anything crafty in 2 hours with newspaper? I've got lots of it LOL)

potatoes to cut for printing

can I combine homemade playdough, which I've just learned to make, in an inspired way with paint? I would do a playdough making session but they did one of those 3 weeks ago, curses.

HELP!!

What about a big tub/bowl of shaving foam with food colouring or paint drissled in. It's really squidgy and slimy and was a great hit at the toddler group I go to.

How about making those trees from paper, roll them up quite tight, cut down into paper to make branches and then pull up. You can then paint them.

or make chains of people, paint each one different, that will take some time and be less messy! good luck

Or cornflour and water - food colouring optional. Stir it about and tip or scoop onto trays or table top if don't mind mess. It swings between the two states of being a liquid one minute and a solid the next - fascinates parents just as much as children.

You could start them off making these (they would have to finish them at another time obviously) but you would only need newspaper, balloons & flour for tomorrow, You could maybe get them doing coin rubbings or something afterwards if you have time to kill keeping the whole money theme?

Make a Paper Mache Piggy Bank
You'll need these materials:

A balloon
Newspaper
Masking tape
1 cup of flour
1 1/2 cup of water
4 cups of boiling water
Pink tempera paint (or any other color you'd like your pig to be)
Paintbrush
Masking tape
A pink pipe cleaner
A knife (a craft knife will work best)
A paper egg carton
Black paint or markers
What to do:
Before you begin, blow up a balloon and then cut a bunch of 1-inch wide strips of newspaper. Put them to the side for later use.

First, you'll make the papier-mâché body and head.

Mix a cup or so of flour and 1 cup of water together in a mixing bowl. Stir it well, until the mixture is thin.
Stir in 4 cups of boiling water.
Let the mixture simmer for about 3 minutes, then leave it to cool. This will be your glue.
Take the strips of newspaper you've cut, dip them one at a time in the flour glue, and wrap them around the balloon.
Cover the balloon with about two to three layers of newspaper strips. Allow each layer to dry well before adding another.
After you've completely covered the balloon, let it dry for a day or two.
When it's completely dry, make a tiny opening so that you can pop the balloon and remove it from the inside. This will be the body and head of the pig.

Now, make the rest of the body.

Separate five sections of the paper egg carton.
Attach one egg carton section for each leg and one for the snout, using the masking tape.
Paint your pig. Then allow the paint to dry for several hours.
Make a small hole at the end of the pig for its tail.
Shape the pipe cleaner into a spiral and insert it into the hole.
Take a marker or some black paint, and give your pig eyes.
Cut a slot at the top of the body, where you can drop your money.

Thats a nice idea, Bubblerock - I might try that with dd.
If you did southeastastras idea of newspaper trees you could maybe also do hand print leaves to stick on a big tree trunk to make a tree collage.

These are superb, thank you.

I love the papier-mache bit but think I will leave that for a longer-term commitment. The trees and tree collage are perfect - maybe I'll get them making strings of leaves instead of strings of people so that the foliage builds up quickly. Marvellous.

Riddo, sorry to sound even more clueless, the shaving foam with paint - do you mean aerosol shaving foam, presumably? And then what - use it to marble paper, or to splash about and paint with? (I don't remember doing anything so good in my youth, bar humbug. Of course ye olde shaving soap might not have been so good).

Sorry I know my reply is too late. Yes I meant aerosol foam just sprayed out into the tub with a bit of liquid paint swirled over the top. It's not really creative - just fun and messy. I suppose you could take a print from the paint but when I saw it done it was just for the joy of squidging it about.