Yes, you can BAKE cotton balls, and they are awesome!
Another idea from MaryAnn Kohl's book "Art with Anything". I thought this was just such a cool idea and so easy to whip up in a few minutes. These are cotton balls covered with a flour/water mixture and baked in the oven! They come out looking like rocks but are in fact "light as a cotton ball!"
My mom said they look like "dinosaur poop" so we've called them that too.
what you need
1 cup flour
1 cup water
cotton balls
food coloring (optional)
what you do
1. combine and mix the flour and water
I added a little extra water because it was pretty thick
2. Pour mixture into separate bowls (if you're going to make different colors)
3. Add food coloring OR use as is. (you can paint them after they are baked)
4. Dip your cotton balls into the mixture.
Fully coat them and then place on a greased cookie sheet.
5. Bake for 45 minutes-an hour at 300 degrees
TADA!
you can also make them touch on the cookie sheet and they'll bake together to form whatever shape you arranged them in! I experimented with this myself.
It's lots of fun to break them open after they are baked because they have that hard shell so they CRUNCH but they are still all cottony soft inside!
you don't actually NEED a hammer to break them. You can step on them and break them. But since we have a soft head hammer I thought he'd have fun doing it this way.
oooo whats in there?
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This is so cute!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
Thank you :)
ReplyDeleteToo cool - I bet they are fun to crush!
ReplyDeleteLOVE this!
ReplyDeleteCool idea! Never heard of until now! Coming from An Indiana Mom who mentioned your post!
ReplyDeleteAlso saw this on Indiana Mom. How very unusual!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your comment on An Indiana Mom! I accidentaly hit delete though :-(
ReplyDeleteGlad we could help share your great ideas! We look forward too seeing more of your fun things!
So I saw this on Pinterest and since we were doing letter B I decided it was a must do for us. We had so much fun banging and stomping them to hear the crunch sound. I linked back to your post on my blog. Thanks for sharing. You can see our go with the baked cotton balls at http://1mommysjourney.weebly.com/1/post/2012/02/baked-cotton-balls.html
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say what a wonderful little blog you have here! I've been absorbed for the past hour - pinning your activities to my pinterest so I remember to try them. I work with little 'uns and always in need of inspiration - plus I have a busy 2 year old who needs lots of stimulation at home! Thanks again for all your great ideas, you're a very inspiring lady - I'll be back soon for more! x
ReplyDeleteJessie, I love your blog, thank you! I made these for my 2 year old. My 19 year old thought they were a cute idea for her and started playing with them with her baby sister. Then her boyfriend started playing with them. But the 2 year old got bored and left, and the 2 19 year olds KEPT playing with them!! They were so cute and goofy. They played keep away, catch, basketball and "snowball fights". I got such a kick out of their childlike playfulness and had to write you about it!
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome idea! It's a rainy day here in San Francisco and your blog is truly an inspiration. I'm going to try these baked cotton balls with my 1.5 year old daughter. I'm going to try to do a few of your activities each week with her. Thank you!!
ReplyDeleteI tried the baked cotton balls yesterday with my 1.5 yr old. We both had a lot of fun covering the cotton balls with colored goo. The only thing is that after we baked them, the shell wasn't easily crunchable.... it was like a thin layer hardend. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteThanks Alex! If the cotton balls were SUPER hard you may have put too much coating on them and baked them for too long...although you may not have done anything wrong at all. They "shell" is quite hard after baking. My son wouldn't have been able to crack them just using his hands. He had to step on them to crunch them.
ReplyDeleteMary, thank you for sharing such a cute story! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat about something that the kids can eat instead of a cotton ball? Any ideas? I can't think of anything.
ReplyDeleteWould it be possible to shape the cotton around an object to make a dinosaur egg, or something? Then when the child breaks it open a small prize would be revealed. This would be great for a birthday party or something!
ReplyDeleteHmmm, that i'm not sure of, although it would be neat! I have used coffee dough to make dinosaur eggs with small dinosaurs and other trinkets inside. They were a big hit! http://www.playcreateexplore.com/2010/09/make-your-own-dinosaur-egg-or-treasure.html
ReplyDeleteI am so excited to try this! I'm going to post some fun kids stuff next week, I'll be sure to link back to your blog. I hope you'll visit me sometime :)
ReplyDeleteJennifer
www.dainty-posies.blogspot.com
Fantastic idea - we'll be trying this on Friday! Thank you for posting.
ReplyDeleteI did this today with my girls, and they loved it! They loved it so much, in fact, they wanted to use the cotton balls to paint themselves with the flour mixture. I let them have at it, planning to just put them in the tub after, but a word of advice: don't let them put it in their hair! A bath, a shower, a fine toothed comb, and we are still picking bits of flour mixture out. Live and learn. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is too cute. Now i need some grandkids to try it on.
ReplyDeleteAwesome idea, my 2 year old loved the goo and stomping them once dried, I would toss one on the ground then have her name the color before she jumped on it, there are so many ways to encorperate learning in this fun activity! As a side note, when we ran out of cotton balls I quickly shredded some newspaper and blew up a balloon. She soaked the papers in the goo and I wrapped them around the balloon, her "dinosaur egg" is drying on a cup and due to hatch when he is dry. :) had I been thinking before hand I would have put a small dinosaur in the balloon before hand but now it's looks like I'll have to make a dollar store run and utilize the Elmer's glue! Thanks for all the inspiration!
ReplyDeleteWe did this today and the kids loved it! Just an FYI 1 cup of flour + 1 cup of water yielded 25 covered cotton balls for us. So much fun!
ReplyDeleteSo much fun!! And super messy which led us to fun time in the kitchen sink! 2 activities in 1!
ReplyDeleteDid this today with my 2 1/2 year old daughter and we had a blast!! LOVED this idea. We baked the cotton balls in different individual colors, and then "prettied" them up as my daughter would say with paint and glitter. She had the time of her life! Can't wait to do this again! Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a cute idea! I am going to use it tomorrow with my 2-year old book club group and I will link back to you when I blog about it! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHappy 2013!
Stephanie
Just found this through Twodaloo's link. I am SO excited to try it. My son will LOVE making them and breaking them. Perfect activity for a two year old!
ReplyDeleteyou are one cool mom!
ReplyDeleteHi Jessie! I just wanted to drop in & say hi, & thanks for all the great ideas! I may not be on fb, but I'm still around as I need fun ideas to fill all our free time now. I am really enjoying it! Tuesday we browsed the book store for quite some time, & finally decided on the 1st book in the Magic Tree House series, "Dinosaurs Before Dark." I was thrilled to see your coffee ground excavating activity the next morning. I quickly grabbed a small tupperware, used what coffee I had, & threw in a few prehistoric fossils from a toob I had(including dino footprint, skin, t-rex tooth, raptor claw, etc). This kept her (us) entertained for the whole day! Tomorrow, we are doing baked cotton balls as truffula trees! Thanks again for the wonderful ideas!
ReplyDeletewould this work with cornflour for our wheat free children in my setting?
ReplyDelete