July 4th Activities, part 1

As any good stay at home would, I have started with some 4th of July activities.  Funny thing: my kids are 1 and 3, do they even give a rats bum about the 4th?  We will BBQ and maybe see the fireworks, though I don't feel up for dealing with the craziness of crowds so unless we can see them from our deck, we will miss them.  Oh well, I'm doing these activities anyway, but the truth is they can be done any day of the year :)

Fireworks in a Jar

I first saw this on Pinterest and spent some time looking at a few different websites and decided ok this must be cool.  Honestly, only slightly and it took us 4 tries to get it right!

Fill a jar 3/4 of the way with warm water (that was my mistake on the first 2 efforts)

In a separate bowl put 3-4 Tbsp oil then add in a few drops each of a few colors (food coloring)  Gently mix with a fork

Gently pour oil into water and VOILA! Fireworks!  Well, kind of.  The drops slowly fall through the oil and when they hit the water the color disperses. 

Failed attempt

On our 4th attempt we skipped the oil bowl.  We put the oil directly in the jar then once that settled at the top, we dropped the colors in.  I actually found that to work the best.  Though the oil and colors left some pretty designs in the bowl in the traditional method.  Either way, it's quick and fun for the little ones.