Exploring Sound with Balloons

One thing guaranteed to fill half an hour with giggles for a three year old is a balloon. My son’s favourite thing to do at the moment is to (have me) blow a balloon up, hold it without a knot and then let it fly around the room. He loves trying to catch it, following every movement with his eyes, and he loves the sound it makes. Taking this cue, I decided to spend some time with him exploring all the different sounds a balloon can make.

The wonderful thing about sounds and balloons is the wide variety. There are loud and soft sounds which encourage both belly laughs and quiet patience. It is fun to try to imitate the sounds. This is great for developing speech and giving young children confidence in their voice.

After letting a full balloon fly around the room a few times, I needed a rest from blowing it up. So we made some sounds with a deflated balloon. We made it snap by stretching it and letting go of one side near the floor. Then we made it go "boing" very quietly as we stretched and loosened it quickly.

Stretching the Balloon

Once the balloon is blown up, listening to the air escape is hilarious. We heard the classic raspberry as it flew around the room and made a screech when we pulled the end open.

Screeeeeeeech! (My son took this picture - very proud)

 

The full balloon makes a very satisfying "doof" and "boom" when hit on objects around the room. My son enjoyed hitting things he usually can’t, including my head! It was very satisfying for him. Scraping a finger over the surface of the balloon gave an odd scraping noise. He called it "binga-binga"!

Making More Noise on the Balloon

Copying the sounds was fun - slow at first but he soon got the hang of it. Maybe he’ll be more inclined to make an effort when his little brother is giving some noise competition!

I’m sure there are more sounds to be made with balloons. I’d love to read about them in the comments, let me know what you hear.

Balloon on Balcony

Painting with Cars

It’s always all about the cars, and then the bus gets involved and then the train shows up. No matter what we do, something with wheels either accompanies us or distracts us. So one day, to avoid distraction, we painted with cars. It was a huge success. It created an interesting piece of art too.

We have a large plastic table cloth, around 1 by 1.5 meters, which we have been using for a long time for just about anything. We like to work on the floor and this large white water-resistant mat has been our canvas for paint, play dough, colouring, cutting, water play and more. On this day it really was our canvas, and I also discovered that the pizza boxes I had thought perfect for painting on were just too small. This boy thinks big and needs a lot of space.

So, with one plastic sheet, paint and a few vehicles, he was off.

First he assigned two colours to each vehicle...

and then watched the paint move and mix as the buses travelled.

 I gave him one rule: Stay on the mat.

There were some amazing patterns in the tracks. He just kept on going round and round and round.

With cars, colours and a clear limit he was happy to make a creative mess. I left him to it.

This is the finished picture.

A few days later we added more paint (and a few more cars!):

The next time he asked if he could stand in the paint. He had a wonderful time ‘ice skating’ across his painting.

(Pic to come)

We plan to keep adding and adding to it.
So, what was the benefit of this mess?

• Practicing lots of fine and gross motor skills
• Watching colours mix and mix again
• Observing the effect of an solid object moved through liquid
• Enjoying creating a big piece of art with his most beloved vehicles

Coloured Foam

I had read a few things about shaving foam and the benefits of using it as a new sensory experience. It's fun, interesting and clean. So I jumped on the band wagon and bought some. We had fun squishing it, blowing it, throwing it around and painting our faces with it. Then I decided to make a cloud jar. There are also some good pictures here.

The suggestion was to use food colouring and pipets, but as usual, we didn't have these things. I collected:

• empty jam jars
• shaving foam
• paint watered down in an old ice cube tray
• a plastic syringe from a fever medicine bottle
• water
• lots of newspaper

all of which was on a kids table on our plastic craft sheet that I'd layed on the floor. B doesn't like to make a big mess, but the risk of spills was high.

I expected excitement at the foam in the jar, interest in the paint as it hit the foam, comments about the water changing colour. So, reminding myself to stay quiet and let him do the work, I watched with baited breath for the result.

The excitement I felt was not matched by B's! He was so concentrated on using the syringe to get all the paint out of the ice cube tray and make it shoot through the foam that the colours mixing and foam changing was put in on the sideline. However, he worked his hands well during the 30 minutes this activity took, and he enjoyed gaining expertise in paint sucking and shooting! I'll have to find more things to do with the tray and syringe that don't involve aiming it around the room!