With Halloween coming up (okay, so a month and a half away, but my kids and retailers seem to think it's tomorrow), I wanted to do something unique with a Halloween type theme. I came across this on Pinterest: http://www.artbarblog.com/play/magic-potion-party/ and I easily made it into a Witch's Potions activity suitable for toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary age kids.
I made a trip to Dollar Tree and purchased our mixing potions. I chose any apple, vanilla, or pumpkin scents of lotions, oils, soaps, shampoos, and conditioners I could find. I also added a bowl of shaving cream (only .98 cents for the can from Walmart, which was leftover from our Apple Scented Shaving Cream activity-read more on that here:
http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/09/sensory-activity-apple-scented-shaving.html and a bowl of canned pumpkin for the kiddos to stir in). I also bought plastic clear cups for the kids to use so they could see their creations (I'll be re-using these for paint cups for our activities coming up).
I made sure to open all of the lids for the kids. I also used food coloring to made orange and black water to mix into their potions. I wound up adding a third little table to give them more room to mix.
I dyed the shaving cream red and added in the apple spice for some extra smells.
The kids took a moment to smell each bottle and then the mixing began. They particularly loved adding in the lotions, baby oil, and conditioners more than the soaps. Next year when they do this, I'll be sure to buy several more bottles of these things because we ran out quite quickly and I had to break into my supply of "just in case" shampoos and conditioners.
We even had to get out our Halloween sprinkles to add on the top of the potions.
Things got messy fairly quickly......
The tables and floor may have been quite the mess, but the kids stayed surprisingly clean (in other words, no clothes were harmed in the making of the potions). Nearly 24 hours later and my kitchen still smells like soaps and shampoos and my floor is still sticky in spots (or incredibly slick from all of the soap in other spots) despite multiple scrubbings last night (our Swiffer Wet Jet got quite the work out).
I wasn't sure how it would go over since the kid's ages range from 6 - 2, but most of the kids loved mixing, pouring, stirring, smelling, and overall, making a huge mess.
