Treasure Rocks!

I found this cute activity on Play Create Explore's blog.  I had two cans of coffee we'd bought as fertilizer but we didn't end up using.  I didn't have play sand but it worked fine skipping it.  Basically the coffee and sand make the rocks grainy, the flour and water make the mixture stick together.  You can play with proportions.  The only downside of this recipe is that I had to hand knead it and I don't like the smell of coffee.  I've had my hands in yuckier stuff though so I toughed it out :)

I found some of Chiquitita's multiplicity of little toys (Daddy spoils her by buying these little toys from machines anytime we go out) and molded the dough around it.  I decided to let the rocks dry over a few days rather than cook them.  I was a little concerned about melting the toys (though no blogs I read seemed to have that problem, just me being worried).

I wish I had smoothed them out and shaped them a little more since, honestly, they ended up looking a little more like poop than rocks.  Maybe the play sand would have helped with the color.  Fortunately Chiquitita is not interested in poo yet so we didn't have to have any discussions in that direction, but just a word of warning for other moms.


Today was reveal day!  Chiquitita was interested in the rocks but needed help from Mommy to break them open.

Each of her toys were more exciting than they had been for some time, even if they were a little "dirty".  I think this was super fun and I'm trying to figure out if we can work this into her birthday party coming up!