DIY Sponge Balls & Painting With Water Activity For Kids

The weather is finally starting to shape up here in Wyoming so I recently decided to let my son play in the backyard for as long as he wants. In fact, it’s been high 70’s and no wind. It’s been BEAUTIFUL. Definitely a change from the snow we had a few weeks back. I really hope this means spring is here to stay. {Fingers crossed} But I’ll just hold my breathe because snow can still come {rumor has it, it snowed in July one year!}Because of the recent beautiful weather, I even pulled out the little plastic pool for him. I’m telling you, the weather was nice!

And even though the weather was so nice that we could spend all day outside, I still needed to throw a “crafty” spin on our activities. {Duh, cause that’s what I do!}

I have seen these DIY “sponge balls” all over Pinterest lately and decided it was time to make some for lil man too. The supplies are easy/affordable and can be found at your Dollar Tree all year long.

Find all the details and supply list below, for this DIY Sponge Ball tutorial! Happy crafting, my friends! #gluedtomycrafts

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Here is what you need:

* Various Colored Sponges {I find that the bigger but thinner ones are best for this!}
* Cable Ties {pack of 100 for $1, WHAT?}
* Basic Craft Scissors

I spent a total of $5 on our supplies and it made plenty of sponge balls for him to play with!

THE DIRECTIONS:

• To make “small” sponge balls, hold the sponge long wise & cut into four.
• Then stack/sandwich them just like the pictures above. {You can add as many pieces as you want in between your fingers}
• Take your cable tie and wrap it around the center of your sponge stack.
• Now pull/tighten the cable tie as much as you can, around the sponges.
• Cut off the excess cable tie with scissors.
• If you want “larger” sponge balls, grab two sponges and cut them the other direction. Do the same steps as above.
• Now repeat over and over again, until you have a whole fleet of sponge balls!
• To play with, just dunk them in water and throw however you like {within reason and not in a way to harm anyone :-)

Besides the sponge balls, I also pulled out some plastic bowls from the kitchen and paint brushes, so we could “paint” on the ground. It was just a different way to entertain him on the cheap. Since water from the tap is practically free – you can see where I was going with this :-)

He painted squiggles and I drew hearts. I even tried to throw in some learning lessons by drawing/talking out letters/numbers to him. Lil man never really realized that the water was evaporating. He just had fun painting & I didn’t have to worry about cleaning up since it was just water. He was even able to paint on himself {Hey, he’s still a curious toddler} and we threw the sponge balls in the air for extra fun. Overall, we had fun with water & simple supplies.

If you want some color in your “paint” I’m sure adding some food coloring or watercolors to the water would do the trick!

So what fun stuff did you do this weekend? Share with us in the comment section! #gluedtomycrafts