Light Table Design

Closet Playroom

A few months ago we swapped our bedroom with our daughter's bedroom.  Since the kids were going to have to share a room we wanted them to have the "bigger" closet.  I had planned on putting the dresser/changing table in the closet but it didn't work out.  So I decided to make it into a play area.  I moved all the toys from her room into the closet which opened up space for the dresser in the room.
 
Looking into the closet-
 This bar holds all of her dress up clothes and accessories that are separated into different bags.

Left side of the closet-
  Hanging shoe and clothes racks now hold stuffed animals and extra blankets and pillows.  The shelves underneath hold boxes that contain her My Little Ponies, larger toys, and more stuffed animals. 

 Floor-
I added a small basket of books to the floor so that she can easily sit in the closet and read to her animals.

Right side of the closet-
 My husband added a shelf which holds her large play house.  Behind her play house are her large dress up costumes (you can see the unicorn on the left side).  Under the shelf are three small plastic organizers.

Black Organizer-
 Drawers 1-3 hold her toob animals.  Right now they are organized into Sea Animals, Carnivores, and All Other Animals.  Drawer 4 holds her small Toy Story characters.  Drawer 5 holds her toob set of famous buildings.

White Organizer-
 Holds all of her small My Little Ponies and the accessories that go with them.
 
Larger White Organizer-
Drawers 1-2 hold her Tag Reader, books, and activities.  Drawer 3 holds all of her Hot Wheels.

We use the clothes bar on the right side of the closet for her dresses, coat/sweaters for the kids, my husband's suit and suit shirts and a couple of my dresses (these items are too long to fit in our bedroom closet).  The top shelves of the closet hold extra blankets, a box to put clothes in that are too small, a box that contains the next size up of baby clothes and random stuff.

Neon Paintings


My daughter does not spend much time just coloring so all the great coloring books people buy us just sit around.  I decided to try painting the coloring pages since my daughter loves painting.  We had just bought neon paint to use under the black light and I figured that would make the project even more fun so I pulled it out (we use Creatology Neon Paint from Micheals).  She picked out some My Little Pony coloring sheets (because we live and breathe My Little Ponies).  We painted with the lights on but then taped the sheets up and switched to the black light.
 
 
Horrible picture but you can see how well they glow.  She was super excited.  We have decided to start painting more neon pictures to decorate the wall behind the black light table.
 
 
 
PS- This has been one of my favorite crafts from the last year.  I might have got carried away and kept painting long after my daughter was done with the activity.

Growing Crystals

I bought this "Grow Your Own Crystal" kit at Micheal's.  It came with three small packets of crystals (Purple, Blue and Clear).  They are just like large water beads that are not round. 
 
Like water beads, you just submerge the crystals in water and wait for them to grow.
 
My daughter pulled out her binoculars to help her watch the crystals grow.  They take a while to reach their full size so she went back to playing and checked back about every ten minutes.

She really liked these because they are different then the small water beads she usually plays with.  She called them squishy diamonds and pretended she had found a treasure.

 
After playing with them for a while she asked for a towel to put her diamonds on and then pulled out her magnifying glass.  She spent a few minutes in deep concentration inspecting her diamonds.
 
 
We played with these for a couple times by themselves and then she decided to mix them with her water beads.  She has been having fun with the squishy mix of beads and "diamonds".

Fluorscent Rainbow Rice

This Fluorescent Rainbow Rice turned out great. 



It is fun to play with any time because of the bright colors but it is wonderful under the black light.
 
 
I still have not figured out the best way to photograph in black light but you can see that the rice is glowing really well.
 
Here is the site that gave me the idea including the recipe they used.
 
I used Creatology's Neon Paint from Micheal's.

Blacklight and Ponies


My daughter has been trying out all of her toys on the black light table to see which ones glow the best.  Even if they don't glow she has a lot of fun pretending that the lit up area is water or lava or pretending like all of her toys are throwing a big party. 
 
 
Here is a picture of her My Little Ponies having a party on the black light table.
As you can see a couple of them glow really well but the majority do not.
 
Anything that your child finds fun in regular lighting becomes twice as much fun
when you shut off the lights and add a fun black light glow.

Bath Math

My daughter loves bath time!  Everything becomes more fun when she is splashing around in the water.  I like to introduce new concepts and review previously learned concepts while in the bath.  I find it especially helpful to work on concepts she is having trouble with while in the bath.
 
Here are a couple pictures of "Bath Math".
 
This picture is from when she was learning to identify numbers 0-10 and put them in the correct order.  I love to use these foam bath numbers.  They easily stick to the side of the tub and they float  so she can easily scan the top of the water to find the number she needs.
(Bath numbers were bought at Target).
 
Here is a picture of what we are currently working on.  She is able to count to 100 almost independently now but is having a little trouble identifying larger numbers.  So we made a "Bath Math" game.  She randomly chooses two numbers and puts them together on the side of the tub.  Then she chooses two more and puts them on the wall together leaving a space between the last number set.  She tries reading the numbers by herself and then uses a bath crayon to draw a greater than or less than sign between the numbers.  For some reason she loves doing greater than or less than problems so adding that element after reading the numbers makes it fun for her.  After she has solved that problem she makes waves high enough to knock the numbers down and then starts again.
 
I love that I will be able to keep doing "Bath Math" for a long time.  These foam numbers will still come in handy in the next two years as my daughter learns larger numbers, place value, decimals, etc.