Packing Peanut Snowmen

I think that these little snowman turned out so cute...

We made these back at the beginning of December when some birthday packages for my daughter arrived. Do you remember this I-Spy with packing peanuts post? We had a packing peanut snowball fight, played our I-spy game, and made these snowman pictures.

They are super easy.

Materials Needed: Elmers glue, packing peanuts, scraps of paper, scissors, googly eyes, and buttons (or anything else you want to decorate with). You also need a paper with a snowman outline on it. I drew these with markers. You could probably also print off a basic coloring page outline from online.

Directions: Glue the packing peanuts to the snowman outline and then decorate with scraps, buttons, and googly eyes!

I love crafts like this because the kids are so adorable just sitting around together talking about their buttons, silly eyes, and where they want to put their carrot noses. Craft time that doesn't have too many rules and is mostly open-ended is perfect for conversation time. I love creative chat time.

It reminds me of women sitting around quilting and talking... but in this case, we had a group of little boys sitting around squishing packing peanuts and chatting.

When we were done, we did a little science experiment with the rest of the packing peanuts.

I asked the boys- "What would happen if we pour water on the packing peanuts?"

They each made a hypothesis.

Then I let them pour and pour and pour. They loved running to the fridge and re-filling their cups again and again as they dumped water in my bowl.

After awhile we made some observations. The "snow" (packing peanuts) was melting!

It turned into a big mush and the boys were so excited to show the mush to their moms when they came to pick them up.

I'm sure many of you have tried this experiment before, but if not, this set of packing peanuts was biodegradable... so they "melt" in water and you can wash them down your sink. I love them- especially for activities like this! The kids think that it is magical. I hate the other type of packing peanuts (though I read somewhere that they melt if you use nail polish remover- has anyone tried it?). 

I highly encourage you to have a packing peanut snowball fight and make some snowmen if you have any leftover packing peanuts from recent Christmas packages.

Happy Sunday!

BTW- did you know that yesterday was our Blogiversary? We've been blogging here at Toddler Approved for 2 years now- isn't that crazy? 

To celebrate and thank all of our wonderful readers for being so fabulous, we have a fun giveaway that we are going to share with you later today... so make sure to check back! (If you were on Facebook last night, I said I would post it last night... but time got away from me and hanging out with my husband took precedence. Thanks for celebrating with us!)