Jiggly Wiggly Farm Animals

We ended our farm unit with some good old messy farm play.  It was the perfect ending to our week.  I had seen something somewhere (I really need to start paying more attention to my sources; sorry!) where you put figurines inside jello and then the kids can have fun digging them out.  Well, since I wanted them to play with them just one more time, guess what went into the jello? Yes!  The Toob figurines.  I made some clear gelatin and added some purple food coloring to it.  Dark purple food coloring.  I wanted them to really have to work to figure out what was in the individual holdings.  Here is what I ended up with:

 I think it would have been  a better experience if our refrigerator had not frozen our jello, but maybe that added an extra element to it.  In any case, Pierce loved it.  He thought it was the coolest (no pun intended) thing ever, and really got into digging all of the animals out.

Carter, on the other hand, was actually kind of scared of it.  He touched it, but freaked out when it was really squishy.  This is as far as he got;

Yes, he was certainly not a fan.  What he was a fan of, is the next step that Pierce took this to.  I figured once he dug out all of the animals, that would be the end of the play.  I purposely had him play with this in the tub, so I could just run some hot water in there, and wash the jello down the drain.  Well, I was half way right.  Most of the jello was scooped back into the muffin tin, and then the remnants were melted and washed down the drain.  BUT, before I could wash the tub out, Pierce had to put all of his sticky Toob animals on the side of the tub, so that he could wash them in the tub.  His logic?  "Mrs. Wishy Washy plopped all of the animals in the tub."

He went through and started telling the book to me.  And for the animals that Mrs. Wishy Washy did not wash in her book, Pierce made those up.  :)  Carter jumped in and started washing the animals too, and then they needed their big (mommy) animals.  This was only supposed to be a short play time, but it lasted 45 minutes total.  I know for my guys it was worth it.  They told everybody in the house the following day about their farm bath.  I also have Pierce asking me when I can do something like that again.  Maybe I can this week...after all we are doing colors and shapes.  AND I have 250 color chips.  :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!