I took a regular paper bag, turned it inside out and made a mountain out of it. I painted the top with white acrylics and the river with blue. I left an opening on the back - it was our cave. I taped the mountain to a tray and put green colored rice around it.
First my daughter did not even notice the cave, she just played with the animals. They ate the grass and drank water from the river.
When she got bored with it, I turned the tray around and she saw a cave full of minerals.
I found the recipe for the minerals here but I changed it a little bit. I took Himalayan pink sea salt and colored it with food coloring. I squeezed a few drops of food coloring in a zip-lock bag with a little bit of salt. I was supposed to get bright transparent crystals but mine were a little muddy and dark, probably because I was using pink salt instead of regular white salt. I spread them on a paper towel and when they were dry I poured glue from a hot glue gun over them to get them to look like gems.
My daughter took all of the gems out of the cave right away. As she looked through them I was naming gems that I knew of the colors that we had.
First my daughter did not even notice the cave, she just played with the animals. They ate the grass and drank water from the river.
When she got bored with it, I turned the tray around and she saw a cave full of minerals.
I found the recipe for the minerals here but I changed it a little bit. I took Himalayan pink sea salt and colored it with food coloring. I squeezed a few drops of food coloring in a zip-lock bag with a little bit of salt. I was supposed to get bright transparent crystals but mine were a little muddy and dark, probably because I was using pink salt instead of regular white salt. I spread them on a paper towel and when they were dry I poured glue from a hot glue gun over them to get them to look like gems.
My daughter took all of the gems out of the cave right away. As she looked through them I was naming gems that I knew of the colors that we had.
nice
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