Ocean Bath

I loved the ocean bath from Growing a Jeweled Rose and set out to make one for Cooper and Trip. I started by boiling a pound of spaghetti in water with green food coloring to make some fun seaweed. I also used the water I boiled the noodles in to color the bath water. In retrospect, I would have used less of the green water so that the blue coloring I put in the bath water would have come out more.

I also painted the tub walls with a mixture of shaving cream and washable finger paint.

The boys were excited to open the door and find an ocean (or fish tank as Trip called it). They were not so sure about the "seaweed," however. Cooper got in first but Trip had to play with the noodles before he would get in the tub.

Once he was in the tub, though, he was all about exploring the spaghetti!

He even started putting it all over himself.

Cooper liked playing with the fish. Watch out for the shark!

They had some fun imaginary play with the fish too, pretending they were a family.

After a while, they were done with the pasta and helped me scoop it out of the water. We collected it and put it in the fridge so that they could play with it in the water table later. I certainly don't advocate wasting food, so if we're going to use food in our activities, we'll get several uses out of it whenever possible.

Once they were done playing, I enlisted the boys' help to clean the walls. I gave them each an old toothbrush and let them scrub away!

This bath was a big success and provided them with about forty-five minutes of fun!