Rainbow Water Beads

Before I show you all my Chicago pictures, let's back up to last week Tuesday. Since we were going to be gone over Easter weekend, I gave Courtney her Easter basket early. As I mentioned, I put something in it for her. Hang on... you'll see in a minute!

I'd seen Rainbow Water Beads on a couple of blogs recently. Although not their intended purpose, kids seemed to have a blast playing with them! And since I like to give Courtney non-sugar treats for holidays, I thought these would just fit the bill! So I ordered some.

I got some for myself, too, because their purpose really is to use for plants and cut flowers. I wasn't about to replace my plants' soil with the beads, but I thought I could just put some on top of the soil to keep them from drying out while we were gone over the long weekend, and no one would have to bother with watering my plants. It worked! They served their purpose very well!

Here are the beads I ordered (except for the packet I gave Courtney, which was a mixture of colors). They're very tiny... each bead is maybe 1/8 inch across.

When she was here last week, we experimented with them and got them ready to put on my plants. They were definitely a hit! She played in/with them for the longest time!

Here's how they started out. We put only half of two packets in a cake pan.

They swished around nicely and were so pretty!

They started to "grow"!

See? Bigger already!

They were kind of bumpy, and felt like very firm Jello, but not as firm as gummy bears.

They were so fun to scoop up and examine!

We did a pan of two other colors, too, but we concluded that these were not nearly as pretty as those in the first pan.

Did you notice the very shriveled hands? :)

They soaked up all the water (4 cups) in each pan. The total process took about 6 hours. See what they were like toward the end - smooth and looking like marbles (but still squishy)!

Our "helper", Josie, was right there, of course. But she seemed rather bored with the whole process. I was too slow with the camera to catch her with her chin leaning on the edge of the pan. :)

This is the end result:

They were fun to squeeze, too, but if squeezed too hard, they broke into pieces (like if you squeezed that firm Jello). ;)

All in all, it was terrifically fun... to observe and to play in. Courtney wanted to take some of our finished beads home with her, but Mommy said no, so she was delighted to find a packet of her very own in the Easter basket just before she went home. (I'm not sure if Mommy was delighted or not. ;) ) 

Here's a little video of some of the fun and the chatter that went with it:

And a couple of the fun expressions I caught:

:-)