Posts Tagged ‘crafts’
Today we are excited to link up to A Mommy’s Adventures A Story + Art, a great stART. It’s one of my favorite memes and I’m excited to get involved. We’ve had the Twelve Dancing Princesses checked out from the library for several weeks and have loved it. I have loved it every bit as much as the girls.
I love the imagery and the illustrations (our version is illustrated by Adrienne Adams). The princesses walk through three different forests to get to the castle where they dance. Each forest is described in a different way: one has leaves with silver drops, one has leaves sprinkled with gold and the final has leaved that sparkle with diamonds.
We started by making leaves from each of the different forests. I drew three different leaf shapes on water color paper. Then I had Sammi (5) watercolor the leaves. Since we’re working on color mixing and tertiary colors she used green, blue-green and yellow-green. After the leaves were dry we cut them out and decorated them with glitter and clear jewels (for diamonds). We were then inspired by this picture:
And put our leaves into a bouquet. This time we painted the water color paper first, then doodled different flowers on the dried paper. Then we cut them out. We put the branches with the leaves down first then layered the flowers over the top. I was just as invested in the creative process of this project as the girls and did way more than I usually do. But it was hard to resist the temptation to make a bouquet on a 12″x17″ sized paper.
I’m not great at taking pictures during the process. But it took us three or four days to do all the parts and finally get it put together. Check out other great books and art projects here or learn more about stART here.
In the spirit of love and friendship that Valentine’s Day always spreads, I have a free gift for you. I created the ebook Laptime Songs for Mommies back in 2009. I had a musician friend compose and record his versions of some nursery rhymes. Then I found variations on lyrics for these songs as well as wrote some of my own. They are all put together in an interactive pdf ebook. You can play the songs from the ebook while looking at the new words. It’s such a fun way to share music, learning and snuggles with your little ones.
The ebook also includes information on child development and music as well as how to adapt the book for different ages of little ones. There are even some different theme ideas with songs, books, and crafts. We love the Laptime program as a way to share time together centered around music. This is right up Elli’s avenue!
Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing this ebook’s treasures and showing how we have used it in our home. For now, you can download Laptime Songs for Mommies for free and get started exploring and singing.
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The first unit of the art curriculum we’re doing with Sammi focused on lines. We’ve had fun using our bodies to make lines and drawing the various lines with crayons, markers, colored pencils, and oil pastels. The fun just keeps going when there are so many combinations of materials and content. We just LOVE art at our house.
Earlier this week from Let’s Explore’s Sunday Playful Picks there was a link to a fantastic art project: How to Make Fall Inchies from that artist woman. Inchies are art works completed on 1 inch square canvases. that artist woman uses two inch squares for her early elementary students and that seems more doable for Sammi’s fine motor skills.
After cutting the 2-inchies out I had just enough left over to cut out 12 true inchies. They were so little and cute and I was inspired to make a mini-poster of the different lines we’ve learned.
I used a few to show her my idea of different mediums to make the lines on the square. She, of course, caught on right away and enthusiastically set out to make her inchies.
She made eight of different line inchies before she got bored. So we took a break and did something else. Fortunately I managed to convince her to finish them before dinner so we could get the table cleaned up.
I double mounted them and added a title for her. She could have done it herself; she puts her name and date on all her schoolwork. But she had already done more than she had wanted to and I, impatiently, wanted it finished because I knew otherwise, it might be ages before we got back to it. This is definitely one for her portfolio!
We were inspired by Silly Eagle Books’ Rapunzel tower earlier this week. The timing was perfect as we finished a roll of paper towels and I found another one hanging out in the office. Once the towers were underway, Sammi wanted to recreate as much as she could from movie, so there was a pond, a castle, a path and a slew of floating lanterns.
While making our Tangled diorama, we took turns retelling parts of the story to each other. This flowed particularly well as Sammi chose what she wanted to add. Then she told me about that part of the movie. She has a better memory than I do for this show so my forgetfulness made her ability to retell the story all that more important so I could get the details right!
My favorite part is the mobile of floating lanterns. Sammi really wanted to launch lanterns and included the “pond” as she called the large lake in the movie. She was also very adamant about the lanterns having suns on them. After I put them together and punched the hole, then she drew sun flames around it.
Of course we had to end the evening with another viewing of the movie. And see what else we might add tomorrow…
Other Rapunzel things we love:
Green Golly and Her Golden Flute by Keith Torgan and Barbara Siesel
Rapunzel from Little Golden Book
I saw these star shaped marshmallows at the store and just couldn’t resist bringing them home. After mulling it over for a few days, I finally came up with this flag craft to do with the red, blue and white marshmallows. The pictures make a great step-by-step for this American flag craft.
The Setup: baskets for sorting, flag, glue and marshmallows
Sorting
Squeezing glue
Adding Stars
Adding Stripes
Finished Flag and Snack Time!
F.Y.I. We got the blue and red baskets from JoAnn’s this past week.
Have fun celebrating Flag Day tomorrow. If you want to know how the flag got it’s nickname Old Glory, check out the story of Captain William Driver.
After watching an episode of Olivia where she turns her house into a hotel for her friends, we were inspired to make our own home a hotel for the evening. Sammi was very excited about this project. She was convinced we were going to go so far as to have the pool that is her favorite part of staying at a hotel. We compromised with a bubble bath after dinner!
We decided to call our hotel Solar System Hotel. Sammi came up with this all on her own. The girls have been in love with Bubble Guppies since it aired in January and they are particularly fond of the space episode. I was thrilled since I happened to have the perfect craft and book to go along with our theme.
We decorated our welcome table where we had all our blankets, pillows and towels waiting for us when we checked in. (Bummed I forgot to take the picture before we checked in. The table looked great piled with all our stuff!) We also decorated the light fixture above the dining table. These crafts came in a set from Oriental Trading Company that I bought about a year ago. I can’t find them online anymore, but they have other great space crafts and resources.
The sign for our hotel hung on the girls craft table. We decorated it using the cover of Eight Spinning Planets as our inspiration. They sat there and checked us in. Sammi’s job was to write down our names and assign us each a room. Elli’s job was to hand us a piece of chocolate and our room key (actual card keys from the Hyatt) and then show us to our room. Sammi also checked off when we had received our bedding.
For dinner we had pizzas made on corn tortillas. The shape and cheese reminded me of the moon. We were out of pepperoni so we used olives for craters. The girls really love their olives! So does their dad who insists they put the olives on their fingers and then eat them!
We had so much fun with this impromptu activity. We reviewed what we knew about planets, comets and the moon. We colored, glued, and taped. Sammi practiced her writing skills. Elli got to be the leader (a rare treat for her!) and we all had lots of laughs.
Today we are linking up with ABC and 123 for their Show and Tell!
This was a quick and fun craft project we did one afternoon. We just used Halloween supplies we had on hand. Last year after Halloween I bought a bunch of rings and other Halloween plastic goodies. We discovered this year that the ring part pops off easily and leaves the Halloween shape free to become something else (other than a ring!) So we used them to make a Halloween wreath.
Supplies
- Paper plate
- Paint
- Halloween shapes, figurines, anything you have around the house
- Ribbon, Halloween colored or not
- Glue gun
Directions
The paper plate is the base of the wreath. Cut a circle out of the center of the paper plate. Then trim around the outside of the plate so the wreath is the size you want to accommodate the decorations you have for it.- Paint the paper plate. We used orange, yellow, purple and black. We also used the Bingo bottles to paint so that the pain wouldn’t be too thick and would dry faster. Let dry.
- After the painted plates were dry, we warmed up the glue gun. The girls chose which shapes they wanted on their wreath. We laid them out to see how full the wreath would be and what order they wanted their shapes in.
I added glue to the back of the shapes and helped the girls put them where they wanted them. Then they pressed down and counted to five to let the glue dry before we did the next one.- After all the decorations were on the front and the glue had cooled, we added the ribbon. I just cut the ribbon pieces all the same length. I doubled the ribbon and glue gunned the ends at the top of the wreath. After a minute to cool, they were ready to hang.
Wishing you Happy and Safe Halloween Celebrations this weekend!
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Sammi and I spent the last year going round and round about preschool. She wanted to go so desperately but the only programs I could find in our very rural area were run through the school district which meant five days a week 5-6 hours a day. I didn’t want her gone so long. The final straw was when she started telling people I wouldn’t let her go to preschool because I didn’t like school. That took several days and a LOT of conversations with Sammi to straighten out! We finally compromised by calling everything we did at home (crafts, cooking, music and movement, dress up) preschool activities.
The other part of the compromise is that I would let her go to an all day/five days a week program when she was four. I picked a school a little farther from our house because it has a smaller class size and the teachers came highly recommended. We went in May to register Sammi for her class and meet her teacher. She was in love! She was so upset she had to wait all summer to go back to school. I didn’t know when school started exactly (they said they’d send me a letter sometime in July or the beginning of August!) so all I could tell her was “in the fall.”
Once we knew the official date, we made a countdown chain. She was so excited and got to stay up late one night to make it with me. The next morning she helped me make one for Elli for her birthday which was just a few weeks after school started (in fact, it’s tomorrow!) The girls loved their chains. And yes, Elli is wearing one of Sammi’s skirts like a strapless gown.
We had a lot of fun doing some back-to-school shopping. I wanted to make sure we had enough of everything that she would need so before we went shopping, I wanted to go through all her clothes to see what fit and what she had outgrown. I knew she wouldn’t have the attention span for all of it so we turned it into a fashion show. I put all the shirts in one pile and all the pants/shorts/skirts in another pile and let her pick the combinations. I made her bend over, sit down and stand back up in all the pants to make sure they weren’t too tight on her tummy or too low in the back. Amazingly, we went through all the clothes in just over an hour! I had an empty box ready and tossed in all the “rejects” as we went along. Then we folded up the rest and put them back in her drawers. We were done in time to make dinner!
Sammi wanted so much to take her backpack to school even though she didn’t need to take anything. So we put her extra change of clothes in the backpack and she was off for her first day. We went into her room and she was off to explore. And so was Elli. Elli was most unhappy when it was time for us to go and she didn’t get to stay and play. It’s gotten better but it still takes me at least 10 minutes to leave when we pick Sammi up. They both just want to play as much as they can. It’s a fun room so I just go with the flow.
So far she loves school and is excited to get up every morning and go. She’s starting to talk about her classmates by name and tell me all the fun things they do every day. So far, she has come home with paint on her shirt every day, so I’m guessing she loves that station! She also loves playing outside for recess and being the line leader.
My Birthday Bouquet
Sammi’s Mother’s Day Flower Craft from the library
Elli’s Mother’s Day Flower Craft from the library
A closer look at the poem on the flower craft
Today we’re linked up with 5 Minutes for Mom and Seven Clown Circus and Marvelous Mommy.
And we’ll be adding this post to Buried With Children‘s Kids Make the Darndest Things this Friday.
Check out this week’s giveaway. You get to pick your own prize pack from Baby Cribs Plus.
Check out the giveaway from Hanes to win your own Earth Day tee. Ends Monday.
We took Make and Takes’ Recycled Art Challenge. We made this earth from old newspapers lying around. We crumpled them up and then somehow managed to form it into a lopsided ball. Then we paper-mached it to give it a good painting surface.
After it dried, we painted it blue. Then we painted a cereal box green and cut out the shapes of the continents. We taped them on and there’s our finished Earth.
Today we’re linked up with 5 Minutes for Mom and Seven Clown Circus.
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