MT beach weather

The spring-like weather took us out on a little adventure this morning.

Instead of our usual loop through the park, we went a little further,

and explored a sandbar along the Yellowstone River.

Rosie went swimming!  

Wild dog - do you see the size of her stick?

Elise joyfully dug into the sand,

warm on top, cold underneath.

She told me she was "looking for creatures."

And me?

I sat back and soaked up the sunshine.

A perfect Friday activity.  :)

After our walk, I put together this invitation to create

with a few of the treasures we collected by the river,

 and a ball of fresh play dough.

You may not know, but we have recently switched to - gasp! - cooked play dough!

Yes, we ran out of cream of tarter one day, so we made a "no cream of tarter needed" recipe found on pinterest.  

The texture is comparable to the gooey Play Doh from the store.

Here's a link to the recipe we've been using:  Homemade Playdough (To the Moon and Back).

Anyway, I really want to put together more open ended art activities like this for Elise

- who has been creating like crazy lately!

This particular activity was inspired by this post from Happiness is here.

Do you read this blog?  I just discovered it a few days ago, and I can't get enough.

Check it out!

Happy weekend, friends!  

coffee filter hearts

We decided to show a little V-Day love this week by decorating our windows with colorful, coffee filter hearts.  Not only were they a blast for Elise (and me!) to make, but they put off a lovely, cheerful glow when the sun shines through them.

coffee filters - cut in the shape of hearts,

an assortment of squirt bottles filled with diluted food coloring,

and a cake pan to contain the mess!

(not pictured - a cookie sheet lined with paper towels for drying the hearts)

This activity ended up being perfect for Elise... while she's not quite interested or ready for drawing with markers or painting with paintbrushes, she LOVES squirting water out of bottles!  Also, this activity offered lots of opportunities for us to observe and talk about colors, and Elise is now really excited to identify heart shapes in the environment - lucky for us, they're everywhere right now!

Some more coffee filter art inspiration:

• Simple Heart Craft for Toddlers from No Time for Flashcards
• Coffee Filter Art 3 Ways from Parent Teach Play
• Color Blending from Montessori Beginnings  

paper bag owls

This Halloween decoration was inspired by my 15-month-old daughter's love of owls.  I made these owls during her afternoon nap, and surprised her when she woke up!  Elise helps me with most projects, but this one seemed more appropriate for a slightly older child. 

materials

• paper bags (large owl is a leaf bag, small owls are gift bags with the handles cut off)
• leaves
• masking tape
• paint/markers
• glue
• wall bumpers (large owl eyes)
• ping pong balls (small owl eyes)
• sharpie 
• x-acto knife/scissors
• orange card stock

1. Fill bags with leaves, pressing down every so often to make compact.  (We live in a windy place, so I put large rocks in the bottoms of my bags first to keep them from blowing over.)
2. Tape the top of the bag closed, shaping the sides into "ears."  I used painter's tape, but masking tape would be ideal.  (see above photo)
3. If your bag has writing on it, you'll probably want to paint over it.  I used spray paint to paint the large owl I made from the leaf bag.  I didn't paint my small owls because I made them with plain bags.
4. Use paint or markers to add details like feathers, wings, etc.   I used a black sharpie for the details on the white owl.  I used white paint on the other two owls.
5. Draw pupils on wall bumper and ping pong ball eyes with a sharpie.  I used double-sided tape to attach wall bumper eyes to the large owl.  The ping pong ball eyes were a little trickier to attach.  First, I cut ping pong ball sized X's with an x-acto knife where I wanted the eyes to be on the owls.  Then, I applied glue to the backs of the ping pong balls and pressed them into the X's.  
6. Cut triangles out of orange card stock for the beaks, folding down the center to add dimension.  Use glue to attach beaks to the owls. 
7. Done!  Give your finished owls a kiss - that's what Elise does.  ;)

Hoo Hoo's excited for Halloween?!?!!!!

recycled egg crown tutorial

We wanted to celebrate Earth Day AND Easter, so we decided to make some festive eggs crowns using materials from our classroom recycling bin.  It was sort of a fusion of two projects I'd seen on the Crafty Crow:  Sew Together's Easter Egg Crown and El Hada De Papel's Easy Yarn Easter Egg Tutorial.  The children LOVED making these eggs.  Sometimes I feel like crafty projects require a little too much adult assistance, but this one was just right for the 3 to 4-year-olds in my classroom.  Anyway, anyone who's anyone around here wants one of these crowns, so I decided to put together a little tutorial.  Here it goes!
 

  What you'll need:

• broken down cracker boxes
• old catalogs, magazines, paper, etc.  {we also used unclaimed child artwork}
• sissors
• glue
• marker

DISCLAIMER:  I keep forgetting to take photos at school, so I put this tutorial together at home.  At school, we used a glue stick rather than Elmer's and we most definitely DID NOT use a Sharpie marker for tracing!
 

Draw an egg-shaped oval on the inside of the box.  The one above is free-handed; at school, we used a stencil.  

Cut up magazines and paper into strips.  Our strips were all 1/4 to 1 inch wide.  It doesn't really matter how long they are - it's kind of fun if they're different lengths.

Cut out the egg-shape and apply glue to one side.

Stick paper strips to the egg-shape until it's entirely covered.

 

At this point, the children were pretty curious about why I had covered up the egg-shape...

They were SO excited to see that the egg was on the other side - it was a little like a magic trick!  Love them!

Cut around the egg-shape, using the edge of the cardboard as a guide.

Turn it over, and now you have a lovely paper egg!  Oooooooo! Aaaaaaahhhh!

AND, if you are so inclined, staple, glue, or tape several of these eggs to a longer strip of paper attached at the ends, and you'll have a fabulous crown!

I picked Hubs up from work wearing the crown and these sunglasses, and he was definitely impressed! 


Happy weekend!

chicks {real ones coming soon...}

We saw lilla a's cute, felt chickies over on The Crafty Crow this morning, and just had to make some.  Not only are they fun to put together and sweet to look at, but they double as fab finger puppets, too!  Check out lilla a for the photo tutorial. 

peep, 

     peep!

little smudge art

We have been loving the book Little Smudge by Lionel Le Neouanic.  Have you read it?

Little Smudge asks a group of colorful shapes if he can play, and they reject him.  

{WARNING:  Their rejection is brutal.  Depending on my audience, I change the wording to be less negative.} 

When Little Smudge goes home disappointed, his parents show him a few tricks that totally win the other shapes over.  

When I read this book, the children are always shocked by the rejection scene.  

They get all like, 

Are you kidding me?! 

Don't those other shapes know that EVERYONE is included? 

Duh!

{"Everyone's included" is one of our school rules, and most of the children believe it to be universal.  Wouldn't THAT be something if it was?} 

This book leads to meaningful conversations, and some pretty fun art, too!

  

First, we made our own little smudges on heavy paper with finger paint.

After the paint dried {this took an hour or two}, we turned our little smudges into other things... 

...people, dogs, insects, transportation systems, smiley faces, etc.

We experimented by drawing with markers AND ball point pens.  

The children were very proud of their creations, and they want to make more!

For more fingerprint art, check out 5 Orange Potatoes.  I think we're going to try their project next!

100 days of love

Today was our 100th day of school! Yeee haw!!!
{it goes by SO fast}

One activity we did to celebrate this special day
was make this lovely heart mosaic...

As you may know, I love mosaics.

Cutting snips alone strengthens fine motor control.
But, if you combine YOUR snips with all your classmates' snips
and make a giant mosaic,
you strengthen the whole community.

TLF, ya know?

First, you need a simple outline of a heart drawn on a big piece of paper.

Then, you need to gather these supplies:
scissors
glue
paint swatches {we wrote the numbers 1-100 on ours}

Have everything? Now cut and glue!

Three children worked on the mosaic at a time.
They were sometimes the most unlikely trio, too.
{I love when that happens!}

This mosaic was finished in one morning work period,
and now it hangs by the snack table for everyone to enjoy.
The children love looking for "the 100."

sweet and scary

The idea for these scary {and sweet} spiders
came from Jennifer at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.
She is one busy, crafty lady!

Each child painted a section of an egg carton.
{We used brown, purple, and black paint.}

The children selected googly eyes
and glued them onto their spiders.

Then came the tricky part,
we had to WAIT for the paint to dry.

Whew! It was intense!
Have you ever watched paint dry?!!!

When the paint was almost dry,
I poked 8 holes in each spider with a corn cob skewer.
Then, the children counted-out 8 pipe cleaner legs
and pushed them through the tiny holes.

Aren't they spook-tabulous?
I love the way the indentations on the bottom of the
egg carton make the spiders look like they're smiling. :)

FYI: I did this as an afternoon project with a group of five 3-4 year olds.

Lucky the green dog

Don't you just love him? Lucky is quite possibly the most precious two-legged dog ever. (In my opinion!) The idea for this lesson came from Kathy Barbro's blog, Art Projects for Kids - check her out if you haven't already! Even though many of the projects seem to be designed for older artists, they can easily be tweaked for little ones as well.

Cut, paste, draw! I'm loving this lesson because it's creative, and it requires skills like fine motor control, visual discrimination, and spacial awareness. Plus, the children had a blast cutting up old magazines! Woof!

preparing the little ones for their HGTV debut...

a new twist on painting at the easel...
a tray of paint &
a small roller brush

Simple, right(?!),
but what a huge hit!
... maybe because they'd watched
their parents paint like this at home,
or maybe because the roller did
such a fantastic job of filling
the entire page with paint...
whatever the reason,
the children were lining up
all morning to give it a try!

rodent love

Any idea what this is???

I won't hold it against you for not knowing!
I forgot to take a "finished" pic,
so I'll just tell you...
2 mice smooching
awwww!

I saw this on make and takes
via the crafty crow
a week or two ago, and, as always,
I stewed about it for awhile,
imagining how to make it into a lesson
that a child could do independently.
So, here it is...

I prepped the lesson by folding paper
and drawing heart halves along the fold.
I also drew a line down the centers.
I actually only did this on 1
piece of paper - then I made copies!

The child cuts along the lines,
and ends up with 2 heart halves.
Also, the child in these
cutting pictures is only 3 years old.
Isn't his concentration lovely?! :)

Next, he applies glue with a paint brush.
I'm loving this method
not only because it requires fine motor control,
but because the child gets glue
where he wants it,
without squirting out the whole bottle.
YAY!

The ears are tiny hearts.
(I prepped these, too.)
The tails are pieces of pretty yarn.
The child draws the face on
with brand-spankin-new markers.

Oh, and if you were wondering, YES,
gak was a hit!!!

We made it this afternoon in groups of four. Each child had his or her own bowl, and I poured the Elmer's, coloring, and liquid starch. We made observations about the ingredients all being liquid. And, as we stirred, exclamations were made as the gak became solid.

It was a blast!

artsy fartsy: part 2

2 sculpture lessons:

"the leaning tower of peanuts"

Just wet the ends of biodegradable packing peanuts with a damp sponge. When moistened, they stick together, and you can build all kinds of unique structures.

Too tempting for school?

You would think, but the children have such strong self-control at school! They have been busily building 3-D formations with marshmallows and toothpicks , and I haven't seen a single marshmallow get eaten on the school premesis - although I wouldn't hold it against anyone for having just a little taste! :)