Fun Crafts for Preschoolers

Halloween Craft: Mummies!

2011-10-26T21:36:00.003-05:00

Last week, Nora had the week off school. I was all excited and planned some activities for us: all kinds of crafts and baking and The Great Mulch Delivery (in our family, that is an activity). We only got to one craft and zero baking, somehow, but no big deal! Here's a fun little Halloween craft I thought I'd share .....

MUMMIES!

For 3 mummies you need:
3 muslin dolls
1 pkg cheesecloth
fabric glue (we used Fabri-Tac)
black embroidery floss

I found the muslin dolls at a local craft store. I am not sure what they are normally used for, but the second I saw them I thought: Those would make great mummies! They were $2.99 each.

Cut the cheesecloth into 1/2"-or-so strips. Working one section (or limb) at a time, scatter drops of glue across your mummy and then simply wrap the cheesecloth around. You don't need much glue -- the cloth sticks easily and is so thin that glue can stick through a couple layers. When you've covered the whole doll, you can stitch on a little mouth with embroidery floss -- and that's it!

How to make a giant ice suncatcher

2011-01-28T00:13:00.000-06:00

(see instructions below)

Ice Suncatchers how-to

2011-01-28T00:12:00.001-06:00

1) Fill an ice cube tray with water and add food coloring in lots of pretty colors. Stir to mix, and set your tray outside in the cold world until it is well frozen.

2) When your colorful ice cubes are frozen, fill a pan with very cold water. Fill a cup about halfway with water, and set this cup in the pan (I moved mine to almost the halfway point; don't put it as close to the top as it is pictured below.) The water in your pan will freeze around the cup. When you remove the cup, you'll have a hole to put string through for hanging your ice catcher.

The water in your pan must be VERY cold -- set it outside or in your freezer for several minutes. Otherwise, when you add the ice cubes, they'll melt too much.

3) Alright, when the water is cold, pour in your colorful frozen ice cubes.

4) When your pan of water with ice cubes has frozen quite solidly, unmold it. (You might need to set the pan in warm water for a few minutes to make this easier.) Pop out the cup, leaving a hole to thread yarn through for hanging. (Water must have oozed under our cap; we didn't have an actual hole, but the ice was so thin there that just a few taps of a skewer gave us a hole to work with.)

5) Tie yarn or rope through the hole, and hang your suncatcher outside, where your kids can see it from the window. It makes a beautiful and unique ornament!

2011-01-28T00:04:00.000-06:00

dried apples

2011-01-23T00:08:00.001-06:00

Yikes, I'm trying to catch up on some of the stuff we did this summer. I'll file this one in "science" and "cooking" so it might be of use to someone later on....

We'd been studying weather and water; we started talking about air, too. We decided to make our own dried apples.

Slice 4-5 Granny Smith apples into rounds. I sliced them again in half.

Soak in pineapple juice for a day (prevents too much browning).

Put outside in the sun for about 2-3 days, covered with cheesecloth. Turn every few hours.

Then you'll have tasty, sweet, chewy dried apples to snack on!

From "Science Clarified": Here's an explanation of why the water evaporates from the fruit.

sink or float?

2011-01-22T23:56:00.001-06:00

A simple, ongoing science experiment can be to see what items around the house sink or float. Nora loves to make charts about this. Quirky kid.

On this day, we tested a plastic snail, and a Lego man.

homemade rain gauge

2011-01-22T23:51:00.001-06:00

Over the summer, we did a little theme unit on water and weather. One easy project is to make a simple homemade rain gauge. You can use any plastic bottle and write on it with a Sharpie. A 2-liter bottle works well because you can invert the lid and duct tape it on, keeping out bugs and debris.

Whenever it rains, Nora cries, "MOM! We need to put out the rain gauge!" It's exciting for her to see how much rain we got, although she always expects a lot more. I guess one or two inches of rain doesn't really LOOK like much to a 5-year-old!

bringing snow indoors

2011-01-22T23:47:00.001-06:00

Baby, it's cold outside. When the weather's in the single digits, don't make your kids suffer (and possibly lose their OWN digits. ha, ha). Just bring the snow inside!

You can scoop it, bury stuff in it, spray or paint it with food coloring, bring out the kitchen utensils and sand toys...and, of course, you can always just eat it.

trapped in the ice!

2011-01-22T23:39:00.001-06:00

My husband teases me that the kids and I do every possible activity we can involving ice and snow. I can only blame my California childhood and the fact that snow is an exciting novelty for me.

One night, we set out some pans of water with a few toys in them. The kids' mission: to rescue their friends from the ice! It took a considerable amount of work!

We even tried drilling:

The kids sprinkled salt, chipped and dug, and sprayed and poured warm water on the ice, finally freeing each and every toy. (Their motto: "No toy left behind.")

maple syrup candy

2011-01-22T23:35:00.002-06:00

We've been looking up old recipes made with ice and snow. Apparently, folks used to make this simple candy by throwing boiled maple syrup onto fresh snow and letting their kids pick up the candy strands.

It had been a couple of days since the snow fell, so we made this on crushed ice instead. It's easy:

-- Heat a half-cup or so of maple syrup to boiling. Then, pour it over ice or snow. A couple of minutes later, it will have hardened somewhat into chewy strands that taste just like, well, maple syrup. Yes, it looks a bit like boogers on ice, but the kids thought it was fun and tasty.

how does water freeze?

2011-01-22T23:30:00.001-06:00

The other day Nora asked, "Does water freeze from the top down or the bottom up?"

We put a bowl of water outside for an hour and a half to see.

Nora wrote up her hypothesis, and she was right: "From the top, down!" she cheered. We talked about how this allows fish to survive all winter.

oodles of bubble wrap

2011-01-03T00:00:00.001-06:00

My parents traveled to spend Christmas with us this year -- it was fantastic -- and they didn't want to carry much luggage, so they mailed most of their gifts ahead of time. Thus, we ended up with lots of bubble wrap!

We've been painting it....using it to make prints....and cutting it out in shapes to make stamps. Please share if you have any bright ideas for bubble wrap! I'd love to think up all kinds of ideas to re-use Christmas leftovers, but I may have to brainstorm all the way 'til next year if I want to be of any use, 'cause I think most people's wrappings are in the trash or recycling by now!

what can you build with marshmallows and toothpicks?

2010-12-20T00:52:00.001-06:00

We had some marshmallows. We had some toothpicks. The kid brother was napping. So, we made "a marshmallow palace."

The "Sloth King" (a plastic sloth) lived there, and Nora made him a throne of marshmallows. She also added on a jail and asked me to make a sign for it: "Prisoners in here!"

When Soren woke up, he even added on a few sticks and mallows.

Finally, Nora asked to paint it with watercolors. O House of Mallows, home of the Sloth King...after all this, we will be sad to see you go.

salt and ice

2010-12-20T00:47:00.003-06:00

The other morning, Nora saw her dad salting our icy driveway, and asked why.

I asked her, "Why do YOU think we spread salt on an icy sidewalk? Can you guess?"

She guessed, "The salt melts the ice?"

We decided to see if this were true. I said, "We'll see if ice added to water makes it harder for the water to freeze."

-- We filled two small glass bowls each with 1/2 cup water. To one of these, we added 1 Tbsp salt, and stirred it in. The other, we left plain. We put them both in the freezer for an hour.

-- An hour later, the bowl of plain water (on the right) was frozen about halfway through. The bowl with salt water (on the left) was still mostly liquid, with just a small coating of ice on top. (When I tilted the bowl, the water sloshed all around.)

I explained (after quickly Googling this to make sure I didn't spread misinformation) that salt speeds up the melting of the ice because it can make ice melt at a lower temperature. Salt also helps keep the ice from re-freezing.....which we saw when we put the salt water in the freezer!

I later came across an experiment where kids can use salt to "glue" an ice cube to a string, and then lift it up. This is exactly the sort of thing that sets my geek heart aflutter.

(I may be a geek, but I'm not a science whiz, so preschool science experiments may be as good as it gets for me. I plan to enjoy this while it lasts, and before I become unable to comprehend any of it.)

The Rock Menagerie

2010-12-16T23:51:00.003-06:00

This is "a yellow dog," specifically designed as a Christmas gift for a dog-loving member of the family.

rockin' out!

2010-12-16T23:50:00.002-06:00

Funny-Face Pet Rocks(invented by Nora)....she even drew her own plans:

They just make me smile. (This is a pair of whales.)

We just painted rocks with acrylic paint; varnished them; and hot-glued the rocks together the way Nora instructed. We did not have nice, smooth river rocks in our vicinity, so I confess that I bought a bag at Michael's for $2.49. But if you have beautiful rocks near you, by all means, just use them instead! (The paints, we already had on hand in our giant paints box.)

Don't worry....he's friendly.

Magic Crystal Ornaments

2010-12-16T23:40:00.001-06:00

These ornaments grow as if by magic!!
(as seen on Ordinary Life Magic)

You will need:

Pipe Cleaners
Glass Jars
Borax

(Borax is a natural cleaner....you can find it at most grocery stores, Wal-Mart, etc.)

To start, bend your pipe cleaners into shapes that will fit into the mouths of your glass jars (with a tiny bit of room to spare, as the crystals will slightly increase the size of the ornaments.) Bend a loop of pipe cleaner at the top, to hang from the tree.

Use a small piece of pipe cleaner as a "hook" for dangling the ornament over the size of the jar. (This can be removed later.)

On the stovetop, heat some water....for each glass jar you have, you will need 1 cup water and 3 Tbsp. Borax.

Just heat the water until it is pleasantly warm. Stir in your Borax til dissolved.

Place your jar somewhere nice, where you can watch the "magic" happen. Then hang your pipe cleaner shape -- whatever shape you have made --

(which may be a little crazy if you are 5 years old).....hang that inside the jar.

Nothing will happen for the first hour or so. Distract your concerned little crystal artists. A couple of hours later, when you peek in at your ornaments...magic crystals will have begun to grow! Over the course of 24 hours, your ornaments will be nicely covered with beautiful "snow" crystals. Remove the ornaments after about 24 hours -- they will feel dry to the touch almost immediately. Hang them on the tree, in a window, or somewhere they can sparkle!

Whew!

2010-12-16T23:31:00.000-06:00

Nora went on a binge....the good kind. She couldn't stop painting cinnamon ornaments! Here she is, proud of her finished product. (And while it may look like I kept her up until midnight painting, rest assured it was only around 5 p.m. Winter darkness!)

Cinnamon Dough for Ornaments

2010-12-16T23:29:00.002-06:00

Cinnamon dough smells heavenly! It makes a great, air-or-oven-drying dough for ornaments, figurines, whatever you like.

You'll need:

1 cup cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
2 Tbsp. white school glue

(Since this requires about 3 containers of cinnamon, get the cheapest you can find.)

Start by mixing your ingredients in a bowl:

This makes a nice dough, just a bit wetter than Play-Doh. Roll it out and cut shapes from cookie cutters. Thicker is better; we found just under half-inch to make for great, substantial ornaments that won't snap too easily. (If they are too thin, they will become brittle when fully dry.)

Use a straw to make a hole in the top of each shape, if you plan to use them as ornaments.

Let air dry for a couple of days, or bake in your oven at 250 degrees for about an hour (keep an eye on them; pointy edges, on such shapes as stars, will cook quickly). Bake just until dry to touch.

2010-12-16T23:22:00.001-06:00

When your ornaments are dry, paint them with any acrylic paints.

If you finish a few and get distracted, you can always just paint your own hand, grinning at how proud you are of yourself.

Aren't you clever. ;)

Let them dry for a couple of hours. You can varnish them with any craft varnish. I had some gold glitter glue on hand, so I thinned that out and we just gave them a top coat with that; it acts like a sealant and added SPARKLE!

When they're fully dry, thread some pretty ribbon or embroidery thread through the hole, and you have nice little, delicious-smelling ornaments to give anyone who comes your way.

Papier Mache Christmas Forest

2010-12-16T23:14:00.001-06:00

We found these papier mache cones at Michael's for $1.29 - $1.49 each; painted them with acrylics we had lying around; and affixed some decorations. They flank our wooden Advent calendar. You can find so many papier mache shapes at Michael's, you could probably build your own North Pole! But don't get too crazy, now. It's cookie-eatin' time.

Hope everyone is enjoying the season!

Science Project: Homemade Lava Lamp

2010-11-15T22:45:00.002-06:00

Well, if my child does not remember that "oil and water don't mix" by NOW, there's nothing I can do for her....

You will need:
a plastic 2-liter bottle
food coloring
a cup
vegetable oil

Here's how to make your own lava "lamp":1. Fill any cup, like a large plastic party cup, with water.

2. Add food coloring of your choice until you have a nice, vibrant color.

3. Take a nice, clean 2-liter bottle. Fill it a little over halfway with vegetable or canola oil.

4. Add your cup of colored water to the oil.

5. Add more oil if necessary, to fill about to the top.

6. Put the cap on your 2-liter bottle. Gently tilt the bottle onto its side. What do the oil and water look like now? (We drew a picture in our workbook, for future reference.)

You can roll that bottle around all you want,

you can even shake the thing like a maniac; while the oil and water may temporarily look like they have combined, just give them some time.....they will always separate out again!

Even if you shake it up this much!! (We called in the big guns, my husband, and had him shake it up for us. I thought he was going to pull something. The oil and water later separated into 2 totally different layers, even after appearing combined.)

If you leave your lava lamp out for any length of time, you will notice that the oil and water molecules separate almost completely. Interestingly, the water is denser than the oil, so it will sink to the bottom; the oil will rest on top.

(Density is how much an object weighs compared to the space it takes up. So if you have the exact same amount of water and oil -- say, 2 liters of each -- the water will weigh more than the oil. It is denser.)

save those cardboard thingies

2010-10-10T00:21:00.000-05:00

This cardboard insert once held some punch-out game pieces. It's the kind of thing my husband would chuckle at me for saving, but....

it finally came in handy! Nora colored in all the shapes during "rest time" and came out with a cool pattern. She always enjoys peeling covers away and seeing the patterns underneath. I'm sure you could use something like this is more creative ways, but it worked great for one of those "Oh boy, it's rest time and I'd really love to keep you up in your room for half an hour, and preferably not tearing white paper into tiny confetti shreds" moments.

Tissue Paper Art

2010-09-13T23:14:00.002-05:00

I apologize in advance for the poor-quality photos in this post. My "good" camera was in the shop!

Here is a simple way to make tissue-paper collages....

1) Take a piece of cardboard and wrap the front of it with aluminum foil.

2) Cut out shapes of tissue paper -- or just rip them with your fingers.

3) Mix a small bowl of diluted glue and brush it over the surface of the foil. Lay pieces of tissue over the foil in any arrangement you wish. Keep layering tissue, brushing a layer of glue over each piece to hold it down.

4) When you feel you are finished, let your artwork dry for a couple of hours. These make very pretty pieces. It was hard to capture here (especially with my "backup" camera), but the tissue pieces sort of melt into each other for a lovely, tie-dyed, almost batik effect.

This was an easy craft, very inexpensive (mostly recycled), and enjoyed by my 4-year-old and 2-year old. Cleanup was minimal -- just some stickiness here and there from the glue! (And, as you can see, I have totally given up on the kitchen table. I don't even put down newspaper any more. Bad me!)

Theme: Vision / The Eye

2010-08-24T23:40:00.007-05:00

One day, my daughter started asking me all about our cat's vision. Could our cat see color? Could she really see in the dark? Her curiosity made me think that we should do spend a little time learning about eyes and vision.

Given that my daughter had just turned 4 1/2 at the time, we did not get too technical about eye anatomy. But we explored our own vision in simple ways, and learned a lot about the vision of animals. (Animals are always a hit around here!)

The whole theme took about 2 weeks. We usually do one activity a day, depending on what's going on and how everyone is feeling!

ONLINE EYE RESOURCES:

The Weird and Wonderful World of Animal Eyes

Animals With Stunning Eyes

Simple Diagram of the Eye

A to Z's Cool Homeschool: Eye Activities

How many eyes?...

2010-08-24T23:20:00.002-05:00

While doing our "vision / the eye" theme, we did this little activity to work in some math with learning about eyes...

I printed a few pictures off the internet of various animals with more-than-the-usual amount of eyes. Then I gave Nora a big ol' pile of googly craft eyeballs. Her "job" was to decorate the critters however she liked, and then put on the number of eyeballs that each animal has. Together, we counted them.

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Here are some animals you can use for this activity.....
Spiders: 2 -8 eyes (most have 8)

Box Jellyfish: 24 eyes

Scallops: can have 100 eyes (okay, don't really make your child glue 100 eyes onto a piece of paper!!) :)

Flies: Actually have 5 eyes -- two huge (relatively speaking) compound eyes and three simple eyes

Giant squid: Two eyes -- the largest eyes on earth!

Crabs: Two eyes

European wasp: Five eyes

Starfish: Most have 5 eyes, one on the end of each arm

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My daughter was exactly 4 1/2 when we did this activity. It seemed to be a good level for her. Counting out items above 20 was a good way to help bigger numbers become more concrete. It was a nice little mix of science, math, and art all in one simple activity.

Of course, we usually finish off by getting goofy!

Science Activity: Magnifying Glass

2010-08-18T00:30:00.003-05:00

For part of our unit on eyes and vision, we took several nature walks "armed" with magnifying glasses and kid-sized binoculars. Both items take some practice for young viewers, but can be rewarding. The kids enjoyed getting "super powers" via the simple aids of binoculars and magnifiers!

Our second nature walk took place when it was much warmer. Look, we even had a tomato!

This time of year, there were ants aplenty on the peonies.

You may not think it, but small children will have to be taught how to use a magnifying glass. Their tendency is to put it to their eye, not over the object they want to see. So they may be oohing and ahhing and acting all thrilled -- while really seeing only a blur! Thier excitement reaches a whole new level when they actually figure out that placing the glass just above your object will help you see in much more detail!

2010-08-18T00:27:00.002-05:00

On our first (late-February) nature walk, we found some hopeful signs of spring...signs you really did need a magnifying glass for!

Crocus emerging

We found a poor, frozen little ladybug. She made good viewing, though (and I thank her for her donation to science).

Even the little guy could get in on this activity...

We discovered that there is lots to see, but sometimes you have to look hard for it!

Science Lesson: Eyes Made for Day and Night

2010-08-18T00:21:00.003-05:00

For part of our "Vision" theme, we talked about how eyes look, and how the way they look tells us something about what they do.

-- We looked at pictures of different animal eyes (I had printed them off the computer and cut some from our monthly zoo mailing). Some animals have big, round eyes with very round and large pupils.

-- Other animals have almond-shaped eyes with smaller, or even horizontal, pupils. Why is that?

Here's a very basic answer for young children: The huge, round pupils of nocturnal animals help them to gather more light. The long, flat pupils of animals like deer and horses give them better depth perception on rocky, uneven ground. Such pupils also help them to see more around them, such as a lion crouching in the grass.

-- Some animals who live underground or in caves have no eyes at all! Can your child think of an example? (Worms are animals without true eyes!)

Simple Activity:

After talking for a day or so about animal eyes and how we can tell the special things they can do by looking at them, I printed several pictures off the Internet and had Nora sort them by whether they belonged to Day-seeing or Night-seeing animals (diurnal or nocturnal animals!). She didn't find this activity difficult. It was a concrete way for her to evaluate the things we had been talking about. Plus, it's just cool to look at all those different animal eyes!

There are so many other aspects of vision that could be taught...but due to my young audience, I kept it simple.

Here's a "master list" of vision / eye activities you might want to do with young children:

EYE ACTIVITIES for preschoolers:

-- Take a few minutes to pay attention to your eyes. How far can you move them? Do you "see" anything when your eyes are closed?

-- Let kids explore their world with magnifying glasses, binoculars, and a simple microscope if you have access to one.

-- Let kids look at their eyes in the mirror. Point out a few basic parts of anatomy.

-- Use this unit as an opportunity to talk about eye care: not scratching or rubbing the eye; using cool water to help an itchy/inflamed eye; being careful never to spray anything in the eye.

-- Look at photos of your pets and other animals in the dark. Why are their eyes shiny and glowing?

-- Look at pictures online of various animals and their weird, wonderful eyes! (See my links list at the end of this unit for a few good places to start.)

-- Give your child a small, safe handheld mirror and let her draw her eye on paper, using her reflection as a guide.

-- Play the ol' Halloween game.....feeling various objects in bowls...blindfolded! (Spaghetti, peeled grapes, baby carrots, Oobleck, etc.)

-- In the car or out the window, play "I Spy."

-- let your preschooler observe eye dilation

-- Play "Pin the Tail on the Donkey."

-- Play hide-and-go-seek.

T.P. Tubes as Card Holders

2010-03-07T21:54:00.004-06:00

I know, I know. The very title of this post is giving you heart palpitations. If you feel giddy about composting; get chills on your child's birthday not because of the gifts but because of the cool boxes the toys came in that you just know you can turn into some vague kind of "art"; and save glass food jars because you think that some have a particularly pretty pattern, well, here is a little idea for you.

I didn't think of this myself.....I got the idea from the very cool blog maya*made. Anyway, this Maya lady has a strong affection for empty T.P. tubes and security envelopes; I admire her. She uses empty T.P. tubes -- painted, of course, and dressed up a little bit -- as holders for handmade cards. I saved up a bunch of tubes for just this purpose, but then got sidetracked when some internet order of my husband's arrived in the mail stuffed with these crazy-awesome little rectangles of corrugated cardboard. I snatched them up, with the devilish glint in my eye that probably makes my daughter sigh to herself, "Oh, no. Mommy's gonna be makin' me paint THAT thing."

She was right.

Actually, she was engrossed in another project, so I did most of the painting, and then she helped me affix a bunch of paper and felt hearts to the card holders, and she glued on the buttons. And then she wrote her name all over the place like crazy, 'cause she just likes to do that.

We used scraps of felt from other projects, so we didn't have to buy a thing for this project, and we still got to show some friends a little V-day love.

So, why am I showing you a project for a holiday that's a month past?....Well, because it's endlessly adaptable. You can use little rectangles of cardboard as holders for any card, gift card, or token of your affection. St. Patrick's Day, a birthday, Administrative Assistants Day (although, if you are at home making things out of scraps of cardboard like me, then you probably do not have an administrative assistant...and if you do, make sure she gets some real nice gift card inside your old T.P. tube, okay?). These are admittedly more charming with the touch of a child, although I made my husband a recycled-cardboard Valentine myself, and he at least pretended to be pleased with it, which was nice of him.

Oobleck!

2010-03-07T21:21:00.006-06:00

What is this stuff? Is it glue? Is it yogurt? Is it some particularly low-budget brand of Play-Doh? No...it's Oobleck!

This is a story activity based on Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss. In the story, a page named Bartholomew Cubbins must save the day when the king decides he's tired of all the "usual" things that fall from the sky, and asks his magicians to conjure up an all-new substance: "Oobleck." The gooey Oobleck starts clogging up everything and wreaking all kinds of havoc, until Bartholomew comes up with a very simple solution to end the whole mess.....

You can make your own "Oobleck," and it is strange, intriguing stuff. Technically, it is a "non-newtonian fluid," which means that it acts like both a solid and a liquid. When you pour it, it is liquid, but if any force is applied to it, it acts like a solid. So you can squeeze it, and it will feel completely dry; but the second you release your grip, it becomes liquid again!

Or you can run a fork through it, and you'll get dryish scratch marks,

but the second you lift the fork, all the Oobleck will ooze back together as if the scratch marks were never there : a little like that wet sand right at the water's edge on the beach.

According to my friend Wikipedia, this is "due to polymers, which are long chains in the structure of Oobleck. When you hit Oobleck hard, the polymers tangle and resist the force. When you push something in it gently, the polymers have time to move, and it acts like a liquid." So there you have it.

We read the book and then made our own Oobleck; it is messy, and you may hyperventilate slightly during the activity, but you will be pleased by how easily it cleans up with water.

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Recipe for "Oobleck"

-- 2 cups cornstarch in a large mixing bowl
-- About 1 cup of water (add a little more, bit by bit, if you want a runnier Oobleck)
-- a few drops of green food coloring so it will be green like the Oobleck in the book

Drop a few drops of food coloring into your water. Then, stir the water into the cornstarch with a fork until it is about as thick as pancake batter. I preferred ours a little on the thicker side.

Set your kids up with a bowl of Oobleck and some spoons, forks, whatever you like -- they will be pretty surprised -- this ain't their mama's Play-Doh!
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Further Oobleckiness:

Here is a rather entertaining, 4 1/2-minute clip from the show "Mythbusters," in which an Oobleck-style experiment (though not mentioned by its literary name) was done on a larger scale, using 200 gallons of water and 1,000 pounds of cornstarch. The segment includes a good explanation of how a non-newtonian fluid works. Adam (a "mythbuster") is able to run back and forth across the surface of what looks like a regular ol' liquid. Older kids (maybe 4 and above) will enjoy this.

"Fast Food"

2010-01-23T06:38:00.005-06:00

In recent years, for whaatever reason, funny little pictures made of produce seem to have become popular. I guess there are certain trends you just can't anticipate. Anyway, a friend gave us this book "Fast Food" from her donation pile.

and the second Nora saw it, she said, "We should make some 'fast food,' Mommy!"

She especially liked the little tangerine-in-a-banana-boat, shown in the middle of this page:

So that was what she asked to make first.

[As a side note, this book's reading level is more for ages 2 or so, but older children can enjoy the pictures, which are very cute. Also, many of the vegetable figures are actually not that complicated, like the cars shown below.

So your child can replicate them successfully, while adding her own touches.]

We didn't buy any "special" produce for this craft, we just used what we had on hand.

2010-01-23T06:30:00.003-06:00

We started by splitting a poor banana down the middle.

Nora added a face to the tangerine/clementine (are they the same thing?) with a Sharpie pen.

2010-01-23T06:28:00.001-06:00

Nora's imagination was piqued by this activity. I knew it would be a successful "craft" because she was so insistent on doing it, while I kept dragging my feet (not wanting to waste good produce!). The fact that the banana was half-dead and we only used carrot tops made it easier for me.

She wanted to make a canoe (banana), buoys (carrot tops), person (clementine), hat (bell pepper top), and a crab (slices of bell pepper). Then she asked to make a "celery man" with "ice skates" (strips of bell pepper). This concentrating face makes me giggle -- I think it's the face I make sometimes when getting shoes onto the kids:

Then her imagination kind of went wild and she wanted to make a "big field of grass" using broccoli stems and some old(ish) celery. That lime (below), which looks like an evil horned creature, was my own attempt at a bunny...so I think I'll leave the "fast food" to Nora.

Finished! A wacky craft, but fully compostable! Nora started eating it halfway through -- the little crab disappeared first -- or, at least, its claws, but I wouldn't let her eat the body because she had drawn on it with Sharpie.

Felt Wreath Ornaments

2009-12-08T15:43:00.001-06:00

Each year, Nora and I (and now Soren too) try to work on a craft to give as gifts to friends & family. Last year, Nora threw her little heart & soul into papier mache ornaments. This year, we're making felt wreaths (sorry if this is a spoiler to any family members! Consider it...a sneak peek!).

This is an easy and pleasantly absorbing craft that I found on the terrific blog maya*made.

You need:

-- various colors of felt
-- buttons in different colors & sizes
-- 3 1/2 " embroidery hoops
-- glue
-- ribbon or embroidery thread for hanging
-- pinking shears

Using your pinking shears, cut diamonds from the felt long enough to fold over your embroidery hoop, points-out. Glue the tips together. Keep gluing diamonds along your hoop until you have it as covered as you like.

When the glue has dried, let your child decorate the hoop with buttons. Nora liked putting all her buttons along the tips. In the maya*made design, she placed the buttons along the inside of the hoop. It's interesting how people have different artistic instincts! I let Nora arrange them however she pleased, because this is "her" gift.

Soren arranged a few buttons too, but then lost interest...so he did have *some* input into the family craft. We call him the Director of Morale.

Salt Dough Ornaments

2009-12-08T15:19:00.001-06:00

The other night, we made salt dough ornaments. It's a rustic little craft that kids can do much of themselves, and since we had water, salt, flour, and food coloring around the house already, we didn't have to venture out into the cold (and Nora, as you can see, could happily remain in her pajamas as she had most of the day!). I've posted the simple recipe below. It can easily be halved if you are running out of salt (like we were). A half-batch made plenty of ornaments to decorate Nora's little Christmas tree.

The coarser the salt you use, the more it will show up in the dough. Add the food coloring to the water before mixing it into the dry ingredients. Also, add your water just a little at a time, because I found that our mixture got too wet very quickly, and I had to add more flour.

Roll 'em out, give your kids some cookie cutters, and maybe a few doo-dads (buttons, craft pasta, etc.) to stick into the dough. Even my 21-month-old was able to enjoy this! He became very quiet and focused on squishing the buttons into the dough, but I cannot guarantee such an outcome for all 21-month-olds (or even my own on a different day!). :)

Please scroll down for the recipe......

2009-12-08T15:04:00.000-06:00

Is it just me, or are chubby little hands, concentrating on a craft project, incredibly cute?

Salt Dough Recipe

2009-12-03T15:46:00.002-06:00

As promised.....pictures & more winter crafts coming tonight.

1 cup flour
1 cup salt
about 2 cups water (add a little at a time)

Combine your flour & salt well in a bowl. Gradually add water until you have a not-too-wet doughlike substance. Roll out as you would cookies, cut into shapes, and let air dry or bake at 200 degrees for a couple hours til dry (keeping an eye on them -- thin edges may begin to brown before other shapes).

You can add food coloring or glitter to the water to jazz 'em up....

Push in sequins or buttons or colored craft pasta...

Remember to make a hole in the top of the ornament with a toothpick, so you can string up your ornaments!

Specialty Shaped Crayons

2009-11-23T06:57:00.003-06:00

A friend of ours recently made a batch of these fun crayons for Nora when we were homebound with the flu. I thought they were adorable. They're also a handy way to re-use bits and pieces of old crayons. You can make these crayons in any shape that you have a mold for, and in any colors you choose. Wouldn't red and green crayons, in a baggie with some ribbon, make pretty holiday gifts for small children?

I'll let my friend Deya tell you exactly how she made them:

You'll Need:

-- Molds in desired shapes, in this case stars ( I used a silicone mold)

-- Approximately 6 crayons per star

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 250F

2. Cut crayons to about pea size

3. Arrange crayon pieces in molds. I made them all unicolor, but you can combine colors if you like in different designs

4. Put in oven and leave until almost completely melted (residual heat will finish melting last few pieces), +/- 20 min.

5. Let sit until completely cool and pop out. With a silicone mold this was REALLY easy. But if you use metal kind you can pop in freezer and that will make the crayon shrink enough to make it pop out easier.

Draw to your heart's content!

Big Kids and Little Kids

2009-11-15T22:07:00.003-06:00

Lately, I've been looking for crafts my kids (ages 1 1/2 and just-turned-four) can do together, and also crafts my older child can make for the younger one. I'll start with crafts older kids can make for younger kids -- maybe even for upcoming holiday gifts.

Here are a few ideas I've turned up over the past few months. If you have any good ideas....please share!

"Color Boxes" Big Kids Can make for Babies

Many older siblings love to "teach" their little brothers and sisters things. Nora was excited about the opportunity to help Soren learn his colors by making "color boxes." It was even better that my own "little" brother (whom I "taught" many a thing back in the day -- I used to corner the poor child in his walker thing when he was a baby and read to him from an Encyclopedia of Insects -- he still has tremors at the sight of a bug) was in town to help out! (See hairy arm and sideburns above.)

To make :

--Gather small cardboard boxes and whatever colors of paint you'd like to use (we started with red and green boxes).

--Paint each box the color you're hoping to teach. We painted them inside and out, even on the bottom, 'cause we just get a little crazy when we paint.

--When your box is dry, Mod Podge or spray-shellac it so that the finish is shiny and it will open and close easily. (Note: Conventional Mod Podge dries tacky. You can use "Hard Drying" Mod Podge or a coat of spray shellac on top of a Mod Podged box, so that the finish is shiny and smooth.)

--When the varnish coat is dry, wander around the house with your older child and have him or her help you gather appropriately colored objects to fill the box!

Nora loves going through the items in the box with Soren and teaching him his colors.

"Touch-and-Feel Picture" for Younger Siblings

Older kids can design a "touch-and-feel" picture for their younger brothers and sisters, or even make a whole book. Nora worked on this picture for her little brother when he was about 16 months old. He loved it, although it's the kind of thing you'd want to supervise a younger child with (I don't think 3-year-olds really understand, you know, safety codes when making a toy for a younger sibling, so we glued things like craft pasta onto Soren's picture -- obviously, this item would be recalled from Toys R Us!...). But, Nora enjoyed presenting Soren with her picture, and his little fingers were busy exploring all the fun textures.

STEPS:

--Gather materials: 2 large pieces of heavyweight paper; crayons and paints; "feely" materials (felt, pom-poms, fine grit sandpaper, pipe cleaners, anything you think a younger child might like to feel); glue.

-- Let your child design a picture they think their younger sibling would like. Nora chose "an ocean scene," but then asked me "to draw a car in it because Soren loves cars." See? So thoughtful. ;)

--When the picture is dry, cut holes in it wherever a "feely" material should go.

-- Line up your two pieces of paper. Wherever you have made a circle in the top sheet, glue your "feely material" to the bottom sheet so that it shows through.

-- When all of your feely items are glued into place and the two pieces of paper are lined up, glue the two pieces together.

-- There! A fun picture for the baby to admire and feel. It's so sweet to watch your older child present the little one with a gift!

~~ A few more ideas for Big Kids and Little Kids: ~~

-- Mama's Doodles has a clever and adorable Onesie designed by an older sibling craft. The big brother or sister colors a picture on fine grit sandpaper with crayons, and then mama irons the image right onto a onesie -- a great gift for a new baby to wear home from the hospital, or maybe a fun present from big kid to little kid for the baby's first birthday!

Play Tips for Different-Aged Siblings

Games "Big Kids" Can Play with Their Younger Siblings

Fairy Houses

2009-08-21T15:44:00.005-05:00

We found the book "Fairy Houses" by Tracy Kane at our local library and decided to build one of our own.

This book tells the story of a young girl who vacations on an island off the coast of Maine for a week with her parents. They show her a little spot in the forest where people have been building houses for fairies. Kristen builds her own house and waits for the fairies to arrive...

The back of the book gives lots of great ideas for building your own fairy house in any season of the year. It also gives ideas for allowing creatures other than fairies to benefit from the "fairy houses" -- gathering berries and acorns for birds and squirrels, etc. Nora was instantly inspired and wanted to get right to it, even before breakfast.

Chck out The Crafty Crow's "Fairy Crafts Roundup" for more ideas...

We did break one rule of the fairy house, which was not picking or disturbing any living materials. Nora wanted to pick some flowers to decorate the house. I figured that, since we were in our own backyard, this was okay.

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Nora spent a good hour that morning working on her house (yes, she looks a little eccentric here, since she was still in her pajamas and insisted on wearing her gigantic star-spangled sunglasses). Soren just tried to do everything she did. Bless his little heart.

She built a stick wall, "to protect the fairies from predators." She used a magnolia branch for the roof, and dry grass and clover to line the back of the house. She made a "driveway" out of rocks (do fairies drive?). :) Later that afternoon, I remembered our milkweed plant and brought her some milkweed pods. I showed her how to slice them open lengthwise with her thumbnail, and she thought they would make perfect fairy beds. She tucked them inside the fairy house.

The finished, decorated house:

Making a Worm House

2009-08-21T15:06:00.003-05:00

This was a very popular activity with my daughter and her friends. How can you beat worms for easy-care, quiet pets?! :)

You'll need:

-- a clean, dry 2-liter plastic bottle (just rinse well; don't use soap)
-- an Xacto knife or razor blade to cut the top off the bottle
-- sand, dirt, newspaper for inside worm house
-- trowel for digging up wormy friends
-- plastic wrap to put across top of house
-- veggie scraps or rice cereal powder to feed your worms

Step One: Using your razor blade or Xacto Knife, cut the top rounded part off of your 2-liter bottle:

Step Two: Have your child help you shred up some newspaper. (Don't use any glossy inserts or magazine stuff; just the regular ol' newspaper). Put a couple of inches of newspaper in the bottom of the worm house.

Step Three: Layer sand and dirt, alternately, up to a few inches from the top of your worm house. A couple of inches of dirt, a couple of sand; and so on. I think we had space to do this cycle just 2 times. Somewhere in the middle of this, you can sprinkle a little baby oatmeal or rice cereal powder for the worms to eat; or toss in a few pieces of diced veggie like tomato scraps, a couple potato peels (diced very small) -- something the worms can eat.

Step Four: Find your worms! This may be easiest after a rain. We found one big nightcrawler, which we gave to our friend, and then a bunch of teeny tiny worms. (I read later that nightcrawlers feel the vibrations when you are digging, and they hurry down deeper, which was probably why we only caught that one and no others. You have to be a little fast to catch them! The regular garden worms are easy, though.) My daughter got so into her worms that we actually bought a few more nightcrawlers from a pet shop the next day, so she could see them better.

Step Five: Place a layer of plastic wrap across the top of your worm house and poke a few small holes in it. Keep it in a cool, dark place for up to 10 days. Check on your worms a few times a day, and you will see them dig tunnels, gradually mixng the sand and dirt together. Sometimes they will even slide right alongside the plastic, and you can see their insides. Be sure to put the worm house back in its dark place when you are done (more than a few minutes of light at a time is bad for them). After a week or so, release them into your garden or compost pile, where they will live on happily, keeping your garden healthy.

---------------------------------------------------

Resources:

We learned a lot about worms during our "worm week."

We read the books Diary of a Worm and Bob and Otto. Both very good!

We enjoyed the narrative and videos at The Adventures of Herman the Worm, a great web site for kids from the University of Illinois extension. (We especially were interested in learning about the worms' anatomy -- did you know they have a gizzard, like a chicken does? It's a little organ right behind their mouths and it's filled with teensy rock particles. When a worm ingests food, it can't chew, so the gizzard grinds up the food into smaller particles that the worm is able to digest. One of our worms slithered right along the plastic container and we were able to see its gizzard in action!)

Worms also have five hearts! We learned this on the great web site Wendell the Worm. You can see a little video of a worm's five hearts pumping blood. You can also see a video of a baby worm hatching from a cocoon smaller than a grain of rice. (I had trouble linking to these directl, so you can click on the "All About Earthworms" links to get there.)

Herman's "Worm Facts" are fascinating -- we learned that there are worms in Australia that regularly grow to 12 feet long! The longest worm ever found was in South America, and was 22 feet long! Aaaa! We pulled out the tape measure and tried to imagine worms as long as our whole house!

You can visit Wendell the Worm's cousins, including Larry Leech and Paulette Planaria.

You can eat a "worm snack" if you dare -- a cup of chocolate pudding with a gummy worm stuck inside, and cookie crumbs sprinkled on top. ;)

"Worm Art" -- glue lots of lengths of different colored string on sandpaper.

This link was really fun....have your child click on their state to see worm pictures sent in from kids in that state.

Can your child figure out what's funny about this poem?:

It's such a shock,
I almost screech
When I find a worm
inside my peach!

But then, what really
makes me blue
Is to find a worm
who's bit in two!
-William Cole

Newspaper Flowers

2009-08-21T14:47:00.002-05:00

Below are simple instructions for lovely newspaper-and-button flowers, easy enough for a child to make with just a little help. I saw this craft on the blog Imagination Station.

2009-08-21T14:43:00.000-05:00

Step One: Spread out a couple of thicknesses of newspaper and paint the top layer in a variety of pretty, complementary colors. The more newspaper you paint, the more flowers you can make, so be generous with yourself! Let the paint dry.

Step Two: Unfold a cereal box to use for your templates. Find five round objects to trace (or draw circles freehand if you're good at it) -- you want five circles, each slightly larger than the other. Here are the five we traced:

Step Three: Cut out your cardboard circles and, on the dry, painted newspaper, trace one of each circle for every flower that you want. Cut out your newspaper circles and let your child crumple each one slightly (fun fun). Then, smooth them slightly and layer the five circles, from smallest to largest, one on top of the other.

Step Four: Poke a small hole through the middle of all of the circles. Place one button on your pipe cleaner, right side down, and push it about half an inch down on the pipe cleaner. Then push the pipe cleaner through the five newspaper rounds. Top it off with a final button, right side up. Twist the pipe cleaner so the button won't come off.

(Alternatively, you could punch two small holes in the newspaper so the pipe cleaner goes up through the paper and button, and back down, twisting closed behind the paper.

If you are short on buttons, you can use just the top button, but the "flowers" may slide down on the pipe cleaner stem somewhat.)

Fill a vase with rocks, rice, or marbles and arrange your flowers. Very pretty, and they last a long time!

Printmaking, Preschooler-Style

2009-08-08T23:02:00.004-05:00

I encountered the idea of printmaking with children on the blog Let's Explore. The prints looked complicated, but after testing the process out, I realized that it is so easy!

All you need is:
-- watercolor paper
-- a slick surface (like the back of a folder or placemat)
-- paintbrushes and washable paint
-- tape
-- Q-tips

The basic idea is that your child paints on the slick surface (we used the back of a vinyl placemat; the paint will wash off easily whenever you want to change colors). Then, she uses a Q-tip to draw a picure in the paint. When a page of watercolor paper is placed on top and then peeled away, her image will be there, in white on the painted paper! Very cool!

(A note on watercolor paper: You do need to use this rather than regular drawing paper, because otherwise the edges of your paper will curl up too much as the paper dries. However, your watercolor paper need not be expensive. A glance-over at Michael's revealed that watercolor paper ranged from $16 a pack to $2.99. Obviously, I went for the $2.99. It served our purposes just fine.)

Just follow our easy steps below....

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THE STEPS:

1) Tape around the edges of your watercolor paper. This is so that,

no matter how crazy your child may go while painting, you will still end up with a nice clean edge like this:

(I think peeling the tape off at the end may have been Nora's favorite part. Magic!)

2) Set your child up with the painting surface (in our case, the back of a placemat). Have your child fill in the entire area with a layer of paint.

3) Using a Q-tip, let your child draw whatever picture she wants. But, explain that if she wants to make a print, she'll have only a few minutes to draw because the print needs to be made before the paint dries. (We abandoned a few pictures to live out their lives as "mere" paintings, because I didn't want to nag at Nora about the time while she was enjoying her creativity. Paintings that she finished more quickly went into second lives as Prints.)

4) Genly place your watercolor paper atop the placemat. Again, gently, rub the back of the paper, being careful not to let it shift (or your image will blur). Nora wanted to help with this step, but she is three, and simply could not do it without rubbing her image into oblivion. Once this became clear, she was okay with me taking over.

5) Peel up the watercolor paper to reveal your image. COOL!

Then hang them up and enjoy:

a friendly reminder....

2009-08-08T22:44:00.001-05:00

...While assisting your preschooler with an involved craft such as printmaking, do keep a close eye on your toddler, who will probably decide to repaint your house (and his hair, and his teeth) in Pepto-Bismol pink.

Potato Aliens (and a Tissue-Box Rocket Ship)

2009-07-30T22:50:00.001-05:00

After last week's potato penguins, Nora had the great idea to make potato aliens. The process was the same: we just painted raw potatoes green and then decorated them. Some fun potato-alien accessories:

--sequins
--green Easter grass hair
--googly eyes of various sizes
--Q-tips (made great antennae)
--pipe cleaners (ditto)
--Sharpie for drawing mouths
--craft pasta wheels for Princess Leia-like buns (not shown, just an idea)
--Rice Krispies made great teeth

We used an old, washed egg carton to stand the potatoes up in while they were drying. Nora wanted to make them a rocket ship out of a Kleenex box. I know that one could make a really awesome, realistic-looking one (you could cover it with white paper, and write something like "Earth or Bust!" on the door, or -- whatever! But this was Nora's project, so I stayed out of it). She doodled on the box with a Sharpie, stuck on some sequins, and asked me to make a simple door out of a rectangle of white paper. She spent all morning putting her potato aliens in the box, flying them around, and collecting green foods from the play kitchen to "feed" them.

This one's my favorite

Princess Castle

2009-07-24T23:38:00.003-05:00

What princess wouldn't love making such a pretty castle? We made it entirely for free the other morning with stuff we had around the house. And it was so quick, my early riser Nora and I had it finished before her sleepyhead brother even woke up at 7:30! I found this craft on a delightful post called "What Can You Make from Cardboard Tubes?" on The Crafty Crow. Check out this link, too, if you want to see how a young knight made his castle. As for us, we went all girly.

One gal's toilet paper roll is another gal's treasure. To make this castle you'll need:
two paper towel rolls
three toilet paper rolls
a pipe cleaner
paper
paint and glue and scissors

Step One: Cut the paper towel roll into three pieces: two pieces that are just slightly longer than the toilet paper rolls; and one short piece (about 2" high) for the door. (You'll see what I mean if you look at the top picture.) Cut the tops of the two long pieces to resemble turrets.

Two: Paint the cardboard tubes, if desired. (Or leave gray for a stone-castle-type look.)
Before the paint is dry, dip the edges of the tubes in glitter. Let dry.

Three: When tubes are dry, set them up the way you want them, and then glue along the points that touch. They'll be delicate until dry, but as long as they are touching while the glue is drying, they should hold up well when finished. Nora kept getting so excited to play with her castle that she'd pull it apart before it was fully dry, so we had to glue it a couple of times!

Four: Cut a small piece of construction paper into a half-oval for the door. We didn't have black paper, so we just colored a half-circle of white paper black with a pen. Allow your child to put the door on where she likes. Cut another piece of paper into a flag shape, and help your child affix it to the pipe cleaner (I folded it along the back and we taped it closed around the pipe cleaner). We used stamps to put Nora's name on the flag, but you can write whatever your child likes!

Five: Set up your castle and play. Nora played with her My Little Ponies all around it. It's still on our counter, looking good!

Painted Stick Gardens, again

2009-07-24T23:12:00.005-05:00

I love hearing that someone has tried one of our crafts!! Nancy at Kibbles 'N Knits shared this adorable picture of her son planting painted sticks in his garden:

So cool! It inspired us to move our sticks into our veggie garden. Here's Nora back in the spring when we made our stick garden. She looks so much smaller! Those jeans are like skintight capris on her now. Thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane, all via a stick garden.

They Came from the Produce Section

2009-07-24T22:57:00.004-05:00

Here's a weird little craft we can claim completely as our own. Can you tell?:

While grocery shopping the other evening, just the two of us (the boys were at home), I mused to Nora, "Wouldn't it be fun to paint potatoes to look like penguins?" Nora sighed, rolled her eyes heavenward slightly as if to say, Do you see what I have to live with?, and then said, "Sure, Mommy." So we picked up a couple of potatoes and made these little guys. Nora decided to make each member of our family: Daddy, Mommy, baby Soren, and herself. She is the one with three eyes, "because I want to look funny," she explained. This craft was a blast and she had fun playing with her potato penguins for days, until they (sans googly-eyes) went into the compost bin. (The new red potatoes were starting to ooze slightly. Their time had come.)

Want to make your own little family of penguins?

You'll need:
a couple of potatoes (as many as you want penguins) -- we used 2 russets and 2 new red potatoes
white and black non-toxic, washable paint
paint brushes
glue or glue stick
googly eyes
a piece of orange construction paper

Step One: Paint your penguins. I painted the white "bibs" first, and when these dried, taped over them so that Nora could paint the black part without stressing out about accidentally covering over the white. She enjoyed painting them once, and then I confess that I gave them another coat that evening after she went to bed, because I am a neurotic perfectionist when it comes to things like hand-painted root vegetables.

We used an empty egg carton to stand the potatoes in while they dried.

Step Two: Decorate. When the paint has dried, add googly eyes and a small triangle of orange construction paper for a beak.

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Nora loved arranging the penguins and making them "talk." She also loved to lay them down in their "snow" (white sugar) and "sunbathe."

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Nora even set the penguins by the window so that they could look out.

And when a neighbor dropped by, they both played with the penguins. Our neighbor was quite intrigued by what we'd been up to....

What, her mommy wasn't home, painting faces on the rutabagas?

Handmade Shakers

2009-07-24T22:14:00.002-05:00

Since Nancy tried out our Stick Garden craft, I felt inspired to try her homemade shakers craft. She has the great, step-by-step tutorial on her crafting blog.
All you need are toilet paper rolls, paint, some construction paper, tape, and something rattly to put in your shaker. It's good fun!

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Mommy, how did my hand get dirty??

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Soren got really into the filling-the-shaker part. He loved grabbing handfuls of pasta and dropping them into the tube.

And when your shakers are done -- DANCE!!

Handprint Octopus

2009-07-24T22:04:00.003-05:00

This was a fun, quick little craft for a rainy morning. I thought it would be the perfect level for both kids, but Soren (17 mos.) just wanted to eat paint that day. So I distracted him with cars while Nora finished her handprint octopus.

Basically, all you have to do is paint one of your child's hands orange -- except for the thumb. (Hark! Paint not the thumb!) Have her make a handprint on paper; then re-paint the hand and press another handprint right on top of the first, at a slight angle. There you have it -- an 8-legged octopus!

Nora painted a background sheet of blue paper with her famous glitter-water-glue concoction, and we learned that blops of glue, which dry clear, look awesomely like bubbles. That could come in handy for a future art project....

Two Great Art Books for Kids

2009-06-21T23:37:00.001-05:00

I love books about art for children. Reading and thinking about art outside of craft time helps kids put creativity in a larger context. It's fun for them to realize that other people love to draw and paint, too -- even some grownups! In "Drawing Lessons from a Bear," David McPhail adopts the persona of a (now grown-up) bear to essentially tell the story of how he became an artist. His bear character recalls how, as just a young cub, he loved to draw on the floor of his den; he'd wake up during hibernation to draw; in the summer, he'd draw all day long. Eventually, the bear grows up to become a professional artist. He is offered awards like houses and cars, but, being a bear, has no need for such things. All he wants to do, even as a grown-up, is draw. The message is that drawing makes him happy and he uses it to make others happy.

The drawings are warm and engaging, and I like the message that you can tell what you really have a passion for if it's what you want to do all day long! But my favorite part of the book is at the end, when the bear asks his child readers if they love to draw, too. And, if so, they can become artists. All they have to do is shout, "I AM AN ARTIST!": "There. Now you are an artist. Forever and always."

"Lucy's Picture," by Nicola Moon, is a great introduction to the genre of collages (one of our personal favorites). When Lucy's teacher sets up the paints for her students during art time, Lucy asks if she can make a collage instead. She gathers materials like feathers, sand, and other items to assemble a beautiful collage. At the end of the story, it is revealed that she's made the collage for her grandfather, who is blind, and he can "see" the picture by feeling it. It's a great way to explain the idea behind a collage: a picture you can feel!

I found both of these at our local library.

Story Craft: 'Owl Babies'

2009-06-01T06:40:00.003-05:00

Owl Babies is such a sweet and simple book. Three baby owls -- Sarah, Percy, and Bill -- wait anxiously for their mother to come home from a trip to fetch them food. When she does, it affirms their knowledge that Mommy will never leave them!

Your child can make her own little owlet just like the ones in the story. (Nora wanted me to know that this one was "Bill.")

All you need is: A pinecone; a small stip of polyester fiberfill (like for filling stuffed animals); two googly eyes; and a scrap of yellow, orange, black, or brown construction paper. Also, glue or a glue stick.

First, have your child wrap the poly-fill around the pinecone. You don't even need glue for this part. Just help her tuck the poly-fill into the pinecone all snug and nice, so the brown part of the pinecone is covered.

Have your child glue on the googly eyes. Then, cut a teensy diamond shape from your piece of construction paper and fold it to make a beak. Put on a tiny dab of glue and have your child affix the beak.

There! An owlet to read the story with you! Of course his mommy would come back for such a cute little thing!

Story Craft: 'It Looked Like Spilt Milk'

2009-06-01T06:31:00.005-05:00

The childrens' book It Looks Like Spilt Milk lets kids find all kinds of fun shapes in the clouds. What shapes can come about accidentally when kids make their own paint "clouds?"

This is a simple craft. Pour some white kid-safe paint into a paper or plastic cup. Add enough water, gradually, so that the paint is thin enough to dribble off the spoon, but still opaque.

Give your child a sheet of blue construction paper. Let her dribble and dab the paint wherever she wants. (This craft is more about the process than the result -- as all kids' crafts should be. Nora got really into dabbing and dribbling the paint -- she wanted to do three of these. I'll admit, I tried it myself and there was something fun about it.)

When your child has dribbled and dropped to her heart's content, fold the paper in half and have her rub the sides together, then unfold. Does she see any shapes in her "clouds?"

Nora saw "a dribbly dog."

Collages

2009-05-17T06:41:00.003-05:00

Collages are some of the easiest, most versatile, and thrifty crafts you can do with your kids. They can explore any theme; use up spare/leftover materials; or be totally freewheeling and fun. Of course, everyone knows how to make a collage, but sometimes you can get ideas from what other people have tried, so here goes...

SHAPE COLLAGES

These can be super simple (for toddlers just learning their shapes) or more involved (like tesselations). Last summer, we did these a lot. I'd cut out lots of squares and triangles and whatnot, and let Nora glue them all over black paper. She doesn't really make scenes with them yet (or, she didn't last summer), but older kids could use the shapes to make more representational things (sailboats, people, whatever).

LAYERED MULTIMEDIA

(or, as Nora likes to think of it: Glue Extravaganza)

These usually require a heavier surface, like those papier mache boards from Michaels (shown above; 50 cents to one dollar each. I think I just made up how to spell "papier mache," too -- forgive me, I never took French). Now, it might seem like one should paint first and glue second, but when making a collage you can actually get some pretty cool effects by slopping glue and paint all together and then sticking various materials all over the surface. (Just make sure to wash your brushes promptly, or they will never recover.)

The collage at the top left of the first photo in this post is my favorite that Nora's ever made -- and one of the few I haven't let her give away or cut up to make something else. She's working on it in the picture below. Some tips for getting this layered look in a collage:

1) Use a heavy surface (like cardboard, canvas, or papier mache)

2) Stick to a limited palette. I gave Nora two paint colors: blue and red. (Usually, she would choose something like green, brown, and purple, which, to adults, just doesn't look too pretty. And usually I'd be cool with that, but we were making these for Christmas gifts, so I tried to sway her towards more complimentary colors.)

3) Supply materials with lots of different textures. We used lots of tissue paper and toothpicks. The tissue paper will become almost translucent on the glue-paint mixture, and dries almost like decoupage. You can crumple it up to make it 3-D, too.

4) Cover part of the project at a time for a layered effect. I learned this from an episode of Jon and Kate + 8, where they were making paintings on canvas. The artist who was helping them would cover parts of the painting with aluminum foil. That prevented the kids from turning the canvas into a single solid color, as kids sometimes like to do. The end results were amazing! (Again, I usually advocate giving kids total free reign with their creativity, but in that case they were painting canvases to hang on the wall, so they were more interested than usual in the final product.

Some great materials to keep on hand for collages include:

-- yarn -- scraps of fabric --tissue paper, in squares and crumpled -- newspaper -- strips of brown paper -- aluminum foil -- toothpicks -- Easter basket grass -- craft pasta --craft rice -- pom poms --craft feathers -- bits of sandpaper -- sponges -- glitter -- sequins --rubber bands -- magazine cutouts - - silk flowers, flower petals, or dried flowers and leaves -- sand, colored or plain -- ribbon -- stickers

OTHER COLLAGE IDEAS:

-- Experiment with huge collages and tiny ones

-- Try theme collages. For example, supply your kids with magazine cutouts of various ocean animals; blue watercolor paints; a few seashells -- and let them make an ocean collage.

-- Try a collage bracelet. Use a strip of clear packing tape. Hold it for your child while s/he sticks various objects to it, and then wrap it around your child's wrist, sticky side out. It makes a charming, temporary bracelet! Nora made me one for Mother's Day, out of nature items -- dried leaves, flower petals, seeds -- and I wore it all day.

-- For great Christmas ornaments, buy a few of the papier mache or wooden shapes sold at Michael's. There are even round ones that make great Christmas balls. Have your child decorate them in a collaeg style; varnish them when dry. They are beautiful and make the best gifts!

-- Keep a collage box available for whenever the collage mood strikes. We have a box filled with two dozen or so Ziploc baggies. Each baggie contains a different collage material: feathers, pom poms, you name it. I just set the bin on the table for Nora and she'll whip up a collage whenever she's bored. And clean-up is easy; she can do it herself, because she just puts all of the leftover items back in their baggies and then puts the bin back in its cabinet.

-- Older kids can keep "collage journals" in spiral-bound notebooks or just on folded, stapled books of paper.

-- Used-up coloring books can be cut up to make collages.

-- To save a collage, cover it with a few light coats of spray varnish, and it will last a long time.

giant bubbles

2009-04-28T17:20:00.000-05:00

Kids are fascinated by giant bubbles! With enough supplies, they also make great fun for a party, as long as the day is not too windy. Little Soren here almost got gobbled up and carried away by the above bubble -- but he doesn't look too concerned, as he was hypnotized by a bubble that had floated some distance away.

You'll need:
-- a few large bubble wands or butterfly nets (I found ours at Dollar General). The butterfly nets actually work better than commercial plastic wands.
-- water
-- dish soap (like liquid Dawn)
-- Karo corn syrup (I used "light corn syrup" because it was what I had)

Recipe:

6 parts water
2 parts dish soap
3/4 part corn syrup

Let sit, uncovered, overnight. In fact, letting it sit for a couple of days makes it work even better. Ours sat for 2 nights and made awesome bubbles! (Which is good, because you don't want your kids to get frustrated!)

Butterfly nets make great bubble wands because the netting part traps bubble solution. Cut out the middle of your butterfly net, leaving a rim of net about 2.5 -3 " wide around the wand.

Variations:

-- A "bubble cone": roll up a piece of paper into a cone shape, and trim the larger end so it's even. Dip into bubble solution (let sit 30 sec the first time), and then blow into the smaller end. The layers of paper trap bubble solution, so you get some really big bubbles!

-- If you're having a playgroup or a party, it's easy to get enough supplies for everyone....you can either buy a bunch of butterfly nets (cut out the centers) and use a couple of pans of solution, or raid your local Dollar Store or Dollar General for cheap supplies. We found these long, awesome bubble wands that looked like swords (at Dollar General); they came in different colors, too. They blew good bubbles, but the bubbles weren't as large and easy to make as the ones we made ourselves (not to boast :) -- it was still good fun for a dollar. You can also buy various sizes of wands, bubble machines, battery-powered bubble blowers -- all kinds of fun for parties -- BUT you could just make some homemade solution and have good, clean, cheap fun, too.

Alternate recipe with glycerine:

-- 4 1/2 cups water; 1/2 cup liquid dish soap; 4 tablespoons glycerine (found at most pharmacies and drug stores -- you might have to ask). We didn't try this, just because we had corn syrup at home, but I hear it works well.

coffee filter butterfly

2009-04-28T17:02:00.002-05:00

You'll need:

-- 6 - 7 coffee filters, stacked
-- a clothespin
--a pipe cleaner
-- a few watercolor paints

1. Let your child paint the watercolors all over the coffee filters (oh, put down some newspaper first). The bottom layers of the filters will catch most of the paint and keep it from soaking through.

2. Peel off the top 3 or so coffee filters (discard the rest). Scrunch the filters into the top of the clothespin, then fan them out a bit to make "wings."

3. Wind the pipe cleaner around the top of the clothespin (for antennae) as shown below:

4. Draw a face on the butterfly; or, if your child is old enough, let him or her draw the face. These are cute enough to be a simple Mother's Day gift from the child -- maybe to an aunt or grandparent?

Friendly Easter-Egg Snake

2009-04-15T06:32:00.000-05:00

Do you have more plastic Easter eggs lying around than you can use? We do. Somehow, we collected dozens from the various egg hunts we've gone on in the past 2 weeks!

So we made this snake, which we discovered at Preschool Rock.

Here's how you make it:

1. Gather 2 whole plastic Easter eggs, plus 15-20 Easter egg bottoms.

2. Drill a small hole in the bottom of each egg half (large enough for yarn to pass through). I know you're thinking, DRILL?, but this took less than 5 minutes.

3. Cut a generous length of yarn and tie a BIG knot at one end. Have your child begin stringing the eggs: first a whole egg (we put a few kibbles of cat food inside to make it rattle -- classy!); then all of the egg halves, and then the last whole egg. Once the "snake" is on the yarn, tie it off again to make the tongue.

(Helpful hint: My daughter found it a little difficult to string the eggs -- and no, not just because her extreme case of bed-head was getting in the way, but because our yarn was floppy and the holes were small. I put a little tape on the very end of the yarn and snipped it to a point. Voila! -- more like a needle and very easy to get through the hole. This made the craft much more enjoyable for my daughter.)

4. Have your child draw a face on the snake. And there you have... a fun little slithery snake that you can drag all over the floor and play with.

Okay Moms, get cracking!!!

2009-04-13T15:03:00.001-05:00

I saw this online -- it's from a Canadian family magazine. Now, maybe those Canadians have a lot of spare time over their long winters, but.....I thought this was insane. In a cheerful and well-intentioned way, but...clearly insane. Can you imagine making one of these for your kids' lunch??? Painstakingly slicing each bento radish to create the perfect miniscule hamburger? Your poor kid would get so beat up on the playground.....

I admire the mom who would do this, and yet I fear her.

Making a Painted Stick Garden

2009-04-08T16:42:00.002-05:00

When I saw this painted stick garden on the blog Sweet Thing(s),

I knew we had to make our own.

Isn't hers beautiful? I especially love the black-and-white striped one. Her children are older than mine, and she primed the sticks with primer first, so she took her stick garden project a bit more seriously than we did. But we still had fun with ours, and it does look pretty cool and artsy! We finished three sticks in an afternoon, and if Nora asks to add more to the garden, we will.

You'll need:

-- driftwood or just dry, fallen tree branches
-- paint and brushes, smocks, etc.
-- spray shellac if you have used washable paint (to make the finished sticks waterproof)

1. Gather a few sticks -- let your child choose sticks with shapes that appeal to her

2. Cover a surface with newspaper, gather your paints and smocks, and paint the sticks. For younger children who may have trouble filling in a whole stick, Sarah recommends painting the stick a base color first, letting that dry, and then letting the child paint over it. You can see from her sticks that she and her kids applied a few coats of paint that they let dry, and then added to -- the sticks have distinct stripes and color areas. They look really nice that way. (Nora wanted to paint hers all at once and she doesn't like to clean the brush between paint colors, so we ended up with a couple of lavender-blue-reddish sticks...they had more of that "painted by a three year old" look, which was fine by me!) Nora wanted to add some feathers, so we did.

3. Allow sticks to dry. Since we used washable paint, I later sprayed the sticks with a light coating of shellac so that the paint wouldn't melt off when it rained.

4. "Plant" your garden! We planted our sticks in the decorative rock by the deck.

Paper Plate Easter Bunny

2009-04-06T06:56:00.003-05:00

Thank you, Kit at www.amazingmoms.com!

Paper Plate Easter Bunnies

You'll Need:
1 or 2 white paper plates
white or pink construction paper
google eyes
3 pink pipe cleaners
hole punch
cotton balls (optional)
black or pink marker
white glue, glue stick or glue dots
stapler

Instructions:
Cut two white bunny ears from the construction paper and smaller pink ovals for the inside ear. Have child glue the pink oval inside the ear. Staple the ears to the top edge of your plate from behind.

Have child glue on the eyes and draw a triangle nose. Punch 3 holes on either side of nose. Cut the pipe cleaners in half (preschoolers can do this with safety scissors) and tie into the holes for whiskers. Have child draw on a mouth with marker. (Optional: Have child attach two or three cotton balls to the back of the bunny to fashion a tail.) Children make want to add a hair bow or bow tie to dress up their bunny!

Variations:

-- Surround the edges of the plate with cotton balls.
-- Cut the second paper plate in half and staple it to the bunny to create a pocket in the back. Fill the pocket with Easter grass and fill with treats or cards.

Kit's Tips:
-- I find that chenille stems are difficult to secured with white glue,
I used a hole punch to insert the whiskers instead.
-- Also, in my experience, young children find it frustrating to attach cotton with glue; it gets pretty sticky. I usually skip the cotton ball step.

CUPCAKES: THINGS OF BEAUTY

2009-03-31T15:59:00.002-05:00

Most of the time, I am quite glad that it is the year 2009. The only thing that makes me wish it were 1960 is this: the baked goods. In particular, cupcakes.

Weird, lovely, possibly sickening or delicious, highly intricate cupcakes made with buttercreams and meringues and trompe l'oeil decorations of, say, the Statue of Liberty made out of egg whites and shredded coconut, or whatever.

Wouldn't Dave be delighted if he came home from work and saw that I had spent my day constructing this:

While that may not technically be a cupcake, it very well might save my marriage:

Ladies, take heed. (Do click on that to enlarge it: it's fascinating. He returns to his wife mainly for her gingerbread -- and her relieved response is, of all things, It's that plantation molasses he used to have when he was a boy -- thanks to Brer Rabbit!)

Truly, though -- cupcakes are fun. Kids love them. The possibilities are endless. So I've compiled a short list of cupcakes that meet my Official Criteria for being Very Good Cupcakes.

OFFICIAL CRITERIA FOR VERY GOOD CUPCAKES:

1. They are relatively simple to make.

2. They are blatantly thematic. I love themes, I love kids, I love parties. Put those three things together and you have some idea of how I hope Heaven turns out.

3. Here's the shocker: They must be prepared (or preparABLE) with boxed cake mix. I like to decorate the little buggers; I will not waste my time making cupcake batter from scratch. I'd rather spend four hours slicing licorice whips into tiny threads, thank you.

Here are some cupcakes suitable for birthday parties or just for fun. I've arranged them in four categories according to difficulty. I think you'll be delighted at just how EASY they are. And if you've got a cupcake up your sleeve (not literally, I hope) please do share. I may even start a Cupcake of the Week feature (although I'm leaning towards a Birthday Theme of the Week feature -- then I can combine my two loves).

And now, I am off to construct the Taj Mahal out of marshmallows, in the hopes of securing a happy marriage. Enjoy the cupcakes!

Level One: So Easy, Your Husband, I Mean Kid, Could Do It

2009-03-31T15:28:00.006-05:00

TEDDY BEAR PICNIC CUPCAKES

Aren't those great? So simple, but perfect. Your preschooler could invite over some friends, have them each bring their teddy bear, and play; have a little picnic with triangular sandwiches and apple wedges; and finish off with these adorable cupcakes. Here's the easy-peasy recipe.

ICE CREAM CONE CUPCAKES

The only difficult thing about these is getting them to stand up. I am convinced that they glue them to the plates in these pictures. (Also, the icing in the picture is probably made of shaving cream or something. You know how sneaky those "food stylists" are.) But making these is simplicity itself. Buy a box of confetti cake mix; prepare and pour into a cupcake pan; and smack an ice cream cone on top. Bake them that way, and the cupcakes puff up to fill the cones. Turn them over, ice them, and they look great! They are also wonderful for toddlers and preschoolers because they are much less messy than a traditional cupcake. Plus, it's super cute to see a bunch of icing-faced kids wandering around in their glory, munching on a cupcake on a cone.

Am I right?

Here's the recipe.

See? Mine wouldn't stand up with any reliability.

Certain partygoers did not seem to mind.

SPIDER CUPCAKES

These are from Nora's third birthday party. Make chocolate cupcakes and frost with chocolate icing; decorate with jimmies. To make the eyes, slice a big marshmallow in half and "glue" an M and M on each half with chocolate icing. The nose is another M & M, and the legs are black licorice whips. These are great for Halloween, too, of course. They look really cute "in person."

WORM IN THE DIRT CUPCAKES

This may be the easiest cupcake recipe ever. Frost a cupcake with chocolate icing. Break a gummy worm in half and stick each half into the frosting. Then, cover with chocolate cookie crumbs or graham cracker crumbs. They actually look SO lifelike that a few of the kids at Nora's party (as well as her daddy) were a little scared to eat them. ;)

FROG CUPCAKES

SO easy. The baker here decided to ice the top of the cupcake in blue so that the frog is "peeking" out of the water. However, I think I'd color the whole cupcake green so that the top of the cupcake is the frog's mouth/face. I think it's less confusing. I know, this is really controversial here. WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Now, get ahold of yourself, please.. Here's the recipe.

TIC-TAC-TOE CUPCAKES

Don't you want to host a game party just so you can make these?

Here's the recipe.

Level Two: A Little More Effort

2009-03-31T15:24:00.005-05:00

PET PARADE
These are easy and cute, and kids can even decorate their own at the party. You don't need fancy icing bags or tips; if you don't have them, just use foldover plastic bags, fill with icing, and snip a tiny corner to pipe the icing out of. You can read the complete recipe here.

SPORTS CUPCAKES
Here is the recipe.

I couldn't get the picture to download for some reason, but here is a recipe for fantastically cute little penguin cupcakes.

CAMO CUPCAKES
There are two varieties I found online: those made with fondant

and those made with dyed food coloring.

Fondant scares me. It looks so easy. I bought some one time,though, and it was a dry, unworkable mess. I've never gone back. However, re-reading how Camo Cupcake Mom #1 made hers, it sounded so simple: she rolled out some colors of fondant, cut the little shapes, and stuck 'em on chocolate frosting. How hard can that be?! (Famous last words.)

Camo Cupcake Mom #2 is clearly a perfectionist; she got all those edges of food coloring lined up without excess smearing and blending. I think that's harder than it looks. Still, I think anyone who did a trial run a couple weeks before a birthday party could do these fairly easily. And they're pretty cool. You go, Camo Cupcake Moms.

Level Three: Involved, But Doable Cupcakes

2009-03-31T15:12:00.006-05:00

CLOWN CUPCAKE

This clown is far from creepy. It's downright cute. (It's a Martha Stewart recipe, of course.) These would be perfect for a carnival or circus-themed party. They look difficult, but the only hard part is cutting a triangular core out of each cupcake to use as the clown hat. Okay, now that I wrote that out, it's downright intimidating. But with a small, sharp, serrated knife and a few practice runs (I'd bake a whole extra batch), I think it could be mastered. Then all you have to do is affix some colorful candies, and you've got these darling cupcakes. Maybe I'll test out this recipe and let y'all know how it goes. 'Cause I'm sure the two people who look at this blog are waiting on pins and needles....

LEGO CAKE

These are not actually cupcakes, but because they are single-serving size I decided to include them. Also, they're awesome. And easy: you just cut a sheet cake or two up into rectangles and ice them. The knobs on the tops of each Lego are frosted marshmallows! GENIUS!

Here's a variation that is, decidedly, a CAKE:

BUG CUPCAKES

These are not hard at all, but affixing all those durn candies (and having to buy so many types of candy) lands them in the "involved" category. They are not all that different from the bug cupcakes I made for Nora's 3rd birthday (which I will share later -- they were easy and cute!). Here's the complete recipe from bettycrocker.com.

Level Four: "I Have a Little Secret" Category

2009-03-31T06:27:00.009-05:00

Now here's where it gets really fun. The following cupcakes look like something made by Pixar. But they are EASY. The secret? Little cupcake wrappers called "Roundabouts."

"Roundabouts" make impossible-looking cupcakes easy for us laypeople who might be dangerous, or at least awkward, with a pastry bag. Most styles are $8.99 for a dozen roundabouts: pricey, but worth it, I think, if cupcakes are your thang. (Plus, you save a lot of money on all the millions of weird little candies you'd have to buy -- and then have sitting in your cupboards until they turn rock-hard because you only used five of each -- if you made intricate cupcakes all on your own.)

Popcorn, anyone?!

It's ingenious. You put the "roundabout" wrapper on the outside of your cuppy cake, and make the "popcorn" out of mini marshmallows that you cut in two and then squeeze back together.

Now, these are for sophisticated, highly cultured kids, OR adults, but I thought they were hilarious:

Again using the mini mallows, and bam, we have George:

Level Crazy: "Impossible But too Cool Not to Post" Category

2009-03-31T06:22:00.008-05:00

LOOK at these, people, and geek out with me.

What little boy (or girl) wouldn't love that???!!!

And how about these Super Mario cupcakes:

Space Invaders:

These were professionally done (using fondant, which frightens me). Pac Man!!:

These games are probably too "old" for kids' cupcakes anyway. These would be for, like, your IT guy at work's birthday, or maybe your geeky husband's. (No, I don't mean to suggest that YOUR husband is geeky.)

Thanks for reveling in cupcakes with me. 'Til next time.

Easter Coloring Pages

2009-03-29T06:13:00.002-05:00

These are all free to print out on your computer. I've included secular and religious pages below.

Secular

Cute bunny with eggs

Cute bunny with bow in hair

"Kids dressed up for Easter" coloring page

Beautiful patterned egg to color #1

Beautiful patterned egg to color #2

Beautiful patterned egg to color #3

Very pretty picture of bunny with egg

Realistic chicks in basket coloring page

Patterned Easter eggs to color

Bunny in basket

Bunny painting an Easter egg

Chick and Easter egg

Singing/dancing chicks with Easter egg

Lamb with Easter basket

Religious

The Ministry of Jesus (free online coloring book)

Cross w/ flowers coloring page

Jesus Arrives on Palm Sunday coloring page

The story of the Resurrection (Matthew 28), adapted for preschoolers (story)

John 20 adapted for children under 4 (story)

"He is Risen" Easy Shapes greeting card template
-- Cut out the shapes and allow your child to arrange them on a piece of folded construction paper. Some can be glued and others applied with bits of folded tape, to give a "3D" effect.

Easter Bonnet Craft (picture coming soon)

-- a few sheets of newspaper or tissue paper
-- roll of masking tape
-- stickers, silk flowers, other little decorations for top of hat (whatever you have on hand)

Take a few sheets of newspaper or tissue paper. Have your child stand upright and look straight ahead. Place the paper on his/her head and then tape a band of masking tape around the child's head at about top-of-ear level. (Better to go lower than higher.) This will make the top of the hat so it will fit on child's head without sliding off.

Roll up all of the paper below the tape "brim." Roll it right up to the level of the tape, so you have the brim of the hat.

Decorate hat with stickers, silk craft flowers, leaves, tissue paper, whatever you have on hand. These are really adorable! Nora wore hers around til it practically disintegrated!

........................................................................................

Milk Carton "Easter Baskets"

Wash out an empty milk carton and let dry.

Use an Xacto Knife to cut off the bottom 2/3 of the carton.

Let child paint or decorate as desired. (Nora loves painting boxes -- she goes nuts -- paints the inside, bottom, etc. Don't know quite what makes it so exciting, but it works...)

When dry, glue a strip of construction paper across the top as a "handle." Or punch 2 holes and thread pipe cleaners through for a handle.

Birds' Nests

2009-03-29T06:08:00.003-05:00

Eggs and Nests recipe:
-- 1/2 cup peanut butter chips
-- 1/2 cup peanut butter
Melt; stir in about 1 1/2 cups dry chow mein noodles (you'll want them to be evenly coated). Arrange in nest shapes on wax-paper-covered baking sheet. Place jelly bean or chocolate eggs in middle. Refrigerate til firm. Yum! (They end up tasting kind of like crunchy donuts.)

(originally posted in May 2008, but perfect for spring, so I had to re-post)

2009-03-27T15:19:00.003-05:00

Dyed Craft Rice
Recipe from amazingmoms.com

-- Kids love squeezing glue onto construction paper and then pouring colored rice over the glue to make patterns with texture.

-- Add to your collage box as another collage medium.

--Pour different colors of rice into bottles (as with sand art) -- pretty!

-- Teach your little ones their letters
by writing in glue on paper and letting them sprinkle or press the colored rice on top.
After it dries, they can trace the letter with their
finger tip.

You’ll need :

Uncooked white rice
Food color
Vinegar

Place 1/2 cup rice into a bowl. Add ~ 5 drops
of coloring and 1/2 tsp. vinegar
to set the color. Spread flat onto a baking sheet.
Bake at 200 for 45 min to dry.

You may wish to make more colors at the same time.
Be sure to keep them separate when baking.
After they dry, they can be packed together.

Easter Bunny paper doll and clothes

2009-03-27T15:13:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Danielle's Place for this fun template.

Bunny template

Clothes Pattern 1

Clothes Pattern 2 with Easter basket and hat

Simply print out templates (heavier paper, if you have it, will last longest), let your child color/decorate them, and then cut them out. Your child can dress the bunny paper doll and/or use it as an Easter decoration. Simple, fun, and free -- that's how I like my kids' crafts. ;)

SPRING RAINBOW

2009-03-25T17:23:00.002-05:00

This sweet and simple suncatcher is a fun craft to make for spring. My daughter enjoyed it so much, we made another one the next day! This would also make a good Sunday school craft, or a gift from a small child to a teacher at the end of the year.

You'll need:
-- a sheet of wax paper
-- a sheet of white paper
-- dyed pasta (instructions below)
-- glue

1. Have your child draw the outline of a rainbow on a sheet of white paper (or draw it for them). (My 3-year-old was able to draw the outline, but I had to draw the inside lines for her.) Lay the white paper beneath the wax paper as a template.

2. Arrange dots or stripes of glue along each "color strip" of the rainbow.

3. Arrange pasta, color by color, along each strip. (You will see that my daughter insisted on making a "reverse rainbow," foiling what I thought was foresight in dyeing the most pasta red and the least pasta purple).

4. Let dry. When dry, punch a small hole between the red and orange strips of color and hang with ribbon, yarn, or string in a sunny window.

There you have it. A rainbow!

How to dye craft pasta

2009-03-25T16:11:00.002-05:00

Craft pasta is so pretty,

and the possibilities are nearly endless!

It's easy to dye your own craft pasta. You'll need:

-- dry pasta
-- food coloring (squirty dropper-tubes, you know, the regular ol' fashioned kind)
-- newspaper to cover your surface
-- rubbing alcohol

Here's how you do it:

1. Protect your surface by laying out newspaper.

2. Splash a dab (about quarter-cup) of rubbing alcohol into a Ziploc baggie. Then squeeze in as many droplets of food coloring as you'd like, to get the desired color. (You'll see in the pictures above that Nora's rainbow is much lighter; that was the first batch of pasta. I wanted the colors darker, so I re-dyed the remaining pasta that night -- my husband was shaking his head at me -- and we made a brighter rainbow the next day. It all depends on how you like it!)

3. Toss in handfuls of pasta. Seal the bag. Shake it around to evenly distribute liquid.

4. Lay flat, turning bags over occasionally. If you want bright colors, use plenty of food coloring and let it sit for a while!

5. Shake the pasta directly onto the newsprint to dry. It dries quickly, within a couple of hours. Don't worry about separating each little piece of pasta because they break apart easily once fully dry.

You need to use the rubbing alcohol because it keeps the pasta from turning into mooshy, starchy goo. In fact, it has a great feel when it's finished. However, it is INEDIBLE. Make that clear to your kid, 'cause it looks like candy!

Now that we all know how to dye our own pasta, I'm going to look up all kinds of crafts that we can do with it.

CLOUDS

2009-03-25T15:33:00.008-05:00

To make your own puffy clouds,

you'll need:
-- quilt batting or stuffed animal filler
-- blue construction paper
-- glue

Simply let your child squirt away with glue on the blue paper. Cut or tear the batting into various shapes, and make some fun clouds!

We printed out pictures of the three main types of clouds and chatted about how they looked different, and when you might see each one. Then, Nora made her own clouds. We made each of the three main types, and then she decided she was fondest of Cumulus clouds (the big puffy ones), so she made a few more sheets of those. This simple little activity was a hit; we made more clouds again over the next few days!

CLOUD IN A JAR

When I read this one online, I knew I had to try it. (See Nora above -- the anticipation was killing her!) :)

To make a cloud in a jar, you need:

-- a vase or jar
-- a match
-- a bag of ice (we used frozen hash browns)

Run your tap water til it's good and hot; fill the jar about half full. After a minute, pour out all but an inch or so of water.

Light a match. Hold it inside the mouth of the jar for about twenty seconds (or until you have to let go of it!). (You'll see I have black paper around our jar because I read online to do that, but it was an unnecessary step.)

Quickly put the bag of ice on the mouth of the jar to cover it. A small cloud should form inside your jar.

This did work, although the actual event was so thrilling that we didn't get any pictures of it. However, remember your audience: Nora was slightly disappointed. "Is it gone?" she cried. "I wanted to let it out of the jar to play with me."

GREAT CLOUD SITES FOR KIDS

--"Clouds That Look Like Things" -- see pictures of clouds that look like animals, trains, and more! Fun!

-- "Pretty Clouds" -- same web site, different focus

-- NASA's web page about clouds for kids. Great photos; info is slightly more advanced, but you can choose what to read to your child from the web site if s/he doesn't read yet.

-- Did your child ask you a question about weather or clouds that you don't know the answer to? It's probably here.

OTHER CLOUD ACTIVITIES:

-- Child Fun suggests letting your child finger paint in shades of blue, gray, and white on a two sheets of paper. Turn the sheets back-to-back and cut out a cloud shape. Staple around most of the shape, leaving enough room to stuff the cloud with tissue paper, batting, or crumpled newspaper. Then staple it all up. You can hang it with string/yarn/ribbon for a window. If your child did a few, I bet they'd look really pretty together!

-- Your child can make a "cloud" on the back of a spoon:

Have your child blow warm air into her hand. Explain that the air feels warm and moist because it is full of tiny water droplets, just like in a cloud.

Hand your child a cool spoon. Have her blow on the rounded back of the spoon. See how "fog" forms on the spoon.

Explain that this is exactly like a cloud you'd see in the sky. It's made when cool air and warm, moist air come together!

Flowering Cherry Tree Craft

2009-03-25T06:42:00.003-05:00

So pretty and simple! Check out how to make this pretty tree with your child at No Time for Flashcards.

Spring vase craft

2009-03-25T06:35:00.003-05:00

This is an easy craft you can do with things you have lying around. Good for pretty much any age, 18 months and up (with varying levels of assistance).

You'll need:

a plastic container (we used an empty plastic bottle of those Gerber "Puffs" snacks)
paper
paints or pens
stickers and any collage materials you might have

1. Have child paint (or color) a piece of paper wide enough to wrap around your chosen "vase."

2. Tape the paper to the vase, adding glitter, pom-poms, feathers, etc. as desired.

3. An open mouth helps greatly with concentration. :) When vase is decorated to child's liking, let dry, then fill with flowers and water. Voila! Ours has been on the kitchen table for a week, and I actually think it looks kind of pretty!

FOREST ANIMALS Activities

2009-03-24T06:56:00.006-05:00

An Owl in a Tree

You'll Need:
Strip of cardboard
one piece of black construction paper
owl template
craft feathers
glue or tape

-- Print out owl template. Let your child color the owl template with paints, crayons, or pens. Cut out the shapes. (Or, you can use this owl template, printed out in color, and skip the coloring step -- just move to gluing/assembly.)

-- Cut a circle from the black construction paper, just a bit bigger than the owl (so it'll look like she's sitting in a hole in a tree).

-- Glue (or have child glue) the circle onto the cardboard, and the owl shapes onto the circle. Decorate with feathers if you've got 'em. Cute little owl in a tree!

Forest Mural

Forest Animal Coloring Pages (which I cut out and glued onto black paper to make our mural):

Finch coloring page

Pine tree coloring page

Salamander coloring page

Owl coloring page

Sparrow coloring page

Badger coloring page

Quail family coloring page

Hedgehog coloring page

Chipmunk coloring page

Bear cub coloring page

Bear coloring page

Cartoon bear with daffodil coloring page

Upside-down opossum coloring page

Porcupine coloring page

Raccoon in a log coloring page

Howling wolf coloring page

Snake coloring page

Skunk coloring page

Mouse coloring page

What Lives in a Hollow Log?

It's a little alarming how fast our family (and by "family," I mean mommy) goes through hot chocolate. The up side is that we have lots of canisters for art projects. Just doing my duty...

This project was spur-of-the-moment, and fun. Nora and I painted the canister brown (she loves to paint "things-other-than-paper" -- more interesting, somehow) and then went online together and looked for pictures of animals that might live in a hollow log. It was interesting how fast she caught on and didn't say things like "elephants" or "whales." :) It was intuitive somehow. What might it be like inside a log? Dry, cool, damp, smelly? How big would a log be, and what animals might hide there? Is there anything to eat in the log? Hamburgers? (ha, ha)

Nora taped some animals and plants inside the log (spiders, roly-polies, etc.) and some outside (snake, squirrel, raccoon [on opposite side], frog, millipede, roly-poly, mushrooms, moss, etc.). She had fun playing with the log and putting her plastic animal figurines in it.

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Other ideas:

-- Leaf Walk
Stroll the neighborhood with your child, gathering leaves, pine branches, seeds, flowers. Glue onto paper and talk about what you're found.

-- Leaf rubbings

-- Make a "bear cave" (like a fort) out of pillows, blankets, etc. and hide or hibernate in it.

-- Movies: Brother Bear, Bambi, Pocahontas (depending on child's age)

-- Watch/read "Trees Come in Different Shapes" online with your child (a story you read aloud as you click through the images). There's another story in the series worth watching, too: "Trees Are Terrific."

-- "Letter T is for Tree" coloring page

Forest animal masks

2009-03-22T06:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, so these are a little weird-looking. No, Nora and her stuffed friends were not off to rob a bank. Nora really enjoyed dressing her animals up...as other animals!

FOREST ANIMAL MASK TEMPLATES (free)

Bobcat Mask template

Eagle Mask template

Fox Mask template

Rabbit Mask template

Frog Mask template

Owl Mask template

Another Frog Mask

additional animal mask instructions and ideas

Ecosystems

2009-03-22T06:32:00.000-05:00

When you don't have a sandbox, you can use other materials to make "mini 'sand'boxes." Shown here: white sugar (Antarctica); brown sugar (desert); oatmeal (?? I think we called it "rocks"). Antarctica made an especially cool box -- it looked just like snow!

You can chat about what animal would really live where, and play a sorting game (scorpion in the desert, walrus in Antarctica). We did that for about 5 minutes, and then just went wild putting the animals wherever!

A word to the wise: don't put these sugar pans right on your lawn like we did. When the sugar spills (and it will), the sun can cause it to burn a hole in your grass. (Oops. Sorry, Daddy!) Next time, I'll do this on concrete or a deck, so I can hose it off.

an easy way to hang kid art

2009-03-15T23:13:00.001-05:00

This brilliance is from the mind of a friend of mine, Nancy. Here's how she hangs her kids' art in her home. You'll want to make one, too!

PHOTO BY NANCY MCGINLEY-MYERS

Nancy's instructions:
All you need is string (yarn in this case) and some clothespins. Thread the yarn through the center of the pins so the kids can't pull them off. Tie a knot on one end to hang over a nail. Mine is long so I hammered in a third nail in the center. I just wrapped the yarn around that one.

Extra-Healthy Kid-Friendly Pizza

2009-03-15T23:09:00.000-05:00

I have always been a little bit of a vegetable-sneaker. It's an illness; I can't help it.

I think homemade pizzas are relatively healthful for kids anyway, but here's how I sneak an extra serving of veggies into our homemade pizzas.

YOU'LL NEED:
2 mini premade pizza crusts (or 1 large)
small can pizza sauce
5 or 6 baby carrots, chopped
half bell pepper, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
small handful of mushrooms, chopped
shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup pureed spinach

SAUCE:
Saute all of your chopped veggies (any variety will do) until fairly soft; pour in your pizza sauce; simmer for about ten minutes to blend the flavors. Puree in food processor.

Spread a thin layer of spinach puree over your pizza crusts. Top with a slightly heavier layer of tomato-veggie sauce. Sprinkle with cheese.

(Nora adds: "Taste some of the cheese, too.")

Bake according to package directions. ENJOY!

You can basically "sneak" any veggies you like into the pizza sauce by pureeing them in. One time, I was low on tomatoes, and made what amounted to basically a carrot sauce for the pizza. My daughter and her friends still gobbled it up, because, well, it was pizza, and it had cheese on top!

You don't need to use the spinach puree, but it adds an extra boost. Every couple of weeks I make a batch of spinach puree and freeze it in small amounts (I use breastmilk storage bags because they are free of BPA, that nasty stuff that's in a lot of plastic). I just lightly boil some spinach til it's cooked, and blend it up. Used with a light hand, your kid probably won't even notice it or care that it's there. It can be blended into cakes, brownies, you name it! Just serve any baked goods made with spinach cold, or the spinach will be detectable.

Let me know how your pizza turns out...and if you have any tips to share!

a new kind of canvas

2009-03-15T15:29:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, all my daughter (and her friends) need to get their creativity sparked is a new kind of surface to write on. They spent over an hour the other day decorating index cards and envelopes with pens, stamps, and stickers. We had plenty of plain paper in the house, but they wanted the envelopes! It was fun to watch their little imaginations go wild as they pretended to make up invitations, "address" the envelopes, and, in a whole different vein, write up menus and take orders (as sweet, 3-year-old Layla is doing below). Super simple...inexpensive....and, family members like receiving the decorated envelopes in the mail later!

Other ideas for a "different canvas": cardboard; the white backings that come in packs of onesies; shoeboxes; small squares of artist canvas; cereal boxes; paper towel rolls; leftover fabric.....

What other ideas have you and your kids used?

2009-03-14T21:53:00.001-05:00

Oh boy oh boy! I just found a great new kids' crafting web site, "the Crafty Crow." I hope to post a lot of ideas that I try from their web site.

Check it out here!

DESERT THEME

2008-11-09T14:54:00.001-06:00

Desert Mural:

Use some of the free, online coloring pages listed below to create your own desert mural for your child to color or paint.

Desert Coloring Pages:
Desert animal information and coloring pages
Desert animal coloring pages from edupics.com (scroll partway down page)
Realistic desert animals and plants to color
Friendly Lizard coloring page
Coloring page: Roadrunner catching a snake (cartoonish)
Rattlensake coloring page (realistic)
"Color" a desert online

Desert Diorama:
You can print out a diorama background, and then all of the plants and animals too, for your kids to assemble! Pretty cool -- and free!

Your Own Indoor Desert:

-- Fill a baking pan with sandbox sand or craft sand. If your child has a large collection of plastic animals (as my daughter does), help her find the desert animals and put them in the pan. Or, buy a couple of desert animals just for the occasion (a splurge, I know, but some kids play with animals a LOT, and then it's worth it). I'm not too strict about who "lives" in the desert after the first few minutes (our desert was soon inhabited, for example, by a Saint Bernard puppy).

Play-Doh Cactuses:

We just kind of thought this up as we were playing, and it was fun! Help your child make cactuses out of green play-doh, and then let her stick in toothpicks for the "spines." Talk about why some plants have spines as a defense mechanism. (Would your child want to eat something with spines? No way! Unless your child is like my infant son, who would probably try to eat that play-doh cactus anyway!)

Sand Art:

Show your child how to drizzle glue on paper, cover with sand, and then lift up the paper and tap the sand off to reveal "sand writing." Nora liked seeing her name written in sand.

TRANSPORTATION THEME

2008-07-31T14:15:00.000-05:00

Train Cars activity:

You can print out fun, realistic train pictures online and arrange them to form a train. We put little construction paper squares in the boxcar, for "cargo"; black "coal" sequins in the hopper car; and little people cut from the newspaper in the passenger car. You could also have fun and make a circus train with pictures of all sorts of animals!

TRAIN CARS TEMPLATES:

Engine template
Another engine template
Hopper car template
Tank car template

Caboose template
Crane template

BUILD A CARDBOARD TRAIN:
Save some small cardboard boxes, let your child paint them, and then have him or her glue or tape on black construction paper wheels. Toys can enjoy a wild ride.

OTHER TRAINS COLORING PAGES:
An old-fashioned train, "The Rocket"
Train crossing a bridge
Waiting for the train
Flag signal
Steam train coloring page
Kids and dog on a train
Another train on a bridge

2008-07-31T13:49:00.000-05:00

PAINT YOUR OWN WOODEN BOATS TO PLAY WITH

Wooden boats, planes and cars to paint, available at craft stores like Michael's or from Oriental Trading Company for about a dollar apiece:

We used this build-your-own sailboat kit. We also painted a glider and "flew" it around the house. (Well, it sort of fell dramatically and slowly, but that was good enough for us.)

PLAY DOUGH RECIPES

2008-06-20T07:42:00.001-05:00

No-Cook Play Dough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water
Food coloring

Add food coloring to the water and mix the salt, flour, and colored water together, kneading to form a ball. (if too sticky, add a little extra salt and flour.)

Play Dough Recipe 2

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
1 Tbsp. cooking oil
2 tsp. cream of tartar
a few drops food coloring

Combine ingredients. Heat and stir until mixture forms a soft ball. Put mixture on wax paper until cool. Knead slightly to eliminate grainy texture. Store in tightly covered container. Recipe can be doubled.

DINOSAUR THEME: Dinosaur Crafts for Older Kids

2008-05-11T06:46:00.000-05:00

There are some cool, more involved crafts here for older kids -- like making a pterodactyl out of a milk carton. Older kids could work on these for a couple of days while younger kids with shorter attention spans completed a couple of easier activities. The younger kids would really like seeing the older kids' finished products!

Dinosaur Feet activity

2008-05-11T06:38:00.002-05:00

This is a fun and easy craft for kids. Better yet, they can actively play with their craft when they're finished!

Materials: shoe boxes, paint or spray paint, glue or glue gun, newspaper for stuffing, white paper (for claws), duct tape

1. Cut a hole in each shoebox just big enough for your child's foot to fit into.

2. have your child put foot inside box. Stuff newspaper around child's foot, leaving enough room for him/her to get foot back in again later. Tape the box closed with duct tape.

3. Paint/ spray paint boxes.

4. Cut "claws" from white paper or fun foam, and glue to the top front edge of the box.

Your kids can have a race in their dinosaur feet!

Dinosaur Mural

2008-05-10T22:19:00.001-05:00

On the first day of any unit, I set up a mural for Nora to color and paint. It's just a fun activity, and also serves as a good visual intro to the topic. To make murals, I just print out coloring pages from various web sites -- they are free, and since they're just outlines, won't take a huge toll on your printer cartridge. I've listed some links to dinosaur coloring pages below.

I included a foam "volcano" and some trees for scenery.

Michael's Crafts store also had a set in their dollar bin where you could buy a plastic volcano and 6 little plastic dinosaurs. Yep, only a buck, and Nora still plays with those little things. She liked to move them all around the mural and have them "play" with the larger paper dinosaurs.

At Michael's, you can also get thin little basla wood cutouts of dinosaurs. They are about a dollar apiece. They're fun to paint. Later, you could fill a small container (like a baking pan) with sand and these will stand up in them -- all the more fun because your child painted them herself and essentially made her own toys.<

Dinosaur Coloring Pages

2008-05-10T21:58:00.000-05:00

You can use these as you would any coloring page, or print a bunch, cut them out, and arrange them as a mural, as I did (above). Kids love to color dinosaurs!

Dinosaur Coloring Book

Ivy's Dinosaur Coloring Pages

Dinosaur Coloring Book pages

Karen's Whimsy (cool, realistic dino coloring pages; click link on bottom of first page for more)

Dino Coloring Pages at Coloringpage.net

Parasaurolophus used the hollow "horn" on the top of its head to make noise -- the way an elephant uses its trunk to trumpet. Do your kids have instruments in the home? Trombones, in particular, make noise the same way.

Stegosaurus coloring page

T-Rex coloring page

Dino Art Project

2008-05-10T21:54:00.000-05:00

STEGOSAURUS ART PROJECT:

Materials: cardstock
stegosaurus template: Stegosaurus Printable Coloring Page
green, yellow, or brown construction paper
paint, markers, or crayons
glue
googly eyes

Use a stegosaurus template (or simply cut out a stegosaurus from a coloring page that you print off the internet). Heavier paper or cardstock always works best. Cut out a dozen or so yellow, green, or brown triangles from construction paper.

Your child can paint or color in the dinosaur, then glue the triangles on as "plates" along its back and tail. Attach googly eyes last of all, for fun. You can punch a hole in the top, put a string through it, and hang it to display it; or just tape it on the wall.

DINOSAUR PLAY-DOH FUN:

You can make dinosaur "eggs" out of Play-Doh for your child to play with, or if you're really artistic, make some dinosaurs themselves (older kids can do this too). My daughter enjoys using her little brother's training fork (we call it a "spork" -- it's like a plastic spoon with grooves, for kids who are just learning to feed themselves) to make "dinosaur tracks" in Play-Doh, and then she asks me to make a bunch of dinosaur eggs, and she loves to arrange them along the tracks. Just one of those quirks.

Dinosaur Stamp Activity

2008-05-08T14:25:00.000-05:00

Playing with stamps can be a great way for kids to familiarize themelves with how different dinosaurs look. You can talk with your kids about why different dinosaurs have pointy teeth and claws; why others have paddlelike feet and what this might tell you about where they live; etc.

Other ideas:
Play a little game where you have drawn (or printed from the internet) different dinosaur "habitats" (a swamp, a deep lake, a tree-filled forest). They can stamp the dinosaurs where they think they might live. (Best for slightly older preschoolers who can understand this concept.)

Let them stamp the dinosaurs, then color or paint them in.

If the stamps have deep enough grooves, they can stamp them into Play-Doh to make "fossils."

Some stamps available from Oriental Trading (www.handsonfun.com):