Craft Archives - Page 3 of 11

Blue Morpho Butterfly Finger Play and Craft

May 21, 2015 By Deirdre

This is part of a unit of the rain forest themed activities that will be shared in the next few weeks. The area of this unit features some fun animal crafts with finger plays or songs. One of my favorite rain forest animals is the blue morpho butterfly. Its wings are such a gorgeous color. I thought we would start with it.

Blue Morpho Butterfly Finger Play

A fun way to learn about an animal is through finger plays. Here is a fun finger play that shares a few things about the morpho butterfly.

Three Morpho Butterflies

Three morpho butterflies, gliding through the trees.(Join your hands together by your thumbs to make a butterfly. Flap your fingers like wings.)

The first one swooped down to take a look at me. (Make a diving motion with your butterfly hands.)

Three morpho butterflies, sitting on a leaf. (Hold up three fingers on a flattened hand.)

The second butterfly searched high and low for something sweet to eat. (Place a hand in front of your forehead and look around.)

Three morpho butterflies, flitting all around. (Join your hands together by your thumbs to make a butterfly again. Flap your fingers like wings.)

The third one landed on some fruit on the ground. (Pretend to eat a piece of fruit.)

Three morpho butterflies flit and flap away. (Join your hands together by your thumbs to make a butterfly again. Flap your fingers like wings.)

They will return to fly around on another day!

-Author Unknown

I found this finger play on Preschool Plan It and tweaked it a little.The original finger play was a little shorter so I added a closing set of verses. There were not any hand motions shared so I made up some to go with it. If you have blue morpho butterfly hand motions you think would be better, please feel free to use them instead.

Blue Morpho Butterfly Craft

I shared with you some hand motions that I thought would go along well with the finger play. You could have your children create a blue morph butterfly stained glass craft. They could use the butterfly to act out the various actions in the finger play.

This craft is super easy to make. Here is how we put our together:

A piece of black paper is folded in half and butterfly wings are cut out of it.
With the paper still folded in half cut out various shapes. You will need to bend in various sections of the folded paper to create shapes all over the butterfly.
Have your children cut out the butterfly’s body out of black paper. You could cut the bodies out for them if you like. Antennae are tricky to cut out.
Glue bright blue tissue paper to the back of the wings and the butterfly body to the front of the wings.

If you students want to learn more about rainforest animals, they may enjoy these books:

A Rainforest Habitat

The Rainforest Grew All Around

Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme

The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

If you try this blue morpho finger play or craft , please leave me a comment below telling me about how it went or share a picture of your butterfly on my Facebook page.

Easy Craft Ideas- How to Make a Paper Turtle

April 28, 2015 By Deirdre

Sometimes easy craft ideas come from a desire to use up the craft supplies you have on hand. We used this same type of chevron cupcake liner to make a “Your My Biggest Fan” Mother’s Day card. These cupcake liners looks like a turtle shell to me so, we used them to create a paper sea turtle. (It is cool to see how many easy craft ideas you can make with what you have available.)

Adding Cupcake Liners to the Plate

There are three different types of paper in the paper turtle. He has a construction paper head and flippers. His body under the cupcake liners in a paper plate. Finally there are the cupcake liners.

We started with a flattened cupcake liner glued to the center of a small paper plate. Once we started placing the other cupcake liners, we realized the center one wasn’t really needed. We could have just used four cupcake liners. We also could have cut cupcake liners and added them around the edge of the liner in the center.

A small bit of the white paper plate is still visible. If you decide to make a paper turtle like our, one of the easy craft ideas I would suggest is adding more liners or arranging your liners to cover all of the plate.

Adding Flippers

Four pieces of paper were layered and then cut out into a flipper shape. We wanted to have all our flippers the same size. The flippers we made a not huge. Some of the seven species of sea turtles have much larger flippers. If your children decide that they really like big flippers, you can tell them their fins are like the flatback turtles.

Adding a Turtle Head

The head on our sea turtle is a little egg shaped with a slight point. After looking a number of turtle pictures, we thought that is what the head should look like. Your children may have a totally different idea of what a turtle head should look like.

The turtle was given wiggly eyes for no other reason than we thought they were fun. You could easily have your children draw the turtle’s eyes or create them with construction paper.

Here are Some Other Easy Craft Ideas for Kids

Potato Print Turtles

Paper Plate Sheep

Paddington Bear Craft

Ocean Animals Paper Plate Craft

Oh! If you are looking for a great book to tie into this craft, may I recommend Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! by April Pulley Sayre.

If you make any of these craft ideas for kids with your children, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Amazing Out of This World Father’s Day Card

April 22, 2015 By Deirdre

I know that Father’s Day is still a long way away.( We haven’t even had Mother’s Day yet.) Creating the Your My Biggest Fan Mother’s Day card got me thinking about cards we could make with cupcake liners. That lead to thinking about what holiday will come up next after Mother’s Day. Father’s Day came to mind so, we made a Father’s Day Card.

After deciding on the holiday we would make the card for, it was time to think about what theme the card should have. My son and I husband both space so, I decided on “You are Out of This World” as the card’s theme.

The first thought was a flying saucer with a little green creature in it. Since my family isn’t made up of little green men, I decided that wouldn’t work. You may be thinking that is a great idea. Making a flying saucer with a cupcake liner would be super fun. If that was your thought, I think you should totally go with it. It would be fun.

We ended up making a rocket ship with a cupcake liner for our card. It was a little challenging to figure out just how to fold the cupcake liner for us. We ended up making one that folds together the way a paper airplane is made.

Supplies for the Father’s Day Card

Blue plain or patterned cupcake liner
Red, Orange, or yellow plain or patterned cupcake liner
White piece of paper
Glue
Scissors
Out of This World Father’s Day Card

Steps for Crafting the Father’s Day Card

Fold the cupcake liner in half with the decorated side faced out.
Open the cupcake liner up and flatten it out with the decorated side faced down.
Fold in the two outsides into an airplane fold. That means they fold in to form a triangle. Then fold it again the same way. The top of the rocket is now finished.
Pull the rounded edges of the cupcake liner back over the fold to form the rocket boosters.
Cut a flame out of a cupcake liner that is red, orange, or yellow.
Cut a small circle out of white paper.
Assemble the rocket on the Father’s Day Card printable I have made for you by gluing the white circle on the rocket and the flame beneath the rocket.

It would be fun to come up with a space related note of picture to put inside this card. Maybe your children could draw something they like to do with their dad. They could share a special memory or a list of reasons their father is really out of this world.

Here are some other wonderful activities and crafts that this Father’s Day Card would be wonderful to go along with:

D.A.D. Dessert: Dutch Apple Dessert

Walking in My Father’s Shoes Craft

Cereal Tie for Breakfast

If you make this Father’s Day card, please leave me a comment below telling me about how your crafting session went or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

ABC Learning- Crafting a Bee

April 9, 2015 By Deirdre

Springtime seems to be when the bees start buzzing in our house doing a science experiment. We see them all over our yard. Recently we crafted a big bee to have in our house to display in our kitchen. We didn’t just make a bee craft! We made a “B” craft.

A giant “B” seemed to be almost the perfect shape for a bumble bee. It is missing one of the three sections that a bee has in really life, but we decided to just let that be.

Crafting a Bee

Out of a large piece of black construction paper we cut the giant uppercase “B”, a small uppercase “B” and some antennae. If your children are not ready for this type of cutting yet, you can have all these bee parts cut out in advance for them.

Then my son and I cut six inch long strips out of dark purple and yellow tissue paper. If you have black tissue paper, that would be great. We just couldn’t find any. Again you could pre cut the tissue strips for your children if that would work out better for them.

When we thought we had enough tissue strips, we glued them to our “B”. We talked about how the strips could go horizontally or diagonally, but probably not vertically.

A second letter “B” was cut out. This “B” would be the bee’s wings. White tissue paper was glued to the back of this “B” to add texture and make the wings stand out. When the smaller “B” ‘s glue had dried it was glue onto the big “B”

Finally we added antennae and a eye to the bee. The antennae were cut out of the same piece of paper the letters had been. You could add pipe cleaner antennae instead it you like or go with the construction paper antennae and add pom poms on the ends.

We went with a wiggly eye rather than a paper eye. One because we have some and two it added some whimsy to the craft project.

I didn’t create a craft for every letter of the alphabet with JDaniel when he was little. A number of bloggers have. I have added a bunch of their abc learning crafts and activities to my Working on the Alphabet board on Pinterest. I hope you will stop by and check them out.

8 Awesome Easter Crafts for Kids

March 30, 2015 By Deirdre

There are have been a number of Easter crafts for kids shared here JDaniel4’s Mom. I have also shared some on other blogs as guest posts. Each was simple to construct and used items many of us have in our craft closets at home. They were designed for preschool or early childhood children to create. Although I am sure that older children would enjoy making them too. I thought you would enjoy getting to see my favorites all together.

Easter Crafts for Kids

LEGO Easter Egg

LEGO make great tools for illustrating all sorts of holiday themes. Children can come up with the subject of their creation on their own or they could be asked to create something in particular. An Easter egg with repeating stripes could be something they could be asked to make. (Patterning is not only a wonderful craft theme it also allows kids to work on a math concept.)

The great thing about LEGO crafts is that they are not permanent. They can be created or uncreated by its artist over and over again.

Creating a Patterned Egg and Recording Its Shapes

Last year my son and I worked on another craft with patterned eggs. He placed pre-cut shapes all over a blue Easter egg. Then he recorded how many of each shape he used. This was activity not only created a beautifully crafted egg, but the opportunity to work on shape identification.

Torn Paper Chick

It is really fun to tear the paper you are going to use in a craft. The process of tearing is also are great fine motor activity. The actual tearing done for this craft actually took some thought and concentration. We were trying to create the shapes needed to create the various parts of the chick.

Bunny Bags

My son helped me decorate bunny bags to hold special rabbit cookie bars we made to take to his teachers at school. I just love the eyebrows and freckles that he added to his bunnies. Easter crafts for kids become unique and special when kids bring their own whimsy and creativity to them. This bag project illustrates that truth beautifully.

Doily Chick

Egg shaped doilies made the cutest Easter chicks. This simple craft looks kind of elegant with its the frilly shape cutouts. It was really fun to make a chicken out of an egg.

Cereal Box Patterned Egg

Cardboard from an old cereal box was used to create line patterns that could be draw on an Easter egg along with an egg template. All the templates could be placed in a writing or art center for children to create their own special Easter egg. We used crayons for this fine motor exercise. Your children may prefer color pencils or markers.

Easter Crafts I Made For Others

Tin Foil Easter Egg

Special markers and cookies cutters were used to decorate a tin foil egg I shared on Instead of the Dishes. Kids will love decorating a cardboard egg covered in foil with an Easter theme the way we did.

Paper Plate Bunny

A paper plate, felt, and some pipe cleaners were all we needed to create a paper plate bunny for Kids Activity Blog. The felt nose, ears, eyes and mouth give the bunny a soft and fuzzy texture. The ruffled edges of the paper plate gave his chin texture too.

If your children create any of these Easter crafts for kids, please leave me a comment below or leave me a comment on my Facebook page.If you take a picture of your version of one of the crafts and share it on Instagram, please tag me. I would love to see it.

Easter Arts and Crafts- Doily Chick

March 22, 2015 By Deirdre

Although this doily chick is part of an Easter Arts and Crafts series, it could be created during a farm unit or a unit on the signs of spring. It is simple enough for young children to craft and could be made more elaborately by older children.

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We started with White Oval Doilies we found in our craft closet. (I am not sure when we got them. It may have been an after Easter sale.) The idea was to create a chick with eggs. We kept one of the eggs whole and cut the second doily egg in half.

Then we paused a moment to talk about symmetry. We did have a whole egg that we could place the two sides of the second one. It was a great time to talk about how both sides were the same or almost the same. One side was a tiny bit bigger. Despite that fact is was still a good time to talk about symmetry.

Next we cut out chicken legs. I am not sure that a chicken’s legs are really this chunky. We didn’t look at picture of real chicken before doing this craft. If you decide to do create chicks as one of your Easter Arts and Crafts, you may want to take a few moments to see what a chick or chicken’s legs look like.

The wiggly eyes were placed on the Easter arts and crafts chick next. (We had a bag of eyes of various sizes so, we had to dig through to find eyes that match.) The first set I tried on my chick didn’t match. They made him look sort of odd. While I could have left them on him, I decided to keep digging through and look for a matching pair of eyes.

The chick’s beak went on next. The beak could have been just an orange triangle. Rather than have flat beak we went for a more 3 dimensional beak. It make it look like the chick might be trying to talk.

All that was left now was to add the wings. Our wings were placed on top of the chick’s egg shaped body. You may decide that you want to have the wings under the body. There really isn’t a wrong way to craft this chick. Your children may decide to have the chick’s wings flapping above its head.

Other Easter Arts and Craft Ideas for the Doily Chick

You could add Colored Feathers to the chick’s head or wings. ( We didn’t have any at home so, we didn’t use them.)
Children could cut out small bit of yellow tissue to add a fluffy effect to the chick’s body or wings. ( We didn’t have tissue either.)
Various shades of yellow paint could be dabbed onto the chick. ( We did have paint, but decided not to use it.)
You could read the book The Golden Egg Book before crafting the chick. It is a wonderful Easter story.

Here are some other Easter Arts and Crafts for Kids:

Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning

Fun Craft for Kids- Torn Paper Chick

Fine Motor Easter Egg Craft

If you try making any of these easter arts and crafts, please leave me a comment below or leave me a comment on my Facebook page.

Fine Motor Easter Craft

March 19, 2015 By Deirdre

This fine motor Easter activity uses an old cereal box cut into an egg shape and various line shapes for children to use to create and decorate an egg. The front and back panels of the box were the perfect size for the eggs we would need to create the templates. If you would like to replicate this Easter activity for your children at home or school, there are only a few things you will need to do.

How To Create The Easter Activity Templates

We started by cutting an egg shape out of white paper.
Then the front and back sections of the cereal box were cut out of the box. After the front and back sections were off the box, the flaps were cut off of their tops and bottoms.
The white paper egg shape was then traced onto the front and back sections of the cereal box. It was important to have the egg templates both be the same size.
One of the sections was left whole. The other section was cut out like a puzzle. The puzzle pieces had wavy, pointed and squared lines. When all the pieces were cut out, they could be slide back together like a puzzle. I wanted to make sure that children could place the puzzle pieces inside the egg and trace them it they wanted too.

Doing the Easter Activity

The first part of the activity is to trace the egg template onto a piece of white paper with a crayon.
Then the puzzle piece templates can be traced onto the outline of the egg. Children could use the puzzle piece that fits in that section of the egg or another piece if they like. They really isn’t a right or wrong way to add lines to the egg. Children could actually add horizontal lines rather than vertical lines. The idea is to add lines to decorate the eggs.

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Hints:

If your children are having trouble gripping round crayons, you may want to try having them use Crayola Anti-Roll Triangular Crayons. They are easier for some children to color with. A pencil grip on a crayon might help too.

The egg we created doesn’t have the area between its lines colored in, but the egg would look great colored in.

The wax from previous tracings tends to smear onto the paper off of the puzzle pieces when you use the brown cardboard side of the box face down. The waxy side of the box with words and pictures doesn’t seem to smear as much or very little.

I have just shared a few ways that you could this activity. I bet you can come with a number of unique twists you can add to it to make them your own. If you do, please leave me a comment below or leave me a comment on my Facebook page.

If you are looking for some more learning based Easter activities, you will want to check out the following activities.

Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning

Dolch Sight Words- Unscrambling Eggs

Carrot Number Writing Activity

How to Make Spider Web Eggs

St Patricks Day Crafts – Leprechaun with Feelings

March 14, 2015 By Deirdre

It is fun to create a craft with kids that is interactive. They really love that something moves or can be changed on their craft. This leprechaun can change the feeling he is displaying on mouth. He can be happy, sad, or surprised. All kids have to do is turn the disk on the back of his head to change how he is feeling.

This leprechaun craft was shared as part of a Read. Explore.Learn. post I shared a few years ago. It was just one of a variety of activities that were done after reading the book St. Patrick’s Day. Originally the craft was used to display how the leprechaun was feeling in different parts of the story.

I bet your children could do several activities after constructing a leprechaun craft of their own.

They could make up their own stories about a leprechaun.
You could encourage them to include events in their story that would have the leprechaun displaying each of the feelings.
Young children could dictate their story to an adult or tell their story orally.
Older children could write their story down.
Children could pantomime something that would cause them to have each of these feelings. The actions they act out could be their own or something they think a leprechaun might do.
You could read your children a series of reading passages or sentences and have them show you what feeling would go along with what you have read.
Feelings can be a hard thing for kids to talk about. This craft might just open a door to your children talking about feelings.

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts Directions

We started by cutting out the space that would display the leprechaun’s mouth. That insured that we wouldn’t have something glued on top of it.

Then we picked out scraps of doilies and construction paper to decorate the plate with. The goal was to have a leprechaun with a hat and without a nose. There weren’t specific directions given on how to make it beyond thosee.

Finally small circle was cut out and various expressions were drawn on its edges.

The disk was attached to the back of the leprechaun with a brass fastener. The brass fastener was attached to the plate where the leprechaun’s nose would be.

Here are some other St. Patrick’s Day Crafts and Activities :

Learning Activities with Printables

{Printable} Roll and Color St. Patrick’s Day Pages

Gold Coin Number Mats

Cooking Activity

Creating a Snack with Leprechaun Magic Dust

Crafts

Creating a Rainbow Place Mat

Simple Sticker Rainbow

Five Little Hand Print Shamrocks Song and Craft

Rainbow Collage

Fine Motor Activity

Jumping the Rainbow Game

Making Learning Fun with Rainbows

If you do try any of the above activities or crafts, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Holiday Crafts for Kids- Rainbow Place Mat

February 23, 2015 By Deirdre

I remember weaving place mats as being one of those holiday crafts for kids that I did often when I was little. In preschool and early elementary school I must have made one for every major holiday. My teachers must have known it was a great fine motor activity! Maybe they just like to have us weave mats!

A rainbow woven place mat seemed like the perfect craft for St. Patrick’s Day! After all leprechauns are said to have hidden their gold at the end of rainbows.

This woven rainbow mat displays the colors of the rainbow in order. I think that that makes this craft one that could be done as part of a weather or spring unit too. Just laminate the place mat or cover it with contact paper and it would be a great at any holiday feast.

We started by following a piece of white construction paper in half. Then slats were cut up from the fold to about about an inch and half away from the top of the paper. If you are worried about cutting to close too the top you can fold the top section down about an inch half. Then you can cut up to the folded down area. (You can see the folds in our holiday crafts for kids mat at the top and the bottom.) This will be the warp of the weaving.

A stack of the construction paper arranged in the colors of the rainbow was cut into one inch strips. It was important to try to keep all the strips the same width. If that isn’t important to you, you can just have your children cut out long strips out the colors of construction paper found in a rainbow. You could have one or two children be in charge of each color! You could pre-cut all the strips using a paper cutter, if you don’t have time to have your children cut them out. ( That would insure that you have nice straight strips of paper.)

With the strips and place mat paper cut out, it then time to weave. The colored strips will be the weft of weaving. (I think children love to learn new words. I thought warp and weft would be fun for them to know.) The children will alternate weaving the strips over and under that slats cut in the white construction paper. Little daps of glue or swipes of a glue stick are placed on the ends of each of the strips to hold them in place.

This rainbow mat would be a great center activity or maybe it would be one of those holiday crafts for kids that would be done as whole group.

Here are some other holiday crafts for kids that have a St. Patrick’s Day theme:

Simple Sticker Rainbow

Five Little Hand Print Shamrocks Song and Craft

If you do try any of the above holiday crafts, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page

Valentine Ideas- Flower Craft for Kids

February 10, 2015 By Deirdre

Some Valentine ideas like this flower craft for kids and the “I Love Ewe” sheep craft I shared a few weeks ago come to together as you work on them. They are very organic. Some kids like to create a craft based on one they have seen done before. Others love take the materials that have been set out and craft their very one Valentine ideas.

For this craft the following materials were put out:

Red doilies

Cupcake liners
Various colors of construction paper
Pom-poms
Glue sticks
Scissors

Creating Valentine Ideas and Crafts

I have found discussing the theme of a craft can get a child’s creative juices following. To get kids thinking about Valentine Ideas you might want to ask them what they know about Valentine’s Day.

Here are somethings they may share:

They may say my dad gives my mom flowers on Valentine’s Day.
It is a day about hearts.
People give cards on that day to people that they love.
I get candy hearts or chocolate on Valentine’s Day.
A little baby flies around and shoots people in the heart on Valentine’s Day.
My friends put cards to me in a special box.

All of these are great ideas. Once children have some background information on Valentine’s Day, they can take one of these Valentine ideas and start creating. Some children may decide that they want to do something totally different then anything you discussed. That is fine! It is such fun to see what your children will come up with.

If your children hone in on the ideas of flowers for their Valentine’s Day craft, you may want to have them create a doily flower like the one below. It is super easy to make.

Creating a Valentine’s Day Flower

Heart shaped red doilies were cut in half to create this flower’s petals. Bright green construction paper was cut to create its leaves.

Then a salmon colored cupcake liner was flattened out to create the cup or corona of the flower. Your Valentine’s Day crafter may decide to keep the cupcake liner more upright. I bet that would look great.

Next pink construction paper hearts were cut out to go in the cup. The hearts were created to help convey that this is Valentine’s Day flower.

Finally a black pom-pom was placed in the eye of the flower. Rather than use a red or pink pom-pom black was selected to create a color contrast.

Children may decide to use whatever colors are closest to them your work table or their favorite colors. As I mentioned earlier, they may create their own totally unique Valentine idea that has nothing to do with flowers. What fun it will be to see what your children create with the materials you put out for them.

Here are some other Valentine’s Day craft ideas:

My Heart is Like a Zoo Cards

Activities Using Valentines

If you try these Valentine’s Day crafts, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.