Craft Archives - Page 4 of 11

100th Day of School Shirt Idea

January 28, 2015 By Deirdre

We were given the assignment by JDaniel’s teacher to come up with a t-shirt for him to wear to celebrate the 100th Day of school. After searching Pinterest for 100th Day of School shirt ideas, I came across a super shirt created by Really Quite Lucky. She used a Silhouette machine to create her shirt with 100 tally marks . I don’t happen to have one of those cool machines so, I needed to come up with some other way to replicate the tally mark idea for our shirt.

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After doing a little thinking, I decided that I could use fabric markers to draw tally marks on a shirt. We headed to one of the big box craft stores in our town to look over their selection of markers. They only had pastel colored markers. I had a 40% off coupon for that store so, I decided we would use what they hand rather than drive around town or order some on line. If I had it to do again I would have ordered Crayola Fabric Markers, they would have added more color to the shirt.

Actually there are some things I did while creating JDaniel’s 100th Day of School shirt that went well and some that I would do differently. I thought I would share them with you so you may make wiser shirt creation choices.

100th Day of School Shirt Choices

The Right Choices

I choose not to make the tally marks all in a row. By having them more random they filled up more of the shirt.

My sets of tally marks are not all the same size. I really didn’t want to have them be uniform.

I didn’t try to make each set neat. I like that each set is unique.

Hint
You may decide that random and unique is totally not want you want. If you would like nice straight uniform lines, you can use a ruler to mark of the areas for your tally marks on your shirt.

Wrong Choices

I really wish I have used bright colored markers. I know I mentioned that at the top of this post, but I felt like I need to say it again.

Not putting a piece of cardboard inside the shirt when I drew the tally marks on the shirt. The shirt has two tiny dots on the back due to the markers bleeding through. It doesn’t look terrible. I just wish they weren’t there.

While I like the randomness of the tally mark set, I do wish the peach set in the center of the last row lined up with the sets above it. I wish it was a little neater too.

If I made another shirt, I would probably make all of the sets of tally marks I little bigger. I don’t think it looks bad. It is just that bigger marks would have filled up more of the shirt.

I wish I had waited until the first layer of the marks had dried before trying to make some of the marks darker. The second layer of marks added to the not fully dry first set make the marks look a little fuzzy.

Here are some more tally mark activities:

Number Recognition- Do You Know Five?

Christmas Tally Mark Activity

If you make a 100th Day of School shirt, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Geometry Practice- Sides and Vertices Aliens

January 26, 2015 By Deirdre

I never dreamt that JDaniel would come home with a math homework that asked him to find the vertices of each shape on the page. He is first grade! I knew he was working on geometry last week, but I thought he would be focusing on shape identification. This past weekend I crafted some shape aliens. I wanted for us to have a learning activity that gave him geometry practice with finding the vertices and sides of each shape.

Using the sample sides and vertices aliens I made he will then create his own shape aliens this week.. He can pick the shape he wants to focus on and cut it out. Then I can walk him through adding the side and vertex indicators.

As I thought through the steps he would need and the skills he would work on, I came up with a lot. This activity covers several math and fine motor skills.

What are they?

Measuring
Cutting
Counting
Pincher Practice
Pencil Gripping

Let me walk you through how this geometry practice activity is done.

First you will need to measure the length of each of the sides and cut out construction paper strips for each of the sides. You can measure each length with a ruler and the mark that measurement on paper. You could line the edge of your shape on construction paper, mark its length and then cut out a strip that length.

When you have all the side strips cut out, you can glue then onto the edges of the strip. Each strip represents one of the shapes sides or edges. The strips may need to be trimmed to fit their shape perfectly. You could have your children count around the edges from 1 to the last numbered edge of the shape. They could write the number for each side on the side if you like.

Then you will use a pincher grip to pick on a pompom and rub it in glue. One pompom will go in each of the vertices.

With the geometric practice completed it will then time to add facial features to your alien. I think I will precut the antennae and feet for JDaniel. You may decide you want to have your children cutout the antennae and feet for their alien. We will be using construction paper, but I think pipe cleaners or foam would be fun to use too.

We will be using sparkly star stickers for the alien’s nose along with wiggly eyes as I did in the sample aliens for geometric practice. You could easily have your children hand draw the alien’s faces. The alien’s mouth will be drawn on.

We will be displaying our aliens for geometric practice so we can review the number of sides and vertices each of the shapes have.

I concentrated on three basic shapes for this project. Octagons, pentagons, trapezoids, and rhombuses might be fun to try too. Oh! You might want to do a triangle study and have your children create equilateral, right, or isosceles triangles. You early childhood learner may be working on them too.

Here are some other geometric practice activities we have done:

Shape Sheep

Back to School Shape Craft

Dr. Seuss Shape Activity

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

Easy Valentine Crafts For Kids- I Love Ewe Sheep

January 22, 2015 By Deirdre

What fun it is to create easy valentine’s crafts that can be display in your kitchen or classroom! Earlier in the week I shared some My Heart is like a Zoo crafts. Today I want to share an “I Love Ewe” craft is just that kind of craft. It could easily be created and then hung up. It would be fun to create this Valentine’s Day craft at the beginning of February and have it up until Valentine’s Day.It might be fun to send to someone you love and they could display your wonderful sheep with a heart. They may find that they have a smile forming on their face every time they pass by it.

This is one of those easy valentine crafts to put together that uses simple cutting skills and a folding technique. JDaniel loved the folding technique. When I showed him the sample I made, the first thing we asked me to do was to show him how to fold the arms and legs.

Let’s get started with how we crafted it:

Gather the supplies you need:

Black construction paper
White construction paper
Red construction paper
Black crayon
Glue or glue stick
Scissors

Putting These Easy Valentine Crafts Together:

Cut out two cloud shapes out of the white construction paper. You may want to make a longer narrow cloud shape for the sheep’s head. A wider cloud shape would probably best for the sheep’s body.

Before we did anything else we created an outline on the edges of the cloudy sheep boy parts with a black crayon. It was done to help define the edges of the paper.

We then cut a nose, eyeballs and ears out of the black construction paper. The outside area of the sheep’s eyes was cut out of white paper too. The outside area eyes was outlined in black.

Then the sheep’s face was put together. The head was glued on the body. The eyes, nose and ears were glued in place next.

We were finally ready to use that fun fold technique that JDaniel wanted to learn. All you need to start is two narrow strip of black paper. The strips are glued together to form a right angle. Once the corners of the two strips were glued where the strips meet . Once they were glued in place we turned the strips over and you can start folding. We folded the vertical strip down across the corner or vertex. Then the horizontal strip was brought across the corner. If the strip was on the left to start with, it is now of the right. Repeat this process until you reach the ends of the paper strips. You will then glue the ends together. We did this process four times to create the sheep’s arms and legs.

Next we glued the arms and legs in place on the sheep. You may want to try moving them around before you glue them down to make sure they are right where you want them. It would a shame to have to move them later and risk tearing the paper.

We then cut out a large red heart for the sheep to hold. The message “ I love Ewe” was written on the heart. With the message done we glued the heart to the sheep’s arms.

Sheep have hooves so; we cut four hooves out of black construction. Then we glued them onto the springy hand and feet. Our hands were wrapped around the heart. You may decide that your sheep’s hands need to be displayed differently.

Here are some other easy valentine crafts we have done:

16 Valentine Activities and Crafts

Valentine’s Day Flower Arrangement

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.

Preschool Activities- Shape Sheep

January 16, 2015 By Deirdre

This shape sheep craft is one of those preschool activities that opens the door to explore shapes and gives you a cute end product. It would be great for a farm unit, The Year of the Sheep,a nursery rhyme unit or Easter.

In fact I think it would one of those preschool activities that would be fun to do after reading or singing the following rhymes:

Mary Had Little Lamb

Mary had a little lamb,
His fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.

He followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out,
But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.

“Why does the lamb love Mary so?”
The eager children cry.
“Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know.”
The teacher did reply.

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,Three bags full;
One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

What do you need to put the shape sheep together?

Shape pieces:

White circles
Long black rectangles
Black trapezoids
Small black circles
Large white ovals
Small white ovals
Small black squares

Non- Shape pieces:

Small white almond shapes (For the sheep’s ears)

Small pink almond shapes (For the sheep’s ears)

Putting the Sheep Together:

There are several approaches that can be taken when setting up preschool activities.

You can create a sample of what the final product might look like.
You can give each child a set of the shapes that could be used to create a shape sheep and leave it up to their imagination.
You could place the materials in a central spot and have children select what they will need to create a shape sheep.

There really isn’t a right or wrong way for this activity to be done. You know your children and how they best like to approach preschool activities and crafts. I tend to let my son see a final product and he tends to end up with a final product that looks very different from the sample. We end with two great crafts in the end that reflect our personalities!

Extending Preschool Activities Like The Shape Sheep

Children can be asked to count how many of each shape they have used.
They can be asked to create a find all the parts of the sheep that equal two.
Counting how many shapes their are with four sides would be fun too.

Here are some other preschool activities that can found on the blog:

Fall Preschool Activities

Five Little Apples Song and Craft

Color Activity- Sorting Ninja Turtles

If you do make a shape sheep of your own, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Paper Plate Crafts for Kids- Sheep

January 15, 2015 By Deirdre

I love to buy fun cup liners to liven up my son’s lunches. When I decided it would be fun to make a paper plate sheep, I found the perfect leftover liner to use for the sheep’s face. Why did we make sheep? JDaniel asked me just that question on the day we did this craft. We did this sheep craft along with several other sheep-themed activities for Chinese New Year. 2015 is the year of the sheep. At the end of this post, you will find a number of paper plate crafts we have done in the past.

This paper plate sheep craft used only seven crafting elements. They were the following:

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Black Polka Dot Cupcake Liners
Cotton balls
Wiggly eyes
Black construction paper
Small paper plate
Glue
Scissors

How did we put this sheep craft together?

We started by covering the surface of the paper plate with glue. (You could use a glue stick for this craft, but the cotton balls didn’t stick as well when we tried using it.) Plus it was such fun squeezing the glue out and swirling it all over.

Then we filled the plate up with cotton balls. We found it easiest to start placing the cotton balls in the center of the plate and working our way out. When we needed to, we could nudge the inner cotton balls in a little to create a sheep with compact wool.

Next, we placed a cup liner face down (decorated side down) on the kitchen table. We fold the sides to form a triangle or cone shape. The pointy end of the triangle was folded up to create a flat surface. That end of the cupcake liner would become the area for the sheep’s nose. The liner was then turned over to the decorated side. We folder the pointed corners down in the front to create ears for the sheep.

We then glued wiggly eyes to the front of the cupcake liner. You could create eyes with white and black construction paper if you don’t have wiggly eyes available. With the eyes in place, we glued the sheep’s head onto the center of the cotton ball-covered plate.

All that was left was to cut out legs for the sheep out of construction paper. We ended up just cutting out rectangles. You may decide that you would like feet with hooves. I think they would look great on the sheep.

Here are some other paper plate crafts we have done:

Paddington Bear Paper Plate Craft

Ocean Animals Paper Plate Craft

Paper Plate Crafts- Lion and Lamb

Paper Plate Crafts- Patriotic Windsock

New Year’s Eve Countdown Ball

If you do make a paper plate sheep of your own, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Solo Cup Craft- Valentine’s Day Alien

January 14, 2015 By Deirdre

Solo Cup Valentine's Day Alien

If you end up with bunches of odd and ends in your crafting area or junk drawer, this Valentine’s Day craft is for you. During one of my clean out the cabinets and shelves purges, I found a bunch of things that I thought would be great for creating a Valentine’s Day sculpture. Those odd and ends along with a red Solo cup were placed out for my son and I to create with.

Both my son and I had colds last week! We both needed something do that wasn’t super messy and would make us smile. This space alien sculpture really made us smile. He just look goofy and silly.

Solo Cup Craft- Valentine's Day Alien

To get to the end of the sculpting process we had to try and try again to get the materials to work well together. We found it a challenge to use the washi tape on the craft tray on the solo cup. It really didn’t want to stay in place. The slick sides of the cup just didn’t adhere to the tape. It took more than two hands to hold it in place until it stuck. We tried to get the pink and purple lids to stick to the cup. They just fell off as soon as we moved our fingers.

It might have been better to use sticky back wiggly eyes and jewel stickers to decorate the plastic cup. We could have used stickers to create the alien’s whole smile, eyes and around his antennae. We will have to remember that for next time.

We have tons of stars for threading leftover from a math activity. They ended working well over the pouch cap eyes. By adding some stiff elements to the base of the antennae they seemed to stay in place a little better. They were still a little droopy. (Maybe the alien had a cold too. When you have a cold you feel kind of droopy.)

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New Year’s Eve Countdown Activity For Kids

December 22, 2014 By Deirdre

This New Year’s Eve countdown activity is fun for kids to create and use. You could use it to the countdown on New Year’s Eve along with this New Year’s Eve customs sheet or use it in centers at the beginning of the New Year. I know that most countdowns start with ten, but I decided we should start with twelve. Twelve is a number tied into New Year’s Eve so much. It just made sense to count up or countdown to twelve.

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Putting the Countdown Ball Together

Our New Year’s Eve countdown ball used only a few supplies. You will need sparkly stickers ( I found ours at a dollar store.) and a small white paper plate. You could have your children uses magic markers, crayons (I think Crayola Glitter Crayons would be great!), or glitter glue pens too. They would add more color and texture to your countdown ball.

Two small slits were cut into the middle of the paper plate prior to decorating it. The number countdown slide would need to be slipped through it. We decided it would be easier to cut before stickers were put in place. It would also make it easier to know where to avoid putting stickers.

You may want to tie a lesson on symmetry to this New Year’s Eve Countdown Activity. We talked about it as we worked on our countdown balls. It was easy at the beginning to try to mirror the stickers from one side onto the other. As the paper plate filled up with stickers, it was much harder.

All the supplies you wanted to have available to your children could be put out all with paper plates and they could just create. You will probably end up with some New Year’s Eve countdown balls filled to their plate edges with decorations and others may be sparsely decorated. What fun it will be to see how each one turns out!

When the plate is completely finished, you can have your children create a countdown strip of their own or you can have some already made. We found that it was easier to write the numbers on the strip when the strip was in the window. We just pulled the strip up a little to write the next number counting down. That way we knew the whole number would fit in the window.

Ways to Use the New Year’s Eve Countdown Ball

There are so many ways to tie the New Year’s Eve countdown ball into learning. I have listed a few below. I bet you can come up with more ways.

Basic Countdown

Slide the number strip down one number at a time to countdown by twelve.

Counting Up

Children can slide the strip up and count up to twelve one number at a time.

Adding Up

Children place a number in the sliding window. Then they can call out a number or roll a die to get a number. They will then move the slide up that number of times to find the sum of the two numbers.

If you like this idea, but want to have your children create a simpler version of it I have one for you. This printable coloring activity may be just what you are looking for.

Here are some other New Year’s Eve Countdown ideas:

New Year’s Activities

How to Make Noise Maker Shakers

New Year’s Eve Sensory Bin

New Year’s Drink for Kids- Firecracker Sparkler

New Year’s Eve Customs Sheet

How does your family celebrate New Year’s Eve?

Christmas Crafts for Kids- Hanger Reindeer

December 20, 2014 By Deirdre

I find the cutest Christmas craft for kids at school. Yesterday at school a noticed a some super cute hanger reindeer hanging from the cabinet knobs in the classroom across from mine. Knowing that you like Christmas crafts for kids as much as I do I came home and made one so you could see it. This is one of those Christmas crafts for kids that uses things that most of us already have at home.

Materials for This Christmas Craft for Kids

brown knee high stocking or the 9 inch length of from a pair of pantyhose or stockings ( the foot is included in the 9 inch length)
small red bow or large red pom pom
wire coat hanger
large wiggly eyes
brown construction paper
rubber band or tape
glue stick

Directions for Creating the Hanger Reindeer

Step One

Push in the two sides of the wire hanger to create an elongated diamond shape. The more pushed in the sides are the longer the reindeer’s face will be. Try to keep the cheek areas of the reindeer’s face even on both sides. I had to push the hanger in and out a few times to get the cheeks to line up evenly.

Step Two

Place the stocking over the hanger. If the toe area of the hanger has a large seam, make sure the seam will be on the back of the deer’s head. Pull the stocking up to make tighter on the hanger. Depending on the color of your stocking you may want to pull it tighter or have it looser. Play with it a little until you have it the color or sheerness that you would like.

Step Three

Cut of all but about three inches of the extra length of the stocking. Then wrap a rubber band or tape around the base of the curved part of the hanger. ( The area you use for hanging the hanger up.) This will keep the stocking in place. Fold down the extra length of the stocking to cover the tape or rubber band.

Now it time to add the facial elements to this Christmas craft for kids!

Step Four

We added a small red box to the reindeer for his Rudolph red nose. There were several reasons for choosing a box instead of a pom pom. I liked that it had a sticky back that would adhere to the stocking easily. (The teacher at school has her students glue pom poms onto the ones they made.) I liked the whimsy that the bow added to the reindeer we made too.

Then the wiggly eyes were glued onto the reindeer. We used a glue stick to get them to stay in place. You may be able to find wiggly eyes with sticky backs.

Step Five

The teacher at school had the kids make hand prints for antlers out of brown construction paper and glued them to the back of the reindeer’s head. We just cut out antlers brown construction paper.

I think our reindeer comes close to the cuteness of the Christmas crafts for kids I saw at school. I love that it can be hung from a cabinet knob, doorknob or on a ledge.

Here are Some Other Christmas Crafts for Kids:

Egg Carton Christmas Tree

Five Little Hand Print Christmas Trees and a Song

Folded Tree Christmas Cards

Four Calling Birds Paper Plate Birds

If you end up making these adorable hanger reindeer, please leave me a comment below or share it on my Facebook page.

New Year’s Eve Activities for Kids

December 18, 2014 By Deirdre

New Year’s Eve activities for kids can be enjoyed all during the day. Many members of my family can’t stay awake until midnight. The youngest member is the most hopeful, but he falls asleep early too. We have made it a family tradition to do a variety of activities during the day. That way we all get to enjoy this special day and still get some sleep.

Below you will find a list of New Year’s Eve activities for kids that we have done or we play to do this year. I hope you will some that you can enjoy with your family or your class.

New Year’s Eve Activities for Kids

The countdown balloons found in this post from Craftibilies each contain strips of paper with fun activities for kids to do. You can check out the activities they planned as well as the activities below to help you decide what activities to put in your balloons.

If you don’t fancy using balloons to store you activities ideas, you can use paper bags like Hoosier Homemade did. Their bags have the time they can be opened stapled right to them.

The Centsible Life shows you how to make really cool paper plate shakers for New Year’s Eve. What fun it would be to shake in the new year.

The friendly fireworks created by I Can Teach My Children would be great to create as one of the activities you add to a countdown balloon. My son loves science experiments. This is one of the activities we will be doing this year.

The 13 activities Fantastic Fun and Learning shares in her New Year’s Eve post run the gambit from things to do, read and create. I love her idea of cleaning up Christmas to get ready for the new year.

I love Reading Confetti’s clock hats. They would be fun to wear at a New Year’s Eve event or at home as you completed fun New Year’s Eve activities. They would also make great table decorations.

The Year in Review printable from 30 Days Handmade Days would be fun to do as a family. My family has been through a number of challenges. We have also had a number of “Hooray!” moments. I look forward to reviewing this year.

The fireworks popper created by Wauwaa is super cool! I so want to make one. I think these would be fun to make to use during a countdown at noon or at night.

Here are some of my favorite New Year’s Eve for Kids Activities from my blog:

My New Year’s Eve Sensory Bin is filled with symbols of New Year’s Eve. I put this out for my son to explore and play with. Cookie cutters that represent the year and clock stencil were fun to play with. The new year glasses were his favorite element.

The Firecracker Sparkler is a fun New Year’s Eve drink that kids and parents can enjoy! Special ice cubes really made this drink special.

This printable shares New Year’s Eve Customs from around the world. We try to do several of them every year. We always walk around the house with a suitcase.

I hope you have found some wonderful New Year’s Eve activities for kids that you would like to try. If you have New Year’s traditions that you would like to share, please leave a comment below or leave a comment on my Facebook page.

Art Projects For Kids- Four Calling Birds Craft and Coloring Page

December 4, 2014 By Deirdre

Counting down to Christmas is a whole lot of fun! We have been working on counting down with memory boxes and blessings. Here is yet another way we have been working with counting and Christmas is to count the 12 Days of Christmas. We are exploring the 12 days of Christmas with several other bloggers. Each of us has selected a couple of the days to create art project for kids or fun theme activities. Today I am sharing activities for four calling birds. (You will find a list of other blogs sharing art projects for kids and activities at the end of this post.)

I confess I had a hard time deciding how to make calling birds. I created a Four Calling Birds smart phone or cell phone coloring page with four birds displayed on the monitor. This really didn’t seem all that Christmassy though. I decided that I had to think of something that was craft related.

After digging around in our crafts closet, I found some materials I thought would make really cute birds. (Four really cute birds actually.) Four really cute birds that aren’t calling to anyone is what I came up with. Well, maybe they could be calling to you to make them. This is one of those art projects for kids that you will really want to make.

How did we create them?

Supplies

Small paper plates (2)
Paper doilies (2)
Wiggly eyes (4)
Yellow construction paper
Scissors
Glue sticks

Steps to Create the Birds

Cut each of the paper plates in half.
Cut each of the doilies in half.
Glue a doily half onto half of the paper plate. The doily wing should be sticking off the flat section of the paper plate to make it look like the bird is flying.
Glue a wiggly eye near the front of your paper plate.
Glue the beak on the back of the paper plate near the top of your plate.

We glued our four calling birds to a piece of blue construction paper when we were done. I think you could put holes through top of the plates and make them ornaments. You could group them together on your Christmas tree. There are a number of ways you can display these art project for kids.

Welcome to day 4 of the 12 Days of Christmas Series, a kid-friendly activity to celebrate each of the 12 days! Be sure to stop by your 7 favorite bloggers for each of the 12 Days of Christmas Series. You will find amazing art projects for kids, cooking activities, learning fun and more.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ Stir the Wonder ~ JDaniel4’s Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ P is for Preschooler ~ ABC Creative Learning