Craft Archives - Page 6 of 11

Fun Craft For Kids- Torn Paper Easter Chick

April 12, 2014 By Deirdre

Easter crafts are fun to make and send to friend and family. We recently sat down at the kitchen table and created this fun craft creates a fun torn paper Easter chick.

One of the best things about torn paper crafts is that there isn’t a wrong way to tear paper. There are times when you try to tear the paper in a shape as we did for the chicks head and body. When you are trying to tear it in a shape, it can help to draw that shape on the paper and tear around it. Be warned that sometimes the paper won’t cooperate. You may end up with a wonky looking circle. We like odd shaped circles at my house so, that didn’t bother us.

There are times when you just want to tear off strips of paper. When you are going to use those strips as feathers for an Easter craft chick, having odd bends or twists in the paper you are tearing works out really well.

We tore the body and feathers for the chicks out of yellow paper. The beak and the feet of the chicks were torn out of orange paper.

We both experimented a little with torn paper placement on our Easter craft chick before we glued the pieces in places. One of us put a little more thought into our creation than the other, but we both shifted, flipped, and rotated the torn pieces.

When we both had our chick’s bodies decorated the way we wanted them to be with torn paper, we added eyes to our Easter craft. Once again we tore paper. White paper was used for the outer eye and black paper was used for the inner eye or eyeball.

I just love the look of a fun craft of torn paper. The torn paper seems to give this Easter craft texture. The layering effect of the paper also gives it a 3-D look too.

These Easter craft chicks turned out as well as the torn paper penguin we made in the winter. I will need to work on some more torn paper crafts with JDaniel. If you are looking for more spring art projects, you may want to check out my Spring Craft board or Easter Craft board on Pinterest.

Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning

April 4, 2014 By Deirdre

Simply adding shapes to a paper egg can open the door for exploring several math concepts. That is why this post is called Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning. We actually covered several math skills in this crafty math activity.

It all started with a cutting a simple egg shape from construction paper. I selected a bold blue color of paper for this cool math for kids activity, but a piece of white paper would have been just as good. I cut the shapes for this activity ahead of time. In hindsight I could have had JDaniel cut out the shapes himself.

I asked JDaniel to create rows of patterned shapes on the egg. If you want your children to have a more opened ended activity, you could have them glue the shapes anywhere they wanted to on the egg. Layering of the shapes is fine too. If you choose to do this activity that way, you may need to remind them to keep some of each shape showing. You will want to be able to see each of the shapes in the creation to count them later. If they can’t see the shapes, this won’t end of being cool math for kids. It would be a cute Easter egg craft.

When all of the shapes had been arranged and rearranged, we glued into place. If you want to reuse the shapes to do this activity again and again, you may not want to glue the shapes down. You can actually move to the next math activity without the shapes glued down.

With the shapes in place have your child or children record on a piece of paper or a shape chart the number of squares, circles, triangles and ovals that were used to decorate the egg. If the shapes have been layered over each other, you may want to help them remember which shapes are layered underneath the shapes they can see. An oval and a circle may look very similar. A square and a rectangle may look similar too.

We glued our egg and shape counting chart to a large piece of construction paper to hang up. You could do that too. You could also glue the egg and the number chart into a math journal. You could also just hang up the egg.

We spent time talking about shapes on the egg after we had glued it down.

I asked these cool math for kids questions:

Which shape did you use the most?

Which shape did you use the least?

How many circles and ovals were used?

How many shapes were used on the egg?

Starting to use math vocabulary words into our conversation as well as a number of math skills help build a strong math foundation.

If you are looking for some other Easter themed activities, you may want to check out my Easter board on Pinterest.

Butterflies in Crafts and Activities

March 24, 2014 By Deirdre

We haven’t seen any butterflies since the temperature here started to yo-yo back and forth so, we made a cupcake liner sun catcher butterfly to remind us that spring is here. We can’t see the butterfly flitting around the yard, but we can see it superimposed over the view of our yard as we look out the window. Maybe when the temperature warms up we will be able see our sun catcher butterfly and a real live butterfly at the same time. I hope it warms up enough for that soon.

I cut out the outline of two butterflies and shapes on their wings. JDaniel could probably have traced my outline and done some cutouts himself, but I was inspired to do this after he had gone to bed one night.

The trickiest part was having the paper stay folded as I cut out the each shape. I didn’t want to end up with lots of crease lines in the paper. Had JDaniel been awake he would have told me that wouldn’t matter or we could have taken turns holding the paper for each other.

I found a super fun set of cupcake liners when I went to JoAnn’s to get the materials for the Easter Egg Toss Bottles project. I knew that they would be thin enough to let light shine through them and colorful enough to make pretty sun catcher. They were also super easy to cut.

The tricky part about using the cupcake liners was that it was hard to cut them to fit the cutouts perfectly. The smaller cutouts were easy. It was the long cutouts at the top of the butterfly’s wings that offered a challenge. At first we tried to cut the outside edge of the cupcake liner to see if it would be long enough. It wasn’t long enough. The arch in the liner kept it from working. The only way to make it work was to layer to sections of cutout cupcake liners. We really weren’t sure how that would look, but it end up being okay.

A wonderful attribute of cupcake liners is that they have a smooth flat section and a fluted section. The areas we used the fluted section on ended up having a really wonderful texture to them. The texture wasn’t too noticeable, but was just enough to add a little bit of a funky flair to the craft.

Cupcake liners have been a wonderful crafting tool at our house. We have made a cupcake liner bouquet and pumpkin craft with them so far. I am thinking a decorated Easter egg may be in our future.

Here some other crafts and activities featuring butterflies we have done:

Science Experiment- Making Butterfly Wings Flap
Butterfly Number Count
Butterfly Bento

How have you used cupcake liners outside of making cupcakes or muffins with them?

Five Little Shamrocks Craft and Song

March 11, 2014 By Deirdre

Have you heard the Five Little Shamrocks song before? Have you ever made a hand print shamrock? We hadn’t done either until we started to work on this Five Little Shamrocks craft and song. We love Five Little… so much that I searched and searched until I found one for St. Patrick’s Day.

Five Little Shamrocks

One green shamrock, in the morning dew,
Another one sprouted,
and then there were two.

Two green shamrocks, growing beneath a tree;
Another one sprouted,
and then there were three.’

Three green shamrocks, by the cottage door;
Another one sprouted,
and then there were four.

Four green shamrocks, near a beehive
Another one sprouted,
and then there were five.

Five little shamrocks, bright and emerald green,
Think of all the luck
these shamrocks will bring.

While I think the Five Little Shamrocks is a super cute song that can be song all by itself, I love to try to come up with a craft to go along with rhymes and songs that we are working on. The crafts can be used as props while you sing the song. They are also great for retelling the song. When you have finished using them along with the song, they make wonderful crafts to display in the hallway outside of your classroom or on your kitchen fridge.

Our hand print shamrocks were so simple to make. We placed green paint on the palm side of a hand and placed four hand prints in flower petal design onto white paper. Then we cut out the hand prints and I added an outline around the shamrocks with green marker. A stem for the shamrocks was also drawn on with green marker. Finally two wiggly eyes are placed on each shamrock along with an orange pom-pom. ( I tried a green pom-pom on the shamrocks, but it really didn’t differ enough from the green paint and marker. ) Orange is one of the colors on the Irish flag and it added contrast so, we went with orange pom-poms.

You may notice that one of the shamrocks has tiny eyes. I didn’t have enough large wiggly eyes for all five shamrocks. It may look a little odd in the picture. I think it ended up being okay. Five is an odd number so, why shouldn’t the fifth shamrock be a little odd.

Here are some other Five Little.. Songs and Crafts we have done:

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be foundon her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Crafts For Kids- Penguin Craft with Torn Paper

February 21, 2014 By Deirdre

The ideas for craft for kids come from everywhere. I have my eyes open for them when I am out and about all day long. This penguin craft with torn paper came from seeing a very similar craft hanging outside a kindergarten classroom at my school. It was super cute! I just knew we need to make one at home.Tearing paper for large sections of the penguin was easy for us. Tearing the paper for the feet was tricky. I confess that I tore paper for the feet myself. Younger children might get frustrated if the paper ends up tearing in a direction or way that they hadn’t planned for. JDaniel is almost six and in kindergarten. That makes him the same age and crafting level as the children that did the original penguin I saw at school.

Penguin Craft - Torn Paper Penguin : Putting the penguin together.

Putting the penguin together was all JDaniel. He carefully placed the penguin’s various parts just where he wanted them to be. (I love that the penguin’s beak is stuck under his eyes.) JDaniel just grabbed torn pieces and glued them in place. He sometimes lays out all the craft element and then glues them down. The grab and glue method gave his penguin a more random and fun look.

Penguin Craft - Torn Paper Penguin : Putting the penguin's wings together.

I really like the look torn paper gives a craft. It makes the craft for kids look feathery and furry. It might we fun to try to make another polar animal like a polar bear or seal with torn paper.

Here are some other animal crafts for kids:

Jellyfish Mobile

Torn Paper Owl

Fish Flop Painting

Hoof Painting a Buffalo

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Dr Seuss Shape Activity

February 18, 2014 By Deirdre

While looking through a book that contains a collection of Dr. Seuss stories, I got the idea for this Dr.Seuss Shape Activity. I am not sure why. Dr. Seuss’ illustrations are filled with fluid curves and fun bending lines. When I looked at Thing One and Thing Two, I saw ovals, circles, squares, and rectangles.

Skills This Activity Explores

I decided that this activity needed to involve a lot more learning skills than just cutting these shapes. (Though cutting skills could have been enough.) Involving tracing, cutting, letter writing, and visualizing in the activity seemed more exciting.

Finding the Craft Supplies in the Recycling Bin

That led me to get a pizza box out of the recycling bin and cutting out the shapes we would use to build the Dr. Seuss’ Thing One and Thing Two. The cardboard the pizza box was made of was super easy to cut out and thick enough to make tracing easy. Although we had cereal boxes in the bin too, I decided that their cardboard would be too thin to trace around.

Making the Shapes

I went with small tracing shapes for this project. Small shapes would fit onto a half sheet of construction paper when assembled into Thing One and Thing Two. They worked out well for this project. JDaniel did a good job tracing them. I would have made bigger tracing shapes for a slightly younger child.

Creating my Thing Two Dr. Seuss shape activity was done first. Primarily to make sure that it would look okay when it was assembled. JDaniel used it as a model somewhat when he created his Thing One creation. Having one already created ended up being helpful.

Then I put out all the supplies on the table for him and asked him to join me in creating. Having everything ready to go helped the creation process go very smoothly.

Dr. Seuss Math Activity - Tracing Shapes

JDaniel Creates the Dr. Seuss Shape Activity

Tracing carefully was easy for JDaniel. He placed the shapes all over the paper which gave him a lot of wiggle room for cutting. I had wedged all my shapes into one side of the red, white, and blue paper when I had cut my shapes out to save paper. When I saw what he was doing, I was glad we hadn’t done our tracing together. He might have tried to follow my lead and his way was better for him.

Assembling the Dr. Seuss Shape Activity Featuring Thing Two

Watching JDaniel put the shapes together to make his version of Dr. Seuss Thing Two was so much fun. He arranged the shapes on the paper to create his creature on paper just as I had done. (Only he wasn’t in the room when I made mine.)

JDaniel decided to write out Thing One on the smaller of the two white circles before gluing it down. I did mine the opposite way and was stuck with that circle. If I hadn’t glued it down early, I would have cut out another white circle and written Thing Two on my Dr. Seuss creation again.

Assembling the Dr. Seuss Shape Activity Featuring Thing One and Thing Two

Thing One turned out great. I love how JDaniel completed this Dr. Seuss shape activity. His creature has eyes that make me think he is up to something and he has a very warm smile.

What materials did we use to create our Dr. Seuss shape activity?

blue, white, and red construction paper
glue sticks
scissors
cardboard shape to trace
black markers

Are you looking for some other Dr. Seuss activities? Here are some others we have done:

Green Eggs and a Cat in the Hat Shaped Lunch

Lorax Collage

Lorax Lunch

Green Eggs and Ham Tic Tac Toe Game

Fox in Sox Sock Puppet

If I Ran The Zoo Field Trip

Suprise! I have created a Dr. Seuss Themed Shape Activity printable set of shapes you can use to make these super cute Dr. Seuss creatures. You can cut out the shapes for your children or have them cut them out themselves.

You can assemble these shapes to make shape craft below.

Snow Globe Craft For Kids

February 11, 2014 By Deirdre

Creating a painted snow globe when you live in place that gets very little snow seemed like a great idea to me. My son just loves snow and snow globes. He loves to turn my mother in law’s snow globe over to make the tiny white specks inside start to swirl around and around. Why not create a craft for kids that places them right in a snow globe.

Creating this Craft for Kids

To make our painted snow globes we started by cutting out the outline of a snow globe from black construction paper. I had traced the outline onto the paper with a white crayon before we started cutting. Cutting smoothly is still a challenge for one of us so, this was good practice.

Then we each glued pictures of ourselves into the snow globe. I glued down a picture of me and JDaniel chose a picture of himself. We had both taken several pictures of each other in fun poses and then selected the ones we wanted for this project. Taking the pictures for this project was really fun. You may already have pictures in your files that you could use instead of having to take new pictures. This was actually our favorite part of working on this craft for kids.

When the pictures were glued into place, we started to spatter tiny dots of white paint onto the globe. We tried several different ways of applying the dots. At first, we tried dabbing on the dots. That technique created thick blobs of paint. Then we tried shaking the paint brush gently from side to side. That approach results in light white spatters that weren’t really round in shape. Finally, we tried wildly shaking the paint-soaked brush. We found that the spatters remained light in color, but were much closer together on the snow globe. I am sure that there are lots of other ways to apply white paint with a brush, but we stopped with those.

Snow Globe Craft for Kids - Mother and Son Themed Globes

While the paint was drying, we shook a shaker of salt over the snow globe to add a glistening effect to it. The snow globe really didn’t end up glistening unless it was in the direct sunlight. It did add a little bit of texture to the painted snow globe and that was fun! If we had added glitter, we would have ended up with a shiny and glittery effect. I didn’t have any so we had to do without.

Snow Globe Craft for Kids - Mother and Son Themed Globes - My son's snow globe.

While we can’t turn our snow globes over to create a snowfall, our painted snow globes sure are a lot of fun to look at.

Mardi Gras Masks and Learning Activities

February 7, 2014 By Deirdre

Mardi Gras is a festival filled with many symbols like a decorated mask and colorful beads. Both a mask and a necklace of beads can be fun learning tools as well as Mardi Gras party elements. We recently used them to do three different learning activities at my house.

Mardi Gras Activities

Mardi Gras Mask

There are two different activities that we did with Mardi Gras masks. Both were fun and used a variety of learning skills. The first was to decorate cardboard masks with odds and ends from our craft closet. The second was to create a bar graph based on the colors we used to decorate the masks.

Cardboard Mardi Gras Mask

Let’s start with the foam mask. I pre-cut the cardboard masks from an old pizza box and put them out with a variety of materials to decorate with.

I dug out the following items:

Glitter glue
Stickers
Sticky backed jewels
Wiggly eyes
Beads
Buttons

I wish that I had found feathers, but we just haven’t used them to craft with in the past.

We both had fun decorating the masks. Our creative juices really flowed. It is easy to decorate them when you know that there really isn’t a wrong way to do it. Mardi Gras masks are all unique and different.

Mardi Gras Bar Graph Activity

I created a printable that displays a Mardi Grade Color and Graph Page at the top and a bar graph at the bottom. Children including JDaniel will be asked to decorate the circles on the mask using the colors red, blue, yellow, and green. They will also be asked to use each color at least three times. I really want to make sure that children don’t just use one color to fill in fall the circles. I also want to make sure that they have a couple of circles of each color to record on the graph.

When children have finished coloring the circles, they will be asked to count how many circles of each color they have. They will color the bars in the bar graph to match the color of that set of circles. I have uploaded a copy of the Mardi Gras Color and Graph Page printable for you to use with your children.

Mardi Gras Beads Venn Diagram

Two strands of Mardi Gras beads can be formed into a really cool Venn diagram. You can make the circles tall and narrow or short and wide. It will depend on the size of the object you have going to have your children sort.

We sorted button in our Mardi Gras bead Venn diagram. Before we started sorting, we decided what attributes we were going to focus on. Those attributes were written down on index cards and placed above each of the circles on the Venn.

The attributes we chose were blue and large. The buttons that were both blue and large went into the middle of the Venn where the circles overlapped. The blue buttons went on the right side of the Venn and the large buttons that weren’t blue went on the left.

I really love how portable this Venn diagram is. I think we may be taking the Mardi Gras beads out with us to sort on hikes or playground outings. It would be great to sort objects we have found along the way.

Here is another Mardi Gras post from this blog:

Muffin Tin Monday- Mardi Gras Mask Lunch

Five Little Valentines Craft and Song

January 24, 2014 By Deirdre

There is something wonderful about receiving one, two, three, four or even five little valentines that might lead you to want to sing a song or do a craft for someone. I remember opening each little card I received in my decorated card box on Valentine’s Day at school. I just loved to read the rhymes on them and see what kind of card each person in my class had selected to pass out to the class or to give to me.There were always a few homemade cards in placed in my box each year. Those really stood out to me as did the ones that came with candy attached. There were never lots of either, but I think that is what made them special.

Recently JDaniel and I sang the Five Little Valentine’s Song and Craft. These Valentine’s Day cards will be sent to people we love to let them know them know they are remembered.

Here is the Five Little Valentines song:

Five pretty valentines sitting in the store,

[Child’s name] bought one, and then there were four.Four pretty valentines left on the shelf,[Child’s name] bought one, and then there were three.Three pretty valentines waiting for a home,[Child’s name] bought one, and then there were two.Two pretty valentines standing side by side,[Child’s name] bought one, and then there was one.One pretty valentine left all alone[Child’s name] bought that valentine and all were gone.

Here is how we made our five little valentines:First we gather the following supplies:

Paint (red, pink and white)
Yarn
Construction Paper
Glue Stick
Buttons
Scissors

Then JDaniel and I ran short strings of yarn through paint. We found that pulling the string back and forth through the paint really loaded up the string.

Five Little Valentines Song and Craft- Painting with String

Next the string was rolled, dragged, and smashed onto the paper. A spoon was rubbed over the paint loaded the string to encourage the paint onto the paper. Lines of paint were randomly applied all over five pieces of construction paper.

Five Little Valentines Song and Craft- Painting with String on Paper

The painted sheets of paper were then left to dry or mostly dry. When they were mostly dry, we folded them in half and cut hearts out of them. The paint that was still damp made an imprint on the opposite side of the paper when it was pressed together adding to the paper’s design.When the paint was completely dry, various size and colored buttons were attached to the hearts with a glue stick. It was very easy to rub the bottom of the buttons onto the top of the glue stick. The bottoms ended up fully coated and this made them easy to attach to the heart.

Our five little valentines ended up with a modern art feel. I hope that those who receive them will love them as I think the people who received the five little valentines in the song loved getting their cards.Other Five Little songs we have a song and crafted about:

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as an elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5-year-old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Five Little Snowmen Song and Craft

January 19, 2014 By Deirdre

Five Little Snowmen is the fifth five little song and craft we have shared on the blog. There is something really fun about these rhymes. We started with Five Little Pumpkins as few years ago. JDaniel relearned it in kindergarten this year. He sang it over and over again. That inspired me to look for some more five little songs. Since then we have done Five Little Turkeys, Five Little Christmas Trees, and Five Little Firecrackers.Five Little Snowmen’s craft involved white paint, a potato masher, and some odds and ends from our craft closet. I used black paper to make the white paint really stand out in hindsight I should have probably used a lighter color.

Five Little Snowmen5 little snowmen sitting on the ground, (pat hands on floor)the first one said; “oh my aren’t we round.” (make circle with arms)The second one said; “there are snowflakes in the air.” (wiggle fingers above head)The third one said; “but we don’t care.” (shrug shoulders)The fourth one said; “Lets run and run and run. (pat hands quickly on the floor)The fifth one said; “I’m ready for some fun.” (smile)Whew went the wind (blow) and out came the sun (make a circle with arms over head)and the five little snowmen knew their fun was done.(pretend your melting)

JDaniel painted the white paint onto the potato masher. I thought it would keep the paint from looking clumpy. It would have probably looked more natural with clumps.

We started by placing the paint loaded potato masher onto the paper to make circular prints. JDaniel thought we need to wiggle the masher a little to create blurred lines. Honestly, his blurred lined snowman really looked better than mine.

five_little_snowmen_song_and_craft_potato_masher_printmaking

JDaniel also placed his circles at angles so, they aren’t standing straight and tall. I really love the added character he added to his snowmen.

When the snowmen had dried, we pulled out some odds and ends from our craft closet and decorated them. My husband thinks they look like snow penguins. What do you think?

If you love five little songs like we do, watch for a post on Five Little Valentines song and craft.

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as an elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5-year-old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on twitter as @jdaniel4smom and on her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+