patriotic Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

American Flag Cardboard Tube Craft

June 30, 2014 By Deirdre

This American flag cardboard tube craft is easy for kids to put together. It would be great make to celebrate a variety of patriotic events and holidays. We have it on displayin our kitchen, but I think it would look great anywhere you would like to display it.

What do you need to create this American flag craft?

Paper towel tubes (2)
Bingo markers (red and blue)
White construction paper
White ribbon
Glue stick
Scissors

How do you put the American flag together?

You start by cutting two paper towel tubes in half. If you don’t have paper towel tubes, you can used four toilet paper cardboard tubes.

Paint three of the cardboard tube sections red and one of the tubes blue with bingo markers. I like to dab bingo markers when I paint with them. JDaniel likes to roll bingo markers in straight lines across the tubes. We both painted these tubes so, you will see some of both styles of painting.

While you are waiting for the paint to dry, you can cut out stars out of the white construction paper. We cut out two different sizes out. I need to be honest and tell you that we printed the stars out on construction paper and then cut them out. I tried hand drawing them and found that I am not great a drawing five point stars.

When the paint on the tubes is dry, you can add the stars and stripes. The stars can been glued all over the tube painted blue. Strips of white ribbon can be wrapped around the tube. We glued the ribbon on so we would have red on the bottom of the tube and on the top just like the Amercian flag.

This American flag craft can be displayed with all the tubes lined up in a row or with tubes arrange to look like the flag is waving. Both ways really work.

Here are several fun American flag and patriotic themed posts:

Fine Motor- Fold and Thread Necklace

How to Make Confetti Eggs

American Flag Mobile

Painted American Flag

For more American flag and red, white, and blue activities, please check out my Red, White, and Blue Pinterest board.

If I don’t see you before the 4th of July, I hope your family has a wonderful holiday!

78 4th of July Activities- The Sunday Showcase

June 28, 2014 By Deirdre

These are my favorite 4th of July activities for kids! They include craft, science fun, math and more. You are going to love them too. Come check them out!

Buggy and Buddy has the most wonderful 4th of July wands. They would be great to take to a parade, decorate a table or just enjoy playing with.

3 Dinosaurs mixes fine motor fun with crafting stars on paper in this Red, White and Blue Star Craft. It looks like fun!

Stella 1 2 3 shares how to make an American flag with LEGO and marshmallow flag painting. Both would fun for kids!

The Jenny Evolution has an wonderful round up of 35 4th of July craft activities. This is a great resource

Mini Monets and Mommies used berries to paint fireworks! So cool!

Carrie Elle has American flag printables! They would be great for your color table.

Here a some of my favorite 4th of July Activities from my blog:

Fine Motor Weaving red, white, and blue ribbons is fun and a learning activity tied up in one activity.

A fold and thread necklace created using red, white and blue paper in a lot of fun!

An American Flag mobile is a lot of fun to hang in your yard on the 4th of July.

Confetti eggs for patriotic holidays. My son really loves making and throwing these.

34 Patriotic crafts and activities is another great resource for the 4th of July!

Link Up Information

If you are here for the first time please read this informational post on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas’ site for the full details. Anything kid friendly and/or child centered is welcome! You are welcome to share more than one post, but we don’t accept links for giveaways, shops, or downloads for purchase, etc. They will be deleted.

An InLinkz Link-up

If you have other 4th of July activities that you think I missed and need to see, please leave a link for them in a comment below.

Fine Motor Activity- Fold and Thread Necklace

June 16, 2014 By Deirdre

Children of various ages benefit from working on fine motor skills. This fine motor activity actually creates the opportunity for children to work a several fine motor skills. I have called this fine motor activity Fold and Thread Necklace, but there are really several other skills that children will work on while creating the necklace. I will tell you more about them as we go along.

Supplies Need For the Fine Motor Activity

Construction paper (red, blue and white)
Scissors
Hole punch
Ruler
Pencil
Yarn (red)

Directions for the Fold and Thread Necklace

I went ahead and drew vertical lines one inch apart on front of pieces of red, blue and while construction paper. On the back on the construction paper I drew horizontal lines three inches apart.

JDaniel cut the vertical strips out first. It was hard to cut the strips perfectly straight. Some strips ended up a little wavy. They looked really cool with a little bit of wave. If you really want super straight strips, you may want to fold the paper in half horizontally. Children will have much shorter strip to cut out. Don’t worry about creating a crease in the paper. Children will cut along the crease when they make the horizontal cuts.

When the long strips had been cut out, JDaniel turned them over and cut the strips along the horizontal line I had draw on the paper. He declared this much easier to do.

The next step was a little bit hard to do. Each strip need to be fan folded. That means folding a portion of the strip down turning the paper over and folding another portion of the strip down. This process continues until you reach the end of the strip. That is about four folds.

When you have strip fan folded, you will use a hole punch to create a hole in the center of the fan folded paper. This can be a little challenging too. We found that if you used thin construction paper for this fine motor activity it was easier to punch holes through.

Keeping the strip fan folded thread a piece of yarn through its holes. Once the strip is on the yarn, you can open the fan fold a little or a lot. It is so much easier to thread the yard through as a collapsed strip then it would have been to thread the yarn through each hole.

You will need to repeat the fan folding, hole punching, and threading steps until you have a number of strips on the yarn. We chose fold and hole punch all the strips before threading, but how you complete these three steps is really up to you.

While creating this fine motor necklace, kids have worked on cutting, folding, hole punching, and threading. Combining of all these skills gives kids the opportunity to create a really fun necklace.

Feel free to try a variety of different types of paper, foam or material to create a fold and thread necklace. The key is the thickness of the material you decided to use. The thinner the material is the easier it will be to hole punch. Warning: If the material is too thin, it could tear while children are trying to cut or thread it.

Here is another fine motor activity we have tried. Weaving ribbons through a dish drying mat help children work on planning, creating, and threading. We had a lot of fun fine motor weaving.

Watch for more fine motor activities this week and a huge giveaway here on Friday. When I say huge I mean huge, you won’t want to miss it.

American Flag Craft for Kids

June 11, 2014 By Deirdre

Using a few simple craft materials you can create an American flag craft mobile that can twist in the breeze or decorate your child’s room. It is super easy! We made this mobile two years ago for a guest post on the blog Not Just Cute. I thought you would love to see it!

A flag mobile like this one would be great to hang up on Flag Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day or the 4th of July. We have had it hung up in a tree in our yard on bright sunny days lately, but we take it in a night. It isn’t weather safe. It has spent the most time in JDaniel’s room hanging from one of the arms of his ceiling fan.

How To Make Our American Flag Craft for Kids

The first thing you have to do it so gather your supplies.

We used:

Cardboard box ( Colored poster board could be used instead)
Paint (Red, white and blue)
White construction paper
Fishing line
Plastic hanger (red)
Scissors
X -Acto knife

Directions for creating the mobile:

Trace the outline of a flag and mark off six stripes of equal length.

Draw wavy lines to separate each of the stripes.

If you are using poster board for your stripes, cut out the stripes with scissors. If you are using cardboard, cut out the stripes with an X-Acto knife.

Cut a four inch length from three of your stripes. The short stripes with be the blue area of the flag.

Now it is kid’s time! Have the kids color the three short stripe sections blue. Two of the long stripes and one of the shorter stripes will need to be painted white. Two of the shorter stripes and two of the long stripes will be painted red.

While the paint is drying, cut stars out of the white construction paper. We have nine stars on our flag.

When the paint is dry, glue the stars onto the short blue stripes.

Thread a needle with fishing line.

Use the fishing line to connect each of the small blue stripes to one of the medium sized or shorter stripes. Then connect the blue stripes to the red hanger with fishing line.

Next use fishing line to connect the longer stripes to the coat hanger.

Make sure the stripes will have enough room to spin.

Hang your mobile up and watch it spin.

I hope you like our tribute Old Glory!

Other Patriotic Crafts for Kids

If you are looking for patriotic crafts and fun, you may want to check out my Summer Crafts and Fun Pinterest board .

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Summer Crafts and Fun on Pinterest.

Here are some other patriotic crafts I have shared here on my blog:

Crafts for Kids: Painted American Flag

Bald Eagle Craft and Science Experiment

Patriotic Windsock

How to Make Confetti Eggs

May 22, 2014 By Deirdre

“Mama, can you find out how to make confetti eggs and make some?” JDaniel asked. “Sure! I will find out and make you some confetti eggs,” I said.

Every year JDaniel’s school fun fair has confetti eggs available for purchase for one ticket. For the last two years he had bought a few eggs and then chased his dad and I around until he was able to hit us with one. This year we bought two confetti eggs for JDaniel to share with the boy next door. He really wanted them to chase each other around the yard until the got each other.

Confetti eggs are fragile and the eggs made it in the house from the car after the fun fair, but they did not make it outside for the chase. That is when JDaniel asked if I could find out how to make confetti eggs and make some more.

I searched the internet for ideas on how to make them. I watched a video by Happy Auer and read a few blog posts. Each had unique or different twist on how to make them. After reading and watching how to make confetti eggs, these are the steps I ended up using and the supplies needed to make them.

Here are the supplies you need to make confetti eggs:

Raw eggs
Spoon
Small bowls for dye bowls
Vinegar
Water
Food Coloring
Homemade or store bought confetti
Tissue paper for strips or stripes (optional)
Tissue paper or cupcake liners for confetti egg lids (optional)

How to make confetti eggs:

Create a hole in the top of each raw egg. Some people tap the egg on the counter to get the initial crack. (I tried this technique and ended up with a hairline crack going partially down the side of one egg.) The second technique was to tap the top of the egg with a spoon to make the first crack. This is the technique that worked best for me.
Remove enough of the egg shell from the top of each egg to create a small whole or a medium sized hole. It is up to you.
Remove the raw egg from the shell of your eggs by shaking it over a measuring cup. (I used the raw eggs to to make of brownies. You could clean out an egg as you needed it and save the shells until you had enough eggs for your kids or just make a giant omelet or strata.)
Prepare dye bowl with mixture of water, vinegar and food coloring. I used about a 1/4 cup of vinegar, a half cup of water and enough squirts of food coloring until I got the color I wanted.
Place the eggs into the color baths. (I created two red and two blue eggs. I left two eggs white.)
Place the dyed eggs back in the egg carton to dry.
Use a hole punch to create small dots for the eggs or buy confetti at the store. I wanted tissue strips or stripes to put in the eggs so, I cut small strips out of tissue paper.
When the confetti eggs are dry place the confetti mixture into the top of each egg. I used a funnel for the dots and my fingers to put the tissue strips into them.
If you are worried about the confetti and tissue falling out, you can glue the center of a cupcake liner over the opening like Happy Auer did. Another option is that you could glue a tissue paper circle over the opening. I just left the top open. The idea of having confetti fly out of the egg as it is thrown appealed to me.

Tips for Throwing Confetti Eggs

Throw them in the driveway for easy clean up.
Try to have at least two eggs per child.
Create eggs and confetti to match an upcoming holiday or event.
Throw the eggs outside

Our eggs were created with a patriotic themed for Memorial day. Confetti eggs could really be made for any event or holiday. It might even be fun to have creating them be a party activity.

For more outdoor play ideas please stop by my Outdoor Fun for Kids Pinterest board.

Paper Crafts for Kids- Patriotic Wind Sock

May 8, 2014 By Deirdre

Sometimes it is a simple paper plate crafts that brings the biggest pleasure. Recently JDaniel and I hung a simple paper craft paper plate in a tree in our backyard. We both found ourselves looking up at it as it twisted and swirled in the breeze.

When I said simple, I meant simple this paper craft requires only eight supplies to make. Considering two of the supplies are paper plates that really isn’t very many crafting elements to have to gather.

You will need:

Scissors or an Ellison press with a star block

Glue stick

Blue plates , two

Party streamers, red

Star template

Fishing line

Needle

Cardboard from a cereal box

We lucked out by being able to use an Ellison press to cut our stars out of the paper plates. If you don’t have one available to you, you will want to cut star you have drawn out on a piece of cardboard. You can then use the cut out star or the outside section that you have cut the star out of the star to draw the star on the plates. It is important to try to make both stars exactly the same. Yes, I know it could be a challenge.

Next you will need to cut out various lengths of the party streamer. We went with lengths that were longer rather than short. With the streamer strips cut out we then glued them onto the back side of one of the paper plates.

Then we glued the back of the second paper plaaate to the back of the first. The tricky part is making sure that the star cutouts on both plates line up. I had to keep turning our plates clockwise until I found the right way to line them up. If you try and try and don’t get it to work, it will be okay. It will add a 3-D effect to the paper craft plates as they spin in the breeze.

Finally we pushed a needle threaded with fishing line into the top of the paper plate. We tied off the fishing line to make loop in the fishing line. The loop was what we used to hang the paper plate wind sock like craft in a tree.

The wind was kicking up a breeze when we hung our paper plate craft up in the tree. It was such fun to watch the streamer tails slipping and flipping in it.

It really looked like our patriotic paper plate craft was dancing!

We didn’t use materials that could stay outside overnight. Just before bedtime I took the paper crafts down from the tree and hung it from the ceiling fan in JDaniel’s room. We will take it outside again for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Veterans Day just to watch it dance!

Here are some other paper crafts made with paper plates and more:

Paper Plate Sunflowers

Paper Lion

Paper snowman

What is your favorite type of paper to craft with?

34 Patriotic Activities For Kids

November 9, 2013 By Deirdre

We really enjoy celebrating our country, those you helped found it, and those you have served it. I don’t think it really has to do with the fact we live in the United States. I would probably be teaching JDaniel patriotism and pride in those who serve no matter where we lived in the world. It was something I was taught when I was little and something JDaniel has been taught since he was little too. We worked on learning about patriotism by doing patriotic activities.

Last week I shared three posts about Veterans Day that join thirty-one other posts that have appeared on this blog or in guest posts I have done for others on the subject of patriotic holidays. If you are looking for ways to share Veterans Day and other patriotic holidays with the children in your life, I hope you will take a moment to look through these patriotic activities.

Here are 35 Patriotic Activities:

We made a Veterans Day craft when cork painted poppy after reading The Poppy Lady last week. I love how it turned out.

A bingo marker was the perfect paint tool to use when we learned how to make a coffee filter poppy.

34 Patriotic Activities For Kids -Eating at a Memorial

Five patriotic activities to do with kids to remember those who have served our country were shared in this post called Veterans Day Activities for Kids.We baked a patriotic cake for the 4th of July that would be wonderful for an array of patriotic holidays.

Patriotic chili would be great for to serve to a veteran you know. It would also be great for Memorial Day, Labor Day, Flag Day or the 4th of July.25 patriotic activities for kids is a round up of crafts, food creations, books, and learning activities with patriotic themes. It was posted in early July.

We planted flags at our local veterans memorial along with a number of other volunteers two Saturdays ago. What fun we had! I will be sharing more about the experience in tomorrow’s post. It is called 21 Days of Gratitude- Family.

How to you share patriotic holidays with your family?

10 Fourth of July Books for Kids

June 25, 2013 By Deirdre

Children can learn more about the symbols associated with the 4th of July and ways families celebrate the 4th with this wonderful collection of books. When you have finished reading them you might enjoy, creating a creating a threaded necklace, patriotic confetti eggs, or a cardboard tube flag.

4th of July Books for Kids

One Nation Under God: A Book for Little Patriotstalks about our country and government in a way young readers will understand.

Sweet Land of Liberty (1) (Ellis the Elephant)> is wonderful book about an Elephant who wants to learn about America’s history while on a visit to the library.

Story Of Americas Birthday is a simple board book talks about America is simple words and pictures.

The Story of the Statue of Liberty (Rise and Shine)is a simple board book by the same author as The Story of America’s Birthday. It highlights the beginning of the song the Star Spangled Banner and about our flag.

The Pledge of Allegiance has been in my book collection since I was a classroom teacher. The book shared the song The Pledge of Allegiance and has beautiful photos from around the United States that illustrate various parts of the song.

Our American Flag (American Symbols) shares the various versions of our flag from its first design to our present design.

O, Say Can You See? America’s Symbols, Landmarks, and Important Words shares many of the symbols and landmarks that the United States are known for.

Fourth of July Mice! (Green Light Readers Level 1) is the story of a mouse family had how they celebrate the traditions associated with the 4th of July.

Our American Flag (American Symbols) is the tale of what a little girl sees as she rides her bike around town during the 4th of July.

Grandma Drove the Garbage Truck explains how while trying to pick up a garbage in a truck she has never driven before Grandma ends up in the 4th of July parade.

Many of these books discuss 4th of July traditions or American landmarks. I think the 4th of July is a great time to share with your children the traditions and heritage tied to this wonderful holiday.