I have been teaching my kids a variation of preschool now for a few years, and even though D is just now getting ready to go off to school, she has all the same abilities of her older brother. So she has been getting bored with the usual learning, and I must say, that I am too. So one night an idea hit me, we have spare empty spiral notebooks and I have been noticing all these fun animal crafts, why not but them all together and make a zoo book. At first I thought we should make it with all the zoo animals at our local small zoo, and even do them in order that you come to when you walk through it. But once I told D the idea, she wanted to make animals that our zoo did not have. Sure, why not! We made a list of animals that we are going to attempt. Some I have found on the web. I will try to link all the projects as they come up.
First up was our "K" kangaroo. We have done this one before, but D wanted to do it again. We do all the crafts on paper, then cut them out and glue them into the notebook. This one was brought to us by Totally Tots.
D really wanted to make a sheep, but wanted it to have a peach body. She was very disappointed that we didn't have peach paper. So she decided that it would be fine to make the feet black and the face tan. She started by tracing her hand with a white crayon on the black paper. We then cut the thumb off of the black paper, and traced it on the tan paper.
We glued those then to the paper, and cut out the "fluffy" part. She really thought they turned out better then she expected. Inspired by Kerbrary.
We ended with making hand print zebras, but made them on white paper with white paint. Yep, that didn't work. We went through with it anyway. They still didn't turn out the greatest, but D was happy with them. Inspired by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.
I know this happened about a month ago, but it was way too fun to share. Every year on the first day of Spring I host a Garden party. We get the kids together to paint flower pots, and then plant seeds. Normally I do this in my backyard, but this we had so many in attendance that I moved it to a local park. I always use acrylic paints because they will hold up better out in the elements better than washable. In the past I let each child pick out their own colors, but with 24 kids, I just gave them a plate with spring colors already on it. There were no two alike, and they were all fantastic. We finished the day with some playground playing, and a potluck picnic. Not a bad day at all!!
We have been celebrating Earth day all week this week. We were lucky to have nice weather at the park earlier in the week. The group had a nice picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grilled cheese, mini bagels and cream cheese, and then I made "earth" cupcakes. Of course I forgot to take a picture of those, but I was inspired by Rockabye Butterfly. We did this really fun and easy crafts with the kids. Pinned from Teach Preschool.
Supplies needed:
white paper
paper plate
blue and green paint
How easy is that! Just 4 things!!!! Because we were outside on a slightly windy day I went ahead and taped the paper to the table. I showed the kids how they got to drizzle the paint on the back of the paper plate, flip it over on the paper, and give it a little spin. They all loved it! And they turned out fantastic.
The next craft I did was with both kids on Saturday. Now we have done the coffee filter and marker thing before, but was inspired by this post on I can teach my child. Both of my kids had a blast, and they always love to use water to spray their projects.
Supplies needed:
green and blue washable markers
coffee filters
spray bottle filled with water
Have the kids totally color in the filter with the markers, then spray down with water. I did lay down a flattened brown paper bag under our projects before coloring. After dry, I taped them to the inside of the front door. Nice and cheerful!
And lastly, I had picked up some bleeding tissue paper a few months back, but was unsure of what project to use it on. Inner child fun has used it multiple times, and it always looks so fun. So we decided to make an Earth with it!
Supplies needed:
blue and green bleeding tissue (yes, different then regular tissue paper)
white paper
spray bottle full of water
black construction paper
white paint
large bristle paint brush
I started out prepping the tissue paper but cutting it into squares. I also found a plate that worked with the size I wanted our Earth to be. I first traced it in pencil, then with black marker. I then showed the kids how to layer the tissue on the white paper. I sprayed my picture down with way too much water, after it dried most of my blue ink had bled to the outer ring of the whole paper. L just barely sprayed his down, just so everything was damp, and his turned out perfect. (D was too tired to participate with this one) While those were drying, I took the kids outside to splatter paint their outer space. I set a piece of black construction paper on the ground, and poured a bit of white paint in a cup. I told the kids they had to dip their brush in the paint and then flick it on the paper. We did discover that flicking the paint with your finger on the bristles worked better. We let everything dry over night, and then L cut it out and put it all together. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, I'll make sure to do that tomorrow.
