President's Day Crafts

It's President's day again, and both kids had the day off from school. We had been reading some great books for about 2 weeks before. We stuck with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln this year. These 3 crafts were simple, easy, and use things that most people already have in their house!

The first one was a very simple Honest Abe. Originally found at Chalk Talk. I drew the basic shape out on just white construction paper. Just let the kids have at it with basic crayons. I love how they all came out slightly different and slightly the same.

This was a very fun Washington craft! Found on The First Grade Parade . They also had the kids do a writing prompt, which I wanted to do, but ran out of time. Start with a paper plate cut in half. To make the perfect skin tone for this craft, just mix a little orange in a blob of white. While the paint is drying, cut out the hat from blue construction paper. When all is dry and ready to go, add cotton balls for his wig and let the kids draw on his face. D made sure to add his false teeth and tongue!

I found this finger puppet craft last year and ran out of time. So I thought it would be great to try it this year. Originally found Kaboose and marked as for 4 years and up, I would say that even my very crafty 5 and 6 year old had trouble with this one. Made from just construction paper, tape, and coins, the kids had trouble rolling the paper and taping at the same time. With a little help from me, we were able to get it in the right shape. From there on out, I let the kids embellish them however they liked, and we had no more problems. Later in the day, the kids both put on a show using these little guys.

See what other fun crafts we have done in the past!
2012: President's day crafts
2011: President's day

Chinese New Year 2013

We love celebrating all the holidays we can, and Chinese New Year is one of them! We have done this now for many years. This year is the year of the snake, so we had to make a snake! We had crafts done in the morning, and then picked up some take out from our favorite little place. We had egg drop soup, pork egg rolls, pork fried rice, and fried dumplings.

I always have a decent stash of toilet paper tubes around the house because you really never know when they will come in handy! As soon as I saw this neat snake, I knew the kids would love to make it. Found here on Cheap Crafty Mama, we did things a little differently. We all took turns painting the sections, we used brass brads to hold him together, and L used a black bingo stamper to give him his wonky eyes. This turned out so cute, I think he might have to be left out for some time.

Last year we attempted paper lanterns, so this year I wanted to try something a little different. I saw these Good Fortune banners on Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish.  She has a link to a step by step on how to make the characters. We had so much fun working on these, and they look so pretty!

2013 Valentine Craft day

This year we did our craft day a little differently. This year, I am no longer in the local moms group because we aged out with school. It makes me a little sad because we spent so many great years involved with it, that I figured we still needed to have a big craft day. So I got a room at the library for after school, and invited a bunch of our friends to join us. It was a huge success! I set up 4 crafts in different stations, and had everyone bring a snack to share. It worked out so well, that we are planning a St. Patrick's day the same way.

One of the craft the kids could make were heart sun catchers. I had hearts cut out of contact paper, construction paper heart frames, yarn, and tissue paper all pre-cut.

We did add 3 stories to the end of our craft time.

We also did one of our favorites. These always come out so nice looking! I cut the plain coffee filters into heart shapes and set out Valentine colors of washable markers. We encourage the kids to color in the entire filter.

 We then had the kid move down the table a bit and spray down the filter. This creates a fun tie dye effect. Always a fun craft!

 We did marble painted hearts. I had to come up with a way to do this and minimize the mess potential since it was in the library. A friend had donated these empty coffee cans to the Art Smart program at school, so I borrowed them for the afternoon. I had medium sized hearts cut out of white card stock. We only used red and purple paint, which still created some fun other shades after it was all done. I put the paint and a few marbles in a separate cup and used a plastic spoon to add them to the coffee cans. I made sure the lids were on tight, and the kids LOVED shaking the can and making loud music.

 And lastly we did the love birds that my kids and I had done a few years back as a fun and simple fourth craft. I had everything all pre-cut just making it easier, plus I knew that I didn't have enough kid scissors for all that were coming. This was fun to see how the kids really made it their own!