Blooming Flowers!

I had the great fortune to be included in the Little Indiana Quarterly Magazine once again! This time the theme was spring. One of my favorite seasons, not too hot and not too cold normally.  Adam and I brainstormed for an all new craft idea. Together we came up with this fun one.

Supplies needed:
toilet paper tube
green paint
paint brush
tissue paper in fun bright colors
scissors
green plastic straw (found in the Meijer kitchen department)
brass brad fastener
glue stick
brown, green, and orange construction paper

We started out by having flower shapes pre-cut out of the tissue paper, small circle out of the orange paper, seed shape in the brown, and leaves shapes in the green.  Have the kids paint the top edge of the tube with the green paint, this will be the grass.


Each kid picked 3 flower shapes, stacked them on top of each other, glued the orange circle to the middle, and attached them all together with the brass brad.

We then glued the leaf shapes to the green straw. We started with 2 separate leaf shapes, but that didn't work well. So we re-cut the leaves with a section where they are connected in the middle. This makes it easier to glue onto the straw.

Now to glue the seed to the brown part of the tube under the grass. This gives you a chance to talk about how plants grow and what they need. :-)  Make a small slit in the top of the green straw and insert the brad with the flower attached. Roll the flower, and leaves up, and slide inside the tube from the top down.

Now slowly push the straw up and out pops the pretty flowers! You could always staple the bottom of the straw to the bottom of the tube to create a stand, or do what I eventually did, gather all the flowers on the straws and put them in a vase. That way you can have pretty spring flowers that the cat won't eat!

To buy your copy of Little Indiana: Spring Edition

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

X-ray hands

Welcome to Day 5 and the last day of the Hoosier Horror Blog Hop! This is a craft that I spotted on Pinterest and just knew I had to try it! This one comes to use from Inspired Montessori and Arts.

Supplies needed:
Black construction paper
Elmer's glue
white chalk
Q-tips

I had each child trace their own hand with the white chalk on the black paper. I then showed them how to draw a line with the glue and lay the q-tips on top of it, to make it look like the bones inside our hands. They really liked this! I did have to cut a few with the kitchen shears, but L discovered that if he bent the q-tip twice, they snapped right where he needed it to be. These look nice and creepy for our Halloween display, and they were really easy!

Tracing hands

The kids were really excited that these really did look like bones in the hands!

Halloween Banner

Welcome to Day 3 of the Hoosier Horror Blog Hop! I hope you are enjoying these posts as much as I have enjoyed getting them ready for you all. This post was inspired by a banner that Organize Your Stuff Now did last year.  I had pinned it last year with all intentions of doing it, but time got away from me. This year, I had a quiet morning to myself, and motivation with this blog hop, to get it done. Originally I had intended on making this day's post about our fall bucket list, but realized that I did the exact same post already last year. Oops!

This was a fun craft for mommy, but the kids could easily do this one as well. In fact, as soon as the kids came home from school, they noticed it right away. D even was sad when I didn't have her do the craft, so it looks like I may have 2 of each of these by the end of the week.

Supplies needed:
ruler
pencil
scissors
glue stick
green, white, black, orange, and brown construction paper
markers (I used Sharpies)

I first decided which characters I wanted to make. I knew that I had to have a ghost, Frankenstein's monster, and a bat. The original post had made these as triangles, but I liked the rectangle better. I made mine 5"x7". There really are not any other instructions other than cutting out the shapes you would like for each rectangle, and gluing them all together. For now, I just used a small bit of masking tape on the back of each character and taped them directly to my "mantle" shelf. I think of the next week, I will transfer them to some yarn and string it up under the shelf. I may add more as the month goes on, we shall see.

Frank and Pumpkin

Upside down Bat, and Candy Corn

Ghost

The whole crew on the shelf