Archive for January 2009
Crafts don’t always go smoothly, paint and glue are eaten daily and yes tantrums happen, usually him but sometimes me too! I try to roll with it, sometimes we take a break half way through crafts we just walk away and go back when the time is right. Here he kept pulling up the newspaper I had taped down with painters tape and putting the tape in his mouth. Not to mention the green paint everywhere, including up his nose!
I can’t remember what craft he was supposed to be making here but as you can see he wasn’t doing it. Instead he was carefully placing the chalk onto his beloved John Deere tractor. A perfect example of why I try not to do crafts when time is limited.
I have framed this picture for family because it is my son in a nutshell, he celebrates his “exploration” with abandon. He knew I was too far away from him to stop him from pouring the lentils everywhere. He was right. I found lentils in my kitchen for months, usually with my feet. They hurt.
This was a post that never made it up. I was going to do a post about an airplane “Busy Bag” and all the fun things in it to keep him busy. It never got posted, he wouldn’t take it off his head and I gave up.
Ah the classic timeout picture.
As you can see we are not perfect, far far from it! I try to keep my expectations appropriate but I mess up , miss the mark and have bad days. So if a craft tanks, or a pretty art project gets ruined , so what?! Try to follow your child’s interests and know that messes will be made and the goal isn’t a perfect project, it’s an interested and engaged child.
My son is so into rainbows right now, I have no clue why but I am running with it! Doing anything with rainbows is a great opportunity to talk about many colors, patterns and with older children optical illusions. My 2 year old won’t be learning about that for a while but we have been chatting about colors all day.
- Gather your materials. You will need multiple pages of construction paper, however you don’t need the whole page, so you may be able to round up enough from your scrap pile. The colors you will needs are red, orange yellow, green, blue and purple. Also you will need a back piece, a plain white sheet of regular paper , scissors, black marker and glue.
- Start by making a big R outlined in black marker on a thin white piece of paper, it needs to be thin so after you finish the gluing you can see the outline for cutting.
- Cut the colored paper into strips, we needed 2 of each color, I just stacked the paper and cut .
- Add the glue, this is a great opportunity to let your child do the glue since it needs to be all over and not precise at all.
- Start stacking the strips,
I did the first few then handed them to my son to glue on, he yelled out the color and we had fun. Normally I wouldn’t have played such a large role, but I knew he would love the end result. If he had insisted I would have been fine with just letting him go too, let them decide. - Let the strips dry on the R.
- When dry cut it out following the lines on the back.
- Glue onto a piece of construction paper.
Additional Activities
You can’t have a rainbow without water!
Check out my latest contribution to
to learn more about why when your child is playing with water they are doing much more than just making a mess in your kitchen !
Dream Big !
I have done this with classes as young as 3, most toddlers have a hard time understanding what a dream is but if you think your child will “get” it , go for it!
- Gather your materials. All you need is a child, some hopes and dreams , a piece of paper and pencil.
- Have your child write , or dictate to you what they want to change in the world. Resist the temptation to correct or edit them, let them dream even if it’s not as altruistic as you hoped or something you know to be impossible. Dreams can be impossible and preschoolers are pretty self centered so just let them dream!
- Have them write out ways they can make their dream come true.
- When they are done seal it up and put it somewhere safe until next year, when you open it and write another, then seal them both up. Before you know it you will have years and years of dreams.
- Gather your materials. You will need some Styrofoam, golf tees, a play hammer and your child. Seriously how simple is that?
- Put the golf tees in the Styrofoam – don’t push them all the way in though.
- Add your little one and let them pound it in.
- You will not want to leave them unattended, in case a tee breaks, or small bits of the Styrofoam breaks off. So watch carefully as they have a blast hammering! Oh and don’t tell them they are building fine motor skills too!
This is the way we pound our nails,
pound our nails, pound our nails,
This is the way we pound our nails, so early in the morning.
This is the way we turn the screw,
Turn the screw, turn the screw
This is the way we turn the screw, so early in the morning.
This is the way we saw the wood
saw the wood, saw the wood,
This is the way we saw the wood, so early in the morning!
This is the way we build a house,
build a house, build a house.
This is the way we build a house so early in the morning!
Book!
- Gather your materials. You will need some white paper,green construction paper, bubble wrap, scissors, purple paint, a paint brush and glue.
- Cut your bubble wrap into a triangle.
- Paint your bubble wrap on the bubble side.
- Print onto your white paper- we printed 3 pages even though the craft only needs one print. Let dry.
- Trim your print into the shape of grapes.
- Cut your green paper into the same shape, with a stem.
- Add glue to the green paper.
- Glue on your grapes and let dry!
