Archive for September 2009
This craft uses scrap paper to make a wonderfully colorful tree. Whether you punch all the holes now or save them up over time the results are awesome .
- Gather your materials. You will need a piece of white paper, one full piece of construction paper of your choice, a whole bunch of scrap coloured paper, a brown marker, glue and a hole punch.
- Start by punching out tons of holes, keep them all. You can do this over a week , allowing your child to work out their little hands with the hole punch or having them choose the color of the paper and you can punch the holes if they can’t. You need a lot !
- Draw a tree trunk with your brown marker.
- Add a lot of glue at the top of the trunk.
- Add your punched out holes.
- Let dry and glue onto the full size piece of paper for a frame. You can use a piece of paper that has something on the back already for the frame. No one will know and you will save paper.
This craft did not start well. Easter grass is messy on good days but answering an email, after I got the grass out ( oops) I found my son trying to clean it up in the family room. The grass was everywhere and all I could do was laugh. Here’s a pic of the carnage. 
That said, we had so much fun doing this monster craft which was inspired by the books below and my son’s newest pjs – which will debut once the weather cools.
- Gather your materials. If you are brave( and crazy like me ) use Easter grass you have laying around. If you are smart, grab some green tissue paper. You will also need some colored scrap paper , green construction paper and another full piece of construction paper in a contrasting color, scissors and glue.
- Start by cutting the green paper into a monster body and 4 limbs.
- Next hand your child the glue and have them glue the body onto the plain full size piece of construction paper.
- Add the limbs, I made 4 but my son only wanted his monster to have 2. That’s cool.
- Time to add a lot of glue – if you are using tissue paper add a few layers, adding glue as you need it.
- Add the grass. A cool trick is to make balls with the grass and glue those on. This minimizes the mess and random stray pieces falling all over your floor. After he added a ball of grass I would squish it hard to the glue to make sure it stuck.
- While they are adding grass cut out your features. I made horns, a big happy mouth, some claws and one eye with an iris.
- Glue the iris to the eye.
- Add glue for the facial features to the grass.
- Add on your mouth and your eye.
- Add the horns.
- Add the claws/toenails, or in our case, knee pads.
- Let dry!
Books
“When A Monster is Born” by Sean Taylor is funny, my son didn’t find it as funny as I did but he still laughed and didn’t seem scared any of it. The story is about a monster and all the life changing choices he faces every day like whether to eat a principal or run through a wall of a school. This book feels like a choose your own adventure book, it’s fun , repetitive and silly. There is quite a bit of talk about monsters eating people , though nothing too gory.
“Go To Bed Monster” by Natasha Wing is a book anyone who’s ever struggled with bedtime will instantly relate to. The little girl in the book Lucy isn’t sleepy so she draws a monster but soon his refusal to go to bed even after she is sleepy backfires. I like this book, and despite his refusal to believe the monster was a monster not a dinosaur my son really likes this book and it got read 5 times today! * ( See comments for one from the author, I am so sorry I referred to Lucy as Sarah- you’d think the many times we read it itwould have stuck- no more late night blogging for me! )
