Crafts
by Kim
We talk about emotions a lot in our house. When you foster, it kind of comes with the territory and makes things a lot easier to have open communication. So I am always trying to come up with new ways to talk about emotions and feelings with my children. Enter my “emotional snowmen”. They are drama queens (even worse than my 3 year old daughter).
To do this activity all you will need are toothpicks, marshmallows, and food markers. These markers are completely edible and can be found at craft stores. I purchased mine in the cake decorating aisle of Wal-Mart. They were around $5 and we use them on all sorts of stuff. I highly recommend them.
Take two marshmallows and stick them on a toothpick. Be sure to leave enough of the toothpick out to attach another marshmallow.
Have your child draw a snowman face. You can open the dialogue by asking them how their snowman is feeling today. When they tell you, you can ask them to draw a face that shows Mommy how they look when they are _________.
My snowman was feeling silly. We made many different types of faces. We talked about things we do when we are feeling the way each face looked. We also talked about what we can do to help change our moods.
Then we acted out each mood and emotion.
Each child had one snowman body and then different heads to change out.
This is such a great ice breaker for new children or just getting your children to open up to you. Sometimes young children have trouble processing and understanding the emotions they feel. This activity really helps them, plus it is perfect for the colder weather.
Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
I have been meaning to make an easy bird feeder with my son for ages, but the problem was all the ones I knew or have done in the past used peanut butter. My son isn’t allergic but he is completely repulsed by the smell. So when I found this one on Pinterest and saw that it uses gelatin I squealed ( yes really) and added gelatin to my grocery list immediately. We had some left over gelatin so we made some yummy all natural gummy treats too. Two easy heart shaped treats made with 1 box of gelatin, that’s rad!
- We doubled the recipe that Bargin Hoot uses here. And instead of cookie cutters we used a silicon mold .
- They had fun mixing .I had fun vacuuming after. But it’s easier to vacuum bird seed up than try to sweep it, those little seeds roll and hurt to step on!
- Press into the mold. We filled it halfway popped our string in then filled it up.
- A few hours later – voila!
The best part of this activity wasn’t making it was finding the right spots in our yard to place them.
We put them in the apple trees in the front yard, the pine trees in the back and some random bushes too . Clearly I am not a gardener. Since we hung them up we have gone outside every day to see which ones have had birds nibble away at them. It’s been fun to see my son concerned about the birds and I think the hearts add some natural sparkle to our wintery yard. Just today we noticed the birds ( or perhaps raccoons?) already have a favorite. We will continue to observe them in the upcoming weeks.
After we hung those up we noticed a recipe on the back of the Knox Gelatin box , adjusted it for our serving size and made some heart jellies! Why haven’t we been making these for years? My son loved helping me make them and I loved that there are no artificial colors like the store bought gelatin desserts.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 envelopes of gelatin, 1/2 cup of cold juice, 1.5 cups of juice brought to a boil and a dash of sugar. You will also need a heart cookie cutter, a sauce pan , casserole dish( ours is 8x8x2) a spoon and a big bowl for mixing.
- Pour the cold juice into the bowl and drizzle the gelatin on.
- Boil the other juice.
- Pour into the bowl and mix .
I added just a dash of sugar since the juice we used was already low sugar. I had my son gently mix and I got the bottom bits. Once dissolved let cool for 2-3 hours. - Using the cookie cutter make heart shapes.
- He loved the leftovers!
Note about the juices we used – we used mostly natural lemonade with just enough natural strawberry kiwi to make it red. Any juice will work though, I may hit up the natural market for some pomegranate juice before Valentine’s Day.
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I know you guys are searching for fun Valentine’s Day Crafts for your kids to start making friends, neighbors, classmates, and of course family. Well since it’s the weekend I thought I’d dig through our archives to find you some of our best!
Valentine’s Day Educational Crafts
You can have fun with this Valentine’s Day Word Search or the Valentine’s Day Card Garland that includes a great math lesson too, or maybe Heart Pattern Sorting.
Valentine’s Day Food To Make
For a snack you could grab a hammer and crush some cinnamon hearts for this yummy Valentine’s Day Treat or make shapes and letters on these XOXO Cupcakes with rope licorice, or even a Easy Heart Shape Tortilla Pizza which is a tradition in our house.
Valentine’s Day Movement
You will have to burn off those treats with our Musical Hearts Game ( check out the video) or make a Valentine’s Day Tambourine and dance around making music!
Valentine’s Day Gifts
What princess would not love this Valentine’s Day Princess Wand? Or for kids that are more into things with wheels a Valentine’s Day Dump Truck. I like the Napkin Ring Necklace the best though.
These are just our old favorites. There are even more Valentine’s Day Crafts to browse and a few new ideas up our sleeves.
I am guest posting today at Toddler Approved . My post explores ways that we try to fit kindness into every day tasks and how leading by example is so hard some days. It is part of their 100 Acts of Kindness Project a series about ways to express, celebrate and teach about kindness. So pop over there and check it out.
Last week we were snowed in and getting antsy. I decided to make a sticky table for my kids to explore with but when I looked at all the supplies I had to stick to it they were all choking hazards except these colored craft sticks . I thought it was going to be a 5 minute sparkler but as you will see my son ran with it. I loved reading stories to his sister who lost interest after 5 minutes like I expected and just watching him giddily create.
- Gather your materials. You will need some contact paper, painter’s tape to tape it to the table, scissors and whatever you want to stick to the table. With older kids I’ve used sequins, buttons, tissue paper, pom poms…
- Tape the contact paper down backing side up.
- Peel the backing off and trim.
- Explore the feeling- my son loved the feeling on the back of his hands, he just kept doing that.
- Add the sticks.
- My daughter liked placing the sticks and the resistance when she picked them off. Also she was doing it very carefully working on her pincer grasp ( fine motor skills).
- My son saw the possibility to create immediately grabbing the bag and asking if he could have all the sticks and his sister’s too.
- I just let him go.
- And go
- And go.
- If you look closely you can see a few houses in his creation – they are clone bases apparently. I just love that he was so engaged, so excited and watching those wheels turning so passionately was exhilarating.
