Naptime Creations
- Gather your materials. You will need a paper plate, cheap dollar store garland, pom poms, a small bit of ribbon and a hot glue gun.
- Cut the middle out of your paper plate.
- Start by putting half the garland through the hole. Then start wrapping on end of the garland in and around your paper plate. Don’t glue anything yet.When you get to the end ( all the plate is covered cut.
- Add hot glue to your plate and glue down both ends.
- Add some pom poms and ribbon with the hot glue.
- Time to put this adorable, fast and cheap wreath up for all to see!
I love how this turned out, but don’t be fooled this isn’t really a toddler craft. Even though my son had fun , I did most the work for this one. Older children could do this with little to no instruction but toddlers will need one on one help for the painting to look like lights, they can also just have fun with the sponges , or both!
- Gather your materials. You will need a kitchen sponge, washable markers, scissors, some plain white paper, some bright thin paint, tape and black construction paper.
- Start by drawing a light bulb shape on the sponge. Cut out, then wash the marker off.
- We used the paint rollers for our paint, but you could use any paint or even an ink pad. Essentially you are stamping the sponge.
- Stamp!
If like me you have been house bound due to weather and are a little crazy and want to try this with a toddler here are my tips… Ask your child where they want the sponge, then place it there, then have them slap the sponge and FREEZE. My son loved this , he loved freezing and it helped get nice prints for the effect. We managed to have fun with these tricks, he also directed which color to use. After he rolled the roller on his head I took over those duties too.
- Do another color…and repeat. I blotted my sponge between uses but I didn’t bother washing it.
- Let the bulbs dry.
Here is where I gave my son the sponge and roller and let him be free! While I finished up . - Add squiggly circles at the neck of each bulb.
- Connect the bulbs with a marker “wire”
- Trim and tape to a black piece of paper. I am using tape because plain white paper is thin and glue could ruin the prints.
** Also as a mom who has been saying “Please don’t touch the lights, that’s your warning!” for days now, I was so happy tonight when my son went to touch the lights on the tree I said ” You can go get the lights we made and touch those!” and it worked , we’ll see if it does tomorrow! **
- Gather your materials. You will need 4 sheets of foam, they don’t need to be sticky back but it’s even easier if they are, especially the candles. Scissors, some ribbon, an orange marker, and a pen.
- If your child is helping you I would have then paint or decorate the base piece of foam or paper. While they do that you can start the cutting.
- Start by cutting out a semi circle. in the silver foam. After you do this fold in half and make a series of 4 small 1/4 inch wide and about 2 inch long cuts into the semi circle arching towards the center.
** For an easier more kids friendly version you can simply cut out a semi circle and add small squares on top for each holder and use a larger square for the center. - Trim all but the center holder , the middle should be higher than the other 8 holders. You can see my ill fated drawings, going free hand ended up working the best.
- Cut out a base for the menorah.
- Using the white foam cut out 9 rectangle candles. Older children can do this no problem.
- Using the yellow foam cut out 9 flames.
- Draw a little orange marker in the middle of the yellow flames.
- If you are using sticky back foam peal back only a small part of the flames backing and attach it to the white candle.
- Attach the menorah base on the backing piece( foam or your own paper that was decorated) .
- Add the candle holders.
- When it’s time to light your menorah just peel off the backing of the candle and stick it on. For how to properly light a menorah check out Chabad.org
- Poke small holes in the upper corners of the backing and thread a ribbon through, tie a knot and trim the end.
- This is how it will look fully lit!
Books !
save Hanukkah.
“The Only One Club” by Jane Naliboff is a cute book about a little girl named Jennifer who is the only one in her class who celebrates Hanukkah. Soon she finds out that there are lots of “Only Ones” in her class , like the only one with red hair, the only one who wears dresses every day and the only one with a unique last name. I like the message this book has, that we should celebrate our diversity and tell our kids it’s not a bad thing to be unique.
Georges Seurat is the artist best known for pointillism, which is essentially a painting made of many many tiny dots of color to create a large homogeneous work of art. For examples of his work click here and here. When teaching children about fine art I think that a great way to do it , is to have them try it out. Making images using this technique is hard and will foster some appreciation after testing it out! Here’s how.
- Gather your materials. If you have some art books on hand grab a few , or check some out of your local library, although some pictures online are good, being able to manipulate the pictures helps. You will need some markers ( more colors the better) and paper.
- Look at some of the paintings with your child, make note of how from far away they look like regular painting you would paint normally.
Up close you can see the individual dots. 
Ask them if they think this would be easier or harder than normal- would it take more time? Let’s find out! - Let them go! Have extra paper on hand because this can get frustrating, it’s not easy. Show them how the marker can be used on the side to make a large dot
and on it’s tip to make a small one.
- Suggest using different shades colors for effect.
- Go clean the house cause this might take them a while ! If your child is getting frustrated , suggest doing the outline of drawings with the points, and filling in the rest traditionally.
Field Trip !
Museums are fantastic places for kids, the coolest thing I have ever seen as a teacher was a group of 4 year olds in Paris sketching a Rodin sculpture. They were sprawled everywhere and even now many years later that memory reminds me how vital art is!
So here is a list of fine art museums with Georges Seurat’s works!
Pilgrim
Few young children will have the patience with piecing together the craft, so if you want to do it with your child have them do the coloring and expect to do most of the rest. We have a busy day tomorrow so I am making this after my son’s bedtime, I am glad because he probably wouldn’t have had the patience for this craft. I will be using this doll to help me teach him about pilgrims, we’ll talk about how they came over on a boat, met with the Native Americans, and they dressed funny because it was a long long time ago. That’s about all I’m going to get into at my son’s age, but we have to start somewhere !
- Gather your materials. You will need a cereal box, something to color with , I am using pencil crayons but if you are doing this with a young child , I suggest paint. Glue ( I cheated and used double stick tape though- I think you should too! ) , googly eyes, scissors and a fine tip marker.
- Start by drawing out the pilgrim, you will need to cut open your cereal box and on one large side draw 2 shoes, 1 shirt, 1 pair of jaunty shorts, and a hat. All of that will be painted black so keep them together to make it easy. Do not cut out.
- On the next side of the box draw his collar and 3 long rectangles, these will be the legs and the white band around his hat. Color white.
- On the next piece draw his face and hair and a neck and 2 arms with hands, I forgot that step with hilarious results. Color peach and brown.
- On the last draw 2 small circles and 3 squares, one larger then the other two with a small square in the middle of each. These will be the buckles on his shoes and hat. Color gold , orange or yellow.
- Cut everything out. Here is where you will probably take over for your child, that’s ok.
- Start piecing together, I started with the shirt, adding the collar, then head.
- Next add the, hat , band on the hat and buckle.
- Next the legs, then shoes.
- I forgot the arms initially and when I tried to eyeball how big the hand should be I missed, I have to share my oops with you ! I think that hand is a bit too small….
- Add shoe buckles, shirt buttons , draw and face with the marker and add the eyes.
- If you want you can reinforce the paper doll with extra pieces of cardboard. I like doing this to make sure it lasts a minute or two in my toddlers hands!
