Posts Tagged ‘Art’
We love bugs and during the summer spend many late afternoons flipping over rocks and seeing what creepy crawlies scurry past. This activity is a great one for families with different abilities and ages because it’s the same supplies but everyone can participate. Of course my son had an elaborate story about an evil spider and super bee to go a long with the painting but my daughter was content with the simple task of making a mess.
- Gather your materials. You will need some plastic bugs , our little ones are from Lakeshore Learning and our big ones are from Dollar Tree. You will also need some paper , plate and paint.
- For young toddlers I would also suggest some painters tape to hold down the paper so they don’t make an even more amazingly big mess!
- Start by pouring the pain tin the plate.
- Dip your bug in and make some prints.
- My daughter was skeptical at first.
- My son not so much.
- I thought the big bugs would be sought after but both of them liked painting with the smaller ones best I think. This also let me sneak in a little exploration about big and little for my daughter.
- As well as allowing her to touch and explore the bugs we shelter her from in the garden .
- I also unintentionally let her explore cause and effect when she grabbed her gleaming white head band with a paint covered hand. Ooops. Still a few girly things to adjust to.
Books About Bugs
An Ant’s Day Off
Buzz
I Love Bugs!
Ewww! Snakes and worms? Who would want to make snake and worm crafts? Kids! They love them . Here are some of our snake and worm crafts and activities for you and your kids to enjoy.
Despite the warning to never play with your food I say PLAY! And learn of course. These are some of our favorite kid friendly crafts and activities with food we have done over the years. Yogurt painting below was a perfect introduction to finger painting for my son and years after first posting we still play grocery store in our kitchen!
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Fish are a wonderful theme for all ages, they are accessible to most anyone , even if you don’t have an aquarium to visit nearby a pet store can’t be too far away, and it’s free! Also there are tons of great books about fish , I review 3 new ones today. This craft can be made by all ages and would be great as a group project in a classroom with each student adding their unique fish .
- Gather your materials. You will need some white paper,washable markers or stamp pads in various colors , scissors, glue, a marker scissors , googly eyes and if you wish blue paper for a background.
- Start by drawing the outline of fish. Make one or many. If your child can do this have them make the outline.
- Time to get messy! Color your finger tips or use a stamp pad and get ink on your finger tips.
- Print onto the fish.
- Keep going with all different colors. Make mention to your child about how lots of ink makes a darker print and less makes it lighter.
- Cut out the fish.
- If desired make a sea for them, I cut the top off my sheet of blue construction paper in a blue wave design.
- Glue the fish into the sea.
- Add eyes, smiles and let dry.
Books About Fish
Fish School
Little Shark
Trout, Trout, Trout!: A Fish Chant
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Allie did a color matching activity very similar to this one over a year ago, but I recently this variation at a daycare when I went to pick up my friend’s child. I had to make it as the perfect multi-level learning activity for my home.
All you will need are clothespins, paint, marker, scissors, and posterboard.
I traced an upside down large mixing bowl to get my big circle. Then I sectioned it into 8 pieces, but you can do as many as you like. I painted each section a different color.
As I painted the sections I made sure that I painted a clothespin for each color as well. You will see two of each in the photo because I made two sets (and then had to make a third).
I wrote the names of each color in the section. I also wrote the names of each color on the clothespins.
I gave the kids the circles with the clothespins already attached to the appropriate sections. I asked them to pull off all of the clothespins and put them in a pile. They loved pulling them off, maybe a little too much.
Then I told them to match the clothespins to the colors on the wheel. I demonstrated one match up to really show them, too. After all I was dealing with 2 two year olds. My daughter started right at it.
This activity is great for matching, learning colors, and motor skills. Our foster child has trouble doing the pincher hold, so this activity was more for him to work on motor skills and hand-eye coordination (not so much on color matching). Oh, and it is working. He is getting better every time we play this activity. Eve his therapists have noticed a big difference. We will get the color matching down, one day. 
My daughter is learning to match and get more familiar with her colors. But it doesn’t hurt to build those motor skills, either.
This activity is requested constantly at my house. The littler ones have so much fun playing with it that I had to make one for my four year old son, too. I am hoping we will have our colors down as sight words. We should as much as we play this.
So there you have it, an activity that can be done by different ages and developmental stages (including special needs). Here is my daughter so proud of her completion. I know that you can’t tell from the picture, but she is very happy and proud.
