Page 4 of 5

Valentine’s Sun Catcher

AskarteluCrafts 1 Comment

This craft requires quite a bit of preparation from the adult, but with the striking final product, it’s well worth the work. 

You need: 

  • A4 card
  • Sticky backed plastic
  • Silk paper
  • Coloured cellophane
  • Scissor 

Cut a heart shaped hole in the middle of the A4 card. Then attach a same sized piece of sticky backed plastic to it. Place all the materials on the table and ask the children to create a pattern of their choosing. 

We gave the kids coloured cellophane, which we had already cut up into pieces. We also gave them sheets of silk paper and asked them to rip smaller pieces from it to make their patterns. This is great practise for fine motor skills and pattern making. When the kids were finished with their artwork, I cut the hearts into shape, leaving a small edge of the card. 

It was quite time consuming to prepare this craft, mainly because of the sticky backed plastic. It is however so cute that it is well worth the effort. 

Cleaning tip for the cellophane: The cellophane has a tendency to gather static electricity and it then sticks to everything and everyone. To easily clean it up, just moisten a piece of kitchen roll. The damp kills the static charge and you regain some control 😉

Now just waiting for the sun to come out… 

Bonus: 

We had the middle heart from this craft leftover, so we decided to paint them and decorate the classroom with them. We gave the kids cotton swabs and a selection of paints.

What I like about using cotton swabs as an alternative painting tool is that it’s small and you can both paint and scrape with it. Even on a small piece of paper you can create beautiful colour patterns and when there is enough paint layered on the paper, you can scrape even more patterns on it.

Hearts Counting

AskarteluCrafts 1 Comment

Prepare:

  • Five hearts of card
  • Make numbers 1-5 on them
  • On the opposite side make equal amount of circles for example in a dice pattern
  • Heart manipulatives – mine are soft stickers

This was a good activity to do on the carpet, I always place a piece of large cardboard down as a ‘table’, this gives a good limit and boundary for the children to be mindful of. I had 11 of our, mostly 4 year old, kids around our ‘table’.

We started this activity by counting to five and placing down all the heart cards. We looked at the numbers and named them all and then turned the cards around and counted the dots. I had the hearts in a bowl and gave them to the first kid to my right asking them to take one and pass it on to the next one (this is good practise for taking turns) I then asked the kids to place the heart on a dot. The goal was to ‘fill the hearts’.

The first round went ok, but as we did it again the kids really started paying attention to when the hearts are full and where they actually want to place their hearts. On the third time around as the kids were ever so confident of their skills we decided to do the “harder side” and flipped the cards so that we had the number side up! It took a bit more thinking and counting to do this round as there were no dots to put the hearts on, just the numbers. The kids did such a great job! Especially on a day where everyone seemed to have ants in their pants and there was a whole lot of restless jumping around 😀

❤

Heart Brushing

AskarteluCrafts 1 Comment

This is a LOVEly way to brush up on the gross motor skills (all puns intended!).

Prepare:

  • Different coloured paper hearts
  • Clear sticky backed plastic
  • Heart manipulatives (mine are soft stickers)
  • Brushes or clubs or hockey sticks of golf clubs or whatever you can use to move the manipulatives on the hearts

The kids always love these brushing activities. I stuck the paper hearts on the floor with sticky backed plastic. It makes the surface smooth for the brushes as there are no edges. The kids lined up on the floor to wait for their turn and to cheer their classmates on.

We named the different colours and then I asked the kids to come two at a time to brush one small heart on it’s respective big heart. The kids did a great job with using the big brush to move the small hearts one at a time on the big heart.

Afterwards the kids had great fun making up their own games with the hearts on the floor – I love it when the imagination runs wild! ❤

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Snack

AskarteluCrafts 1 Comment

On the Friday of our week of the Very Hungry Caterpillar 50 years anniversary celebration, we asked all families to bring a snack item from the story to share. I prepared a letter with all the food items asking all families to bring at least one. As we see the parents every day we were able to talk with them to plan and managed to cover almost all of the food items and had a fantastic snack! Many of our fussy eaters tried lots of new fruits without even remembering to not like them 😀 The kids enjoyed seeing the story come to life so much it was just amazing!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Group Project

AskarteluCrafts 1 Comment

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar we made a classroom display of the story. I made the sun and the moon and “In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf…”. The rest of the items for the story we made together with the class.

The Caterpillar

You need: 

  • Paper plates
  • Green and red paint
  • White paper to write the weekdays on
  • Black and white copies of all the foods in the story
  • Eyes and antennas from purple, yellow and green paper

We painted seven of the paper plates green and one red. I asked my preschool 2 students (all of them 4 yrs old or almost 4 at this time) to write the names of the weekdays to white paper from an example. For some of the kids I traced the name of the weekday with pencil and asked them to trace it with a marker. The weekdays were then glued on the paper plates. 

There was enough food items to ask the whole class to colour at least one. When the paper plates were dry we all sat together and started glueing the foods on to the plates according to the story. I was amazed how well the children remembered all the foods the caterpillar ate each day and how many of them. Great sequencing! 

The Butterfly

You need:

  • Rounded strips from an A3 sized paper in three different lengths
  • Markers
  • Honeycomb paper for the body and head
  • Pipe cleaner for legs and antennas

I cut the strips of paper free hand from A3 paper. The round top is about 8-10cm and the bottom part that attaches to the butterfly is about 5-7cm. The longest was the whole long length of the A3 and the other two sizes about 10-12cm shorter. 

I gave each child in the class a strip and asked them to colour it with their favourite colours and as colourful as they possibly can. We did have the butterfly from the story out for an example at all times. This was actually a good in between activity whilst the kids were finishing lunch, going to the bathroom and then to play. I would invite them over to a table to make one of the strips before they went to play or in between playing, so it was a very free flow activity the kids greatly enjoyed. 

I prepared the body and glued on the strips for the wings trying to achieve the same shape as in the illustration in the book. I cut a piece of card in the same shape as the body and it was easy to glue on the strips in a fan shape and the honeycomb body onto it.  

Hint: if you pull a round pencil along the end of the strip it curls a bit 😉

Then we hung to whole thing in our classroom!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar with a balloon

AskarteluCrafts 1 Comment

You need: 

  • Water balloons inflated
  • Paints; red, greens, yellow, brown and black
  • Card to paint on

I first gave the kids a big piece of paper to just test the balloons on. Water balloons are a perfect size. I asked the kids specifically to make dots or blobs with the paint, not to make lines or to swipe with the balloon.

Then we gave an A4 card to each child and started by showing an example of how to make a row or line of dots with the balloon. We advised the kids to start with a red blob on one end of the card and then continue with a row of green blobs to create the caterpillar. The antennas and feet were made by putting your hand in a fist, dip the side of your pinky finger in some black or brown paint and then print the “L” shape to their places. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

AskarteluCrafts Leave a comment

Last year the Very Hungry Caterpillar by the amazing Eric Carle turned 50 years! During my stint as a preschool teacher the book has been a steady class favourite through all this time. With the Very Hungry Caterpillar we learn the weekdays, counting, food items, shapes, colours and most of all can have and make an endless amount of fun activities and crafts.

Here links to some of the fun stuff we’ve done recently:

Paper Mache Caterpillar – a fun DIY interactive toy
The Very Hungry Caterpillar with water balloons -craft
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Group Project
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Snack

Puhallustaidetta

AskarteluCrafts Leave a comment

Maalin puhaltelu ympäriinsä on hauskaa puuhaa! Näin me teimme:

Valmistelu: 

Riippuen lapsen iästä saattaa olla tarpeellista harjoitella puhaltamista. Minun ryhmäni lapset ovat 2,5-4 vuotiaita. Lapsilla usein on kokemusta pillin käytöstä mutta automaattinen reaktio on imeä ei puhaltaa. Siksipä ennen maalien ottamista käyttöön harjoittelimme lasten kanssa pillillä puhaltamista; puhalsimme pingis palloja paperille ja teimme raketit. Varmistettuamme että jokainen ymmärtää puhaltamisen ja imemisen eron, uskalsimme ottaa maalit käyttöön. 

Tarvitset: 

  • Pillin jokaiselle lapselle (luonto mielessä suosittelen paperista) 
  • Pipettejä tai isoja pensseleitä
  • Kartonki A4
  • Maalia: koska taustapaperi tässä taideteoksessa oli musta, käytin vedellä ohennettua askartelumaalia koska tulos on värikkäämpi. Voit käyttää vaihtoehtoisesti myös vesivärejä.

Anna jokaiselle lapselle pilli ja paperi ja sijoita pöydälle loput tarvikkeet. Auta lasta käyttämään pipettiä ja ohjaa heitä tiputtamaan maali keskelle paperia. Pari pisaraa on hyvä määrä puhaltaa. Mikäli käytössäsi ei ole pipettiä, voit ottaa paksummalla pensselillä maalia ja tiputtaa sen keskelle paperia. Olennaista on että maalista tulee pienen pieni lätäkkö paperille niin että se liikkuu hyvin kun sitä puhaltaa. 

Ilotulitteet: Tässä askartelussa halusimme juhlistaa uutta vuotta ilotulituksin! Maalin puhaltelu oli paikoin aika räjähtelevää puuhaa, joten metodi oli varsin sovelias. Lisäiloa ja rakettimaista valoa saat lisäämällä glitteriä kun maali on vielä märkää. 

Riikinkukko versiossa taustapaperi oli valkoinen ja maaleina käytimme vesivärejä: 

  • Valkoinen taustapaperi
  • Vesivärit
  • Kartongista leikatut ympyrät; pää ja vartalo (3-4 v. leikkasivat omansa)
  • Höyheniä
  • Silmät 
  • Nokka

Sama toteutus kuin yllä, mutta puhallustaiteen tarkoitus oli tehdä hieno riikinkukon pyrstö!

Kun maalaus oli valmis, pyysimme lapsia liimaamaan pään, vartalon, nokan ja silmät sekä höyhenet siiviksi.

Blow Art

AskarteluCrafts Leave a comment

Blowing paint around is great fun and can be used for all kinds of artwork! Here’s a few examples of what we’ve done in our class. 

Prepare: 

Practise blowing with a straw. Most kids will have used a straw at some point, but they are used to a sucking action with it. Before doing the crafts and involving paints (especially with the 2-3 year olds) we practised how to blow into a straw. I gave the kids a straw and a ping pong ball and asked them to practise blowing the ball to a dedicated area. We also made some rockets to blow up in the air (super fun activity!). After practising and ensuring we know the difference between blowing and sucking, we moved on to the craft. 

You need: 

  • A straw for each child (paper ones if you have, for the nature)
  • Pipettes or a large paint brush
  • A4 Card
  • Paints: I had poster paint which I diluted with water. Watercolours would do fine as well, but since our background paper in this was black, poster paints show on it better. 

Give each child a straw and a paper and place all your materials on the table. Help the children choose their paints and use the pipettes as too much paint is difficult to blow. You get best results by putting a few wet drops, creating a small puddle in the middle of the paper. The paint is easy to blow from that. If you don’t have pipettes, you can also use a thick brush to drop the water on the paper with. Then give the children their straw and ask them to blow the paint in any direction they want. 

In this activity/craft we wanted to make some fireworks to celebrate the New Year!  The activity itself was almost as explosive as the fireworks would be. For extra glamour and shine, add glitter whilst the paint is still wet.

For the peacock version we had white background paper and used watercolours:

  • White paper 
  • Watercolours 
  • Two card circles in different sizes for head and body (our 3-4 year olds cut their own)
  • Beak 
  • Feathers
  • Googly eyes

Same as above but the objective of the blow art was to make the gorgeous tail of a peacock! When the painting is dry, glue on the body, head, beak, eyes and feathers for wings.