Sparkling Fourth of July Fireworks Craft

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love getting together with friends or family, eating good food, and celebrating our country and its freedoms. And, I absolutely love fireworks. I’ve found lots of fun holiday-themed crafts, and I’ve tried to squeeze a couple of them in during the busy days before July 4th.

These sparkling fireworks and quick and easy and just messy enough to be fun (but not so messy it trashes your house) – who wouldn’t love blowing air at paint through a straw? Our finished products ended up looking less like fireworks than sparkly blobs of red, white, and blue, but we had a good time making them, and they’re still really pretty.

What you need:
Red, white, and blue paint
Black or blue construction paper
Drinking straws
Glitter

Pour paint into small cups (I use recycled applesauce cups) and water it down so it’s thin and runny. Pour small puddles of each color onto your paper and blow at the puddles with your straw to create arms and streaks of color.

Before the paint dries, sprinkle glitter on top of your fireworks. Set it aside to dry and try it again!

There are tons of fun Fourth of July projects out there. Here are a few I’d like to try, if not now, then maybe for Labor Day. J

• Craft stick American flags: http://aggiemania.blogspot.com/2010/07/patriotic-craft.html
• Hand print flags: http://binspiredmama.blogspot.com/2012/05/kids-craft-patriotic-hand-print.html
• Salt fireworks: http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2011/06/salt-absorbing-fireworks/
• Tin can windsocks: http://the-wilson-world.blogspot.com/2011/06/4th-of-july-tin-can-windsocks.html

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Sensory Activity:: Jello Sensory Play

If there is one thing Bug loves most it is sensory play! She used to be funny about it when she was little, but now she dives right in to whatever I may throw in her table. The other day I was roaming around Walmart and I saw some boxes of Jello and thought...hmm, that would be fun to play in...so I grabbed about 4 boxes. I followed the instructions on the box and let it cool in the fridge. {I put a little aside for a snack too} After nap time was over the Jello was ready to play in! I dumped it into Bug's water table {which I use as a sensory table as well} and she went to town.

She must have played in it for about an hour. It was all melted and sticky by the time she was done with squishing and squashing it. It was a little messy to clean up, but I just dumped what I could into the garbage and hosed the table off.

It's always nice to expose the kiddos to different consistencies. We talked about the Jello and it's stickiness and the sound it makes when you squish it. Keep the conversation flowing and your kiddo will get a whole lot out of this easy & fun activity.

If you like this post and want to see more toddler activities please visit my blog, Tutus and Tea Parties. You can also follow me on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest.

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Bring the Outdoors In: Beautiful Things - Collecting and Sorting

By Christine of Belly Bear Baby Gear

Items found in nature contain such beauty, and children seem to be particularly attuned to this beauty. With only a few simple items, you can encourage your children to participate in this fun and educational nature based activity.

All you will need is a paper bag (or other collecting vessel), an empty egg carton and the great outdoors!

Begin by giving your child a paper bag and bringing them outside. A walk in the woods would provide for some great diverse items for collection, but as you will see, your own back yard will do just fine.

If you are working with young children, you may need to show them what to do by placing a few items in their bag for them. Encourage them to collect as many small three dimensional items as they'd like.

Sean was particularly drawn to this patch of grass and rocks in our yard. He discovered big and little rocks as well as a few left over acorn caps. As your child collects more items, this is an opportunity for you to build their nature vocabulary by naming and labeling what they are collecting.

Once your bags are nice and full bring them inside and pour the contents into the top portion of your egg carton.

Sit back for a moment and enjoy the spoils of all your hard work. Allow your child to study the items and consider how they may be sorted.

Young toddlers will simply enjoy exploring the items and filling the cups in the egg carton at random. You can begin encouraging them to notice the similarities and differences by explaining "Let's put all the rocks together" or "Look at all the pink petals".

When working with older children you can encourage more advanced sorting skills. Allow them to study what they have collected and decide how they will sort the beautiful things they have found. They may decide to sort by color placing all the brown things and pink things together, or they may decide sorting by type of object makes the most sense for them.

This activity will encourage your child to begin developing their mathematical thinking skills such as sorting objects varying by one or two attributes all the while enjoying the natural objects they collected. Take a moment to enjoy the beauty found outside with your children and help foster the next generation of nature lovers.

Christine can be found online on her blog Belly Bear Baby Gear, facebook, and her etsy shop:

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Science Experiment: Dyed Flowers

From Michelle of himamma.

Science … we love it. Many times when we have gone past the flower area at the grocery store we smell the sweet scent of fresh roses and dainty daisies ... the girls have been fascinated with the flowers that are in an array of colors that are dyed but yet they know that they are not naturally that color … and have wondered “how do they do that?”

Well, we made it our science experiment last week! So now they have a much better understanding and can visualize how the flower petals changed colors.

Steve Spangler Science shares a great tutorial on dying flowers, in addition to other experiments he has done…but most importantly the details and why they work make sense on his website that kids understand.

Our science experiment was over a course of several days. We started out using some older daisies that we had purchased later the week before. We recut the bottom of the flower stems and placed them in the colored water glasses. The older flowers did not dye as well as we had hoped, but we knew that might be the case going into the experiment. A few days later we purchased new flowers and this time they did much better and the color was obvious.
One question the girls had asked was how soon do you think we will see the color in the petals? Within two hours, it was amazing to see the colors showing in the white petals. By dinner time, the flowers were fully dyed and in a brilliant shades of yellow, blue, red and green.

We even wondered if certain colors would dye the petals quicker than others. It seemed to us that the blue and the green food coloring dyed the white petals the quickest. I know in the printing world, that when you print with blue ink, it takes longer to dry than any other color just due to the pigment. I know it doesn't relate to the experiment but it is an interesting fact that makes you wonder about inks in general.

Do you have a favorite science experiment book/curriculum that you use? Please feel free to comment below or send us an email. We are always enjoying and reading science books and would like to share with other families in the journey of learning.

In addition to the Steve's website we also enjoy the following:

• The Magic School Bus series. We will reserve DVDs and library books from our library and/or watch the various topics that we are studying via YouTube. Last year, I purchased The Magic School Bus Science Experiment books that take each of the episodes and relate it to an experiment/participate in an observation. On the MSB website they also have a Parent/Teacher section that is very helpful. Ms Frizzle and the gang are always a hit with the girls. I must admit...I love the series too.
• I recently have exchanged emails with a mom I met through a workboxes group. Via our email workboxes group, Colleen shared that she has written several books, with one particularly focused towards science. Colleen has a blog called Raising Lifelong Learners as well as her writing website called Colleen Kessler. I strongly suggest you visit her blogs to learn more.

As we prepped for our experiment we talked about how flowers/plants drink water to survive, how the flowers use their roots, and the water travels up through tubes in the stem. By coloring the water, we will then see the water move up the stem and into the flower petals over a course of a couple of hours. Steve Spangler Science shares a great tutorial on dying flowers, in addition to other experiments he has done…but most importantly the details and why they work really make sense on his website that kids understand.

You can find Michelle online here ... Facebook, Twitter, her blog Hi Mamma and of course her Etsy Shop:

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Book Nook:: Summer Reading Programs

As a little kid my mother took us to the library every week.  It was a staple in her daily routine (one of her many techniques for maintaining sanity) and was a place we loved to go!

My siblings and I outside the public library, circa 1983.

Last week was our first week of summer, and the kids and I made the first of our weekly trips to the the public library.  We came home with a stack of books for each member of the family:

The 6th grader is loving the series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, by Michael Scott, the 5th grader is blazing through all the Harry Potter books, the 3rd grader is captivated by Percy Jackson and just started Rick Riordan's 2nd series, Hero's of Olympus, the Kindergartner picked up a stack of Star Wars graphic novels and beginning readers, and the preschooler and I had great fun picking out great story and picture books.

We also got everyone in the family (even mom an dad) signed up for the public library's summer reading program.

Summer reading programs are all around ... each with their own set of rules and incentives for finishing the program.  In most cases you read a certain number of books or minutes within a time frame set up by the sponsoring organization and when you turn in your log they will give you incentives/prizes/discounts for turning in your completed reading log.

Summer reading programs help encourage children to continue reading throughout the summer to help prevent regression in the progress they've made in the classroom.  They also provide added benefits for those kids who love to read, and needed incentives to those whose first instinct isn't to pick up a book.

Here are just a few of the summer reading programs you might consider taking advantage of in addition to doing your local public library's summer reading program.

• Half Price Books, Feed Your Brain. 
• Barnes & Noble, Imagination Destination. 
• Scholastic Summer Challenge. 
• Pottery Barn Kids Summer Reading Challenge. 
• Chuck E. Cheese, Reading Log. 
• PBS Kids and iVillage team up for Summer Reading Sweepstakes.

We want to know what books your children are reading, and let us know of other great national summer reading programs we should . 

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Sensory Activity:: Body Painting

What do you say when your child wants to use their body to paint? YES!

I taped 4 pieces of paper together, set out some finger paint and brushes, took her clothes off and let her go to town. She had a blast!

{Just be ready for bath time right after...it gets pretty messy.}

 

If you like this post and want to see more toddler activities please visit my blog, Tutus and Tea Parties. You can also follow me on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.

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Under the Sea Craft Projects

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

Finding Nemo is all the rage at my house these days, temporarily bumping Lightning McQueen from most-favored-toy status. We’ve borrowed ocean books from the library, visited aquariums, and pretended we were Nemo and his friends.

So, when I started planning the monthly arts and crafts activity for my MOMS Club, I scoured my Kid Stuff Pinterest board for simple projects related to ocean creatures. I settled on two painting projects: paper bowl jellyfish and paper plate fish.

The jellyfish were inspired by this project from First Palette and this one from Creekside Learning. I told the kids we were making octopuses; as we moved along with the craft, they informed me the octopuses looked more like jellyfish. I went back and looked at the original ideas, and of course, they were right!

We started our jellyfish by painting the bottom of paper bowls. Some kids painted the whole thing; others, like my son, just painted the base of the bowl. I glued googly eyes onto each one. We used tape to attach streamers around the bowl for tentacles.

The fish were inspired by these beautiful paper plate tropical fish from Crafts by Amanda. For the fish, give each kid two paper plates. Have them paint one to be the fish body and help them draw fins on the other plate (or draw them for little guys), and paint those shapes.

When everything is dry, cut out the fins and tape or glue them into place. Draw an eye or attach a googly eye. Too cute!

Here are some other fishy crafts we’ve tried or want to try:

Paper plate octopus, via Artsy Craftsy Mom

Egg carton fish, via Crafty-Crafted. Ours are still a work in progress; we need to add stripes, fins, and eyes.

Squishy fish aquariums, from Teach Preschool (one of my favorite blogs!). We used light blue hair gel and added food coloring to make the gel bluer.

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Flowers for Mom

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

Mother’s Day is just a few days away, and if the kids aren’t sure what they want to make for Mom or Grandma, this quick craft might be just the thing. She's sure to love it!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Cardboard egg cartons, cut into individual cups
Paint, markers, and/or crayons
Green pipe cleaners
White paper
Tape

I started with this adorable May Day bouquet idea from Alphamom but made egg carton flowers instead. I thought it would be more fun to get messy with paint than markers. My son had a great time mixing colors, and eventually he abandoned the paint brushes and just used his hands.

Once your flowers are dry, poke a hole in the bottom with scissors and thread the pipe cleaner through. I wound up a bit of the end inside the flower to keep it from sliding out.

To make the basket, print out and cut the printable sheet from the Alphamom craft. Decorate the basket and handle. My son opted to create stories on the baskets with crayons and garden stickers.

Tape the cone together and add the handle. Fill with your flowers, and watch Mom and Grandma smile!

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Ice Cube Painting

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

My son really likes to paint, so I’m always looking for different methods of painting. I don’t always want to get into the messiness of finger painting – especially indoors -- and water colors aren’t always as much fun as the bright colors of poster paint.

I saw ice painting demonstrated one day while we were watching Sprout, and I was intrigued. I modified our activity a bit from the directions posted online, using watercolor paper instead of paper towels and cardstock. I like the heaviness of watercolor paper; it can take a lot of paint!

The night before you want to paint, prepare your ice cubes. Put a little poster paint in the bottom of the cubes of an ice cube tray. Fill with water and mix well. Add half of a craft stick to make a handle. Pop into the freezer and let them set overnight. We’ve had success with solid colors as well as glitter paints.

When you’re ready to paint, take the ice cube tray out of the freezer and let them sit for a few minutes before trying to get them out of the tray.

Pull the cubes out, give each kid a piece of watercolor paper, and let them go! First, the kids rubbed the cubes on the paper.

When they were fresh from the freezer the colors were lighter.

Then, as the cubes thawed, the color went on thicker and darker.

Then, the boys discovered pieces of the ice cubes fell off if you hit them on the paper or pressed them like a stamp. By the end, we had soaking wet, colorful pieces of art!

Variation: In honor of Earth day, I made green, blue, white, and silver glitter (just for fun!) paint cubes and cut our watercolor paper into circles.

My son discovered it was fun to paint his hand and then stamp it onto the paper.

My son told me his painting shows Earth right after it was formed. (He’s a bit of a space and planet nut.) Mine shows Earth later in its developmen, or so he tells me. J

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April Showers Umbrella Craft

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

We all know April showers bring May flowers, but too many rainy days can make you a little stir crazy. These umbrella mobiles  from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman are a fun, easy craft for a rainy day that even little kids can do.

For each umbrella you’ll need:

Paper plate
Stickers, markers, crayons, or paint for decorating
Several blue rain drops cut from blue construction paper (we used eight)
A “J” shape cut from contruction paper for the umbrella’s handle
Glitter and glue (optional)
Thread or fishing line
Hole punch
Tape or glue

Cut the paper plate in half. Cut a slit in each plate, at the top of one and from the bottom of the other. I made my slits about half the width of the plate. Don’t cut all the way through!

Set your kids to decorating their umbrellas on all sides, leaving the area around the slits clear. If necessary, let them dry. My son is going through an ocean and “Finding Nemo” phase, so he opted for sea creature and fish stickers.

Punch holes along the straight edge of your umbrella pieces. I did two on each side of the slits. Slide your umbrella pieces together at the slits to form an “X”. I taped ours together to keep the shape.

If desired, glue glitter to your raindrops to make them sparkle. When they’re dry, tie them to your thread or fishing line and then attach the opposite end to the umbrella. Tie another loop of thread at the top of your umbrella.

Hang and enjoy!

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Bring the Outdoors In: Nature Collage

By Christine of Belly Bear Baby Gear

Looking for a way to enjoy and capture the color and beauty found in early spring?  Then this fun, simple activity will be a perfect experience for you and your children.  Not many materials are needed. Clear contact paper (as a side note, this is not as easily found as I was anticipating.  When looking for clear contact paper, do not go to your local grocery store, drug store or Staples as I attempted.  After 5 miserable failed attempts, I finally found the apparently illusive contact paper at Home Depot of all places), items from nature: grass, flowers, leaves..., string or ribbon, a hole punch, and a basket to collect your nature items.

While outdoors with your children offer them a basket and often all you'll need to do is take a step back and watch.  Children are natural collectors of beautiful, natural items and will make quick work of finding things to place in their baskets.

I was inspired to write about this by my 17 month old daughter.  Upon arriving home recently, she climbed out of the car and immediately bee-lined for the lawn where she quickly plucked a tiny acorn lid from the grass.  She was amazed by this beautiful item and insisted on bringing it indoors.  This moment reminded me of the many nature collages I have made over the years with the preschool aged students in my class.


Once their baskets are full, this is where the clear contact paper comes in.  You may now begin placing the natural items directly onto the contact paper.  Flat items work best for this.  Izzy's little acorn cap would be a bit challenging to use in this application.

If you are working with young toddlers as I was here, they will not only enjoy sticking items to the contact paper, but will want some time to simply enjoy the tactile experience of the paper itself!

Now that you have filled one piece of contact paper with your beautiful things, you can either place a new piece of contact paper on top to sandwich the items in between, or you could simply fold the paper in half as I did here.

This project is so open ended you can make any size collage you would like. Once your collage is complete, there are a variety of applications for it.  If you made a small collage, punch a hole in the top, put a piece of string through and instant book mark!

These nature collages also make lovely window hangings.  They truly are a sight to see when the sun shines through.  Be creative and use your imagination (2 things young children are great at).  The variety and beauty found in nature will provide brilliant works of art.


Christine can be found online on her blog Bellybearbabygear, facebook, and her etsy shop:

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Hippity Hoppity Paper Bag Frog Puppets

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

Here’s an easy activity perfect for spring days when you’ve got just a little time for an activity: paper bag frog puppets! Even better, chances are pretty good you’ve already got everything you need:

Lunch-size brown paper bag
Green construction paper
Red construction paper
Googly eyes (the bigger the better!)
Glue

My inspiration came from this blog post. We made our frog puppets on Feb. 29 (aka, Leap Day) and paired them with a few of the Froggy books by author Jonathan London and illustrator Frank Remkiewicz. But, I think you’ll find this is great for any spring day or even an “F”-themed day – especially if you’ve got a good place to go looking for frogs!

First, you’ll need some basic shapes:

Two strips of green paper that are rounded on one end for eyes
Two green arms
Two green legs
Several green circles
A long red tongue

Depending on the age of your kids, you can either precut these shapes or trace them onto construction paper and let them do the cutting.

Glue the googly eyes onto the eye strips and fold under the bottom (non-round) end. Glue to the base of your paper bag.

Glue the eyes and legs inside the side folds of your paper bag. Glue the tongue under the bottom of the bag.

Last, glue the green dots all over your frog. Put your hand inside and start hopping!

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