Crafts

This year for Christmas gifts we framed photos of the children for our family members. I bought four opening frames with white mats at the craft store and the children painted the mats. I picked washable paint that matched what the children were wearing. The children started out with brushes but ended up using their fingers and other objects for different textures and color blends.

Here is one of the finished mats.

I will warn you after our 8th mat the children were very messy but also giggly and excited to see what their artwork would look like framed around their pictures.

Since we gave all the frames as gifts I will have to see if a family member can send me a picture of what the finished product looks like on the wall.

I have been searching for practical science equipment for children and found the Steve Spangler Science Website. I decided to order the jelly marbles kit, tornado tube, buzz magnets, and test tubes.

The reason for the jelly marbles kit is that it comes with pipettes, mini-mixing tray, petri dish, color tablets, cups, measuring scoop, polymer spheres, and 9 experiments. We had been at our friends house, who is a science teacher, and she listed most of these items as great to have for a home science kit. The polymer spheres are especially fun to grow and shrink again.

Steve Spangler did a quick job of processing my order and delivering the products. They even included a cool experiment called the “mentos geyser” which is a test tube of mentos to dump into a 2 liter of soda creating a 20 ft geyser of soda. Our children can’t wait for the weather to warm so we can go outside and create our own geyser.

The test tubes are very durable and have screw on lids so the children can carry their experiments around with them. We put a few jelly marbles, food coloring, and water into a tube and took it on errands with us. It was a blast for the children to see how the marbles grew throughout the afternoon. The only negative was once the jelly marbles grew, they got stuck in the test tube as the top is narrower than the bottom. For most experiments I don’t think this will be a problem and the marbles were easy to break and dump out.

Stay tuned for the fun and simple experiments we created with our Steve Spangler materials.

We followed the advice of a neighbor and sorted all the non-chocolate candy out of our Halloween stash and hid it in the cabinet. When Thanksgiving came around and the prepackaged gingerbread houses popped up at the stores I bought 2 boxes of graham crackers and 2 tubs of icing and we designed our own house using our Halloween candy for decorations.

By watching sales and combining coupons you could have an almost free gingerbread house.

Buy 2 boxes of graham crackers in case one has a bunch of broken crackers like ours did.

We built ours with walls in the middle to give more structure to the exterior walls and roof.

Let the children be creative. We have motorcycles (tootsie rolls and smarties) built by our daughter hidden in a garage of tootsie rolls.

When you separate out the candy(the first of November), let the children keep a few pieces in a baggie for snacks and stash the chocolate somewhere within reach of the adults.

I made this super cute set of alphabet letters as Christmas gifts for my niece and nephew. I got the idea and tutorial here. Chez Beeper Bebe always has very wonderful and crafty sewing ideas.

I followed her tutorial but did change a few things.

1. I used 100% organic bamboo batting so if it was sucked on it wouldn’t have any toxins.

2. Instead of new material scraps I used outgrown clothing from the children. I cut around the stains and it makes me smile to see their old pj’s put to good use.

3. I didn’t put magnets in the letters. She warns about the magnets and small children and I am giving the letters to small children so I omitted them.

4. I enlarged the letters so my finished letters are between 4 and 5 inches tall.

5. I didn't cut out the insides of the letters. I thought it would be too difficult so I just sewed the inside lines.

6. I matched the material that spelled out the names to make it personalized.

Materials:
Yellow cardstock
Green cardstock
Glitter glue, gold and clear with silver glitter
Tape
Large piece of white paper or poster board
Blindfold or scarf to cover eyes

Directions:

1. Cut a strip of cardstock for the wand and glue at an angle onto the white paper.

2. Cut out enough butterflies or stars so each child will have one. Make an extra for an example when showing the children how to play.

3. Go crazy with the glitter glue. Decorate the wand, put sparkles around the wand tip, and write names on the individual butterflies.

4. After the glue has dried, hang the wand on a wall with tape. Make sure to place the blindfold, butterfly pieces and tape next to the wand so you are prepared to play.

Use glitter glue and draw a star shape onto waxed paper.

For a more complicated version, draw a star shape with glue onto waxed paper and sprinkle with glitter.

For either type of glue star, you can use sequins to further decorate your tree decoration.

Build a placemat for each child using scrapbook paper or construction paper. Have each child write a list of what needs to be done before breakfast on the left side. On the right, make a list of what needs to be packed for school or spell out their name for tracing practice. Don’t forget the extra blank lines on each side for last minute items.

Make your own containers for school-time snacks. Cut your old juice or milk containers (see photos of how to cut) and make heavy creases at the folds. Add a piece of Velcro and voila, a food friendly storage container that won’t make you cry if it never makes it back from school.

Since Fall is almost here it is the perfect time to begin collecting pine cones for crafts. Our favorite pine cone craft is the tree ornament.