The kids decided that they wanted to make a dinosaur nest after reading one of the Magic Schoolbus books where Frizzle’s class went looking for Maiasaurus eggs. So it was time to make some paper mache dino eggs.
My mom did this project in her preschool whenever she ran a dino unit. It can be quite messy… of course three kids at the dining room table is nothing compared to the year when I helped in her classroom with 24 students. Yikes! Preschoolers can easily do this project… though in my experience only about 1 in 4 will stick with it long enough to completely cover their egg.
I’ll give you one guess which one of my kiddos completed hers and helped me finish her siblings… Pixie girl of course. You can’t tell me that 2 year olds don’t have amazing attention spans.
You need one balloon per egg, a bowl to set the balloon in, newspaper shredded into long stripes (my kids loved that part) and a basic mixture of paper mache goo (I used approximately 1 part flour to 1 1/2 parts water mix).
Be sure to cover the entire balloon with paper mache, leaving just the knot exposed. (You might want to cover your table first – ours is a second hand table that we plan to refinish at some point in the future so I generally skip that step). Using a bright colored balloon can help you see any gaps. Try not to make it too thick or it will take forever to dry but you do want solid coverage or the egg will collapse when you pop the balloon.
Once the eggs have dried hard (btw – flip them over in the bowl occastionally so all the sides get air) we will paint them… I will post more when we get to that part.
Recouping from nasty colds this weekend, all we managed today was to spent the better part of the morning working on Valentine cards for all the grandparents. While everyone was busy working on their cards, I read about Saint Valentine. What a beautiful book! I think we might try a mosaic craft latter in the week to mimic the illustrations in the book.
Bug is totally getting into the whole "My Project" thing. We have recently moved into the world of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. While pouring over some prehistoric ZooBook Magazines my mom lent him… Bug came up to me with a activity guide (which I didn’t know was in the set) saying "this is what I’M doing next for my project." He wanted to make a Boxasaurus. Sure, sounds like fun!
We spent several days collecting boxes of various sizes. We raided the garage, basement, recycling bin, etc. Once we had a decent collection it was time to start designing the dinosaur. Bug spent some time just stacking and sorting until he decided to make a T-Rex (not surprising).
I helped him assemble the boxes. He did the glue and I taped the pieces in place to help hold them until the glue set. At this point his Boxasaurus project serendipitously tied in with this week’s Unplugged Challenge theme Balance. The T-Rex was very front heavy and had to lean against the wall until we got the tail in place. What a great lesson in balance and a perfect hands on lesson as to one of the reasons why many animals have tails! He wanted a longer tail on his Boxasuarus but that in turn made him back heavy. In the end we found the perfect balance of tail length to support the head and arms.
Next came the whole family production (and I do mean PRODUCTION) of painting the Boxasaurus. Since painting outside was out of the question (neg 10 not factoring wind chill), we cleared the furniture from the kitchen, set down some plastic bags (lol) and set up shop to paint. Good fun was had by all. AND Thank goodness it was a weekend and Daddy was home to carry the kids directly up to the tub while I cleaned up. The floor was a showcase that would have done Pollock proud. Fortunately Bamaboo cleans up so well!
Once dry, eyes, teeth and glitter (hehe, a well dressed Boxasaurus) were added.
For this week’s Unplugged Theme ‘square’ each of the kids made their own memory game. I printed out a sheet with 20 2″ wide squares (click here to download a template) on a piece of card stock.
The kids colored a picture in each square. I then photo copied the page onto another sheet of card stock and we cut out all the squares.
The girls have really enjoyed playing Memory lately and playing with their own cards has been extra fun!
Here is our second project inspired by the Unplugged Challenge theme Fluffy… Waldorf Inspired Baby Dolls. We used super snuggly, fluffy fleece and the kids were in charge of the FLUFF. They completely stuffed their own dolls… even the Pixie girl. I posted more about them, my pattern and step by step instructions over on my other blog Wee Folk Art. Stop on by if you would like to make your own!
Here is a fun little craft I tried with the kids this week… God’s Eye Ornaments. Bug got the hang of it but I ended up making the girls’ with them just picking out the colors they wanted. Fairy gave it an earnest try but it was just a bit too tricky for her yet… so I would classify this as a kindergarten and up sorta project.
All you need are two sticks and scraps of yarn. For the kids’ ornaments I glued the popsicle sticks together in a cross shape before we started. For my own, using twigs from the backyard, I just held the sticks in place while I started wrapping. After a couple rounds the sticks become fairy secure. BTW – I would recommend using narrower popsicle sticks than we used… it was just what I had on hand.
I took a few photos trying to illustrate how to wrap the yarn. I hope it makes sense. This is one of those things that I never really remember how to do it until I sit down and just start playing with it. After a couple clumsy attempts it came back to me.
When I switch colors, I hold the loose ends of the yarn down along one of the sticks and wrap over it as if the tail is part of the stick. That seems to work well for hiding the ends and holding everything in place.
Here is a quick and easy was to dress up some found treasures for the holidays.
Earlier this fall the kids and I collected bags of pine cones. We ‘cleaned’ the pine cones by placing them on a baking sheet, lined with foil, in the oven at 200F for about 20min. This helps removes some of the sap and kill off any little critters or things (hate to say it… but I also didn’t want a bunch of bugs or worms or something all over my holiday table either). This will of course will also help ensure that they are completely open (see our nature study on pine trees for details).
I then used a spray adhesive (outside – I won’t let the kids near the spray adhesive) to cover the pine cones with glue. You could also use a watered down craft glue and brush. Then the kids got to sprinkle lots of glitter on the pine cones. They loved trying to completely cover them with the glitter.
If you want your pine cones to have a holiday scent I would suggest doing that first. You can brush on cinnamon essential oil and store them in a plastic bags for a couple weeks. See this site for directions. OR you could just buy the pre-scented cones from the craft store.
We will be using the pine cones individually as ornaments and in wreaths.
This week’s Unplugged Challenge was Junk. For this activity we dug into the recycling bin and the box I keep in the back of the craft shelf filled with “useful junk” like toilet paper rolls and old magazines. We didn’t do anything fancy… definitely an all about the process sort of project but the kids had fun.
An hour and a half later… the older two had finished, bathed and moved on to other activities but the Pixie girl was still going strong. I don’t know if she was cleverly avoiding bed time or what but she was quite intent on gluing fuzzy pompoms to her favorite cereal box. I only removed her from the activity when I realized that she was no longer content gluing the pompoms to the box and had moved on to gluing them to her chair. 😉
To go with this week’s story The Ox-Cart Man, our craft for the week was making our own candles. Since working with hot wax really isn’t an option with young kiddos, I ordered a Natural Beeswax Candle kit from one of my favorite stores… A Toy Garden. I could not find anything local but fortunately Sonya ships super quick 🙂 and we got our supplies in just a couple days.
The kit came with 6 sheets of beeswax and wicks. The project was simple enough. Cut the wick slightly longer than the width of the beeswax. Place the wick along the edge at one end and carefully turn over the edge of the wax to hold it in place. Roll the wax slowly and tightly. You want room temp or slightly warmer wax to avoid cracking. The directions suggested using a hair dryer to warm the wax slightly. Our wax was fine at room temp in the sunny dinning room. Once rolled, hand press or roll the top edge firmer to tapper the top. Trim up the wick and tada… your very own candle! A Toy Garden also sells colored wax sheets that you can use to cut out shapes and such to decorate your candles if you would like. For our first go we were happy with au natural. They are the perfect candles for our nature table.
The girls really liked the smell of the beeswax… hence the silly photos. BTW – we were left with a waxy residue on the table. I would suggest using painting boards or maybe wax paper on the table if you would like to protect it.
Every month we are each making a quilt square that show cases something we have learned about recently. At the end of the year I will make a quilt out of all the squares. I had thought about using a different fabric technique every month but when it came down to the wire we did another set of Glue Batik squares since I already had all the supplies on hand. So I am now planning to make the entire quilt with Batik squares. This process is so much fun and we have had wonderful results. I think it will make for a fun quilt.
Here is a quick run down of the steps…
Draw your design with pencil on your fabric.
Trace the pencil drawing with Elmer’s Blue Gel Glue. Let the glue dry completely.
Paint over the entire piece of fabric with watered down acrylic paints (you can use the paint without watering it down if you want brighter colors). Let the paint dry completely. Wash off the glue in warm water.
