Summer Art 2013~ Play date #1

Last week we had our first art play date of the summer!  This is our third summer hosting art play dates in our backyard and I am still very much enjoying them despite the crazy busy summer we’ve been having.  If you want to look back at other summer art play dates, you can go here.    This time we made walnut babies, painted on wax paper, made cuff bracelets, and played with oobleck.

Walnut Babies

Our neighbor has a huge walnut tree which we partook of liberally last fall, but have not yet gone through all of them, so walnuts will be featured in the next art playdate as well. 😉 We split our walnuts in half and ate the meat. Then we wrapped a cotton ball in bright fabric and put it in the walnut half with a dab of tacky glue. Then we drew faces on a wooden bead and glued that on. Voila! Adorable walnut babies!

Waxed Paper Painting
This one was just like what it sounds like. We painted with tempera paint on waxed paper. Its kind of a fun project because once they dry they are somewhat see through and stained glass-like.

Toilet Paper Tube Cuff Bracelets
So, this project started off as a different project all together. I wanted to make popsicle stick bracelets like these from pinterest. Long story short, I tried for three days in all different ways to get those popsicle sticks to bend and stay bent, but all I ended up with was a lot of broken or straight popsicle sticks. Enter the brilliant idea from Happy Hooligans to use cut toilet paper rolls. Fabulous and so much easier!!! We used glitter paint, glue, and acryllic gems on our toilet paper rolls.

Oobleck
Oobleck was our sensory experience this time. I tried to make rainbow oobleck, but it all ended up blue and the kids all sported blue hands by the end, but it was a huge hit, not only with the little kids (who I concider to be the real reason I put out the sensory bins), but also with the six year olds. They spent a huge amount of time in it (we’re talking over a half hour with all of these other things to do). Oobleck is simply corn starch and water with just enough water mixed in so it will feel solid if you press on it, but will flow when left to itself. I also added some food coloring.

Oh! And don’t forget the tree climbing! At least they weren’t turning over my stepping stones looking for bugs.