Summer Art 2013~ Playdate #2

We had our second art playdate last week.  It was a really low-key day of crafts, except for at the end when there was a little tire swing accident involving smashed fingers.  But everyone ended up okay in the end.

We had three projects and play dough out for the kids to do as well as the new tire swing, the playhouse, our newly pruned climbing hedge, and a little castle with books in it for some chilling out time.

Wrapped Washer Necklaces

Our most popular project this week was wrapped washer necklaces.  It was popular with the big kids who actually sat down and worked on this for quite a while.  Almost all of them made one.  It was too hard for the little kids, but the mommies dutifully made them for them, reminiscing about embroidery floss friendship bracelets while getting to make their own.

This idea  came from this blog, but we only did the “small” idea. You will need some large-ish washers (I got mine at home depot in three packs, a bunch of embroidery floss, and some ball chain (you know, the type that dog tags hang on). You simply tie an arm’s length on embroidery floss onto a washer, then wrap it around and around through the hole, adding more floss as needed (you can use more than one color, too) until the entire washer is wrapped. We then tied it off and added a dab of tacky glue to smooth down any loose ends and put it onto the chain. Clara made three washers by the end, so has since taken her necklace back down to her one favorite which is blue and purple together.

Walnut Boats

This project required quite a bit of finesse and experimenting and most of the big kids used all of their patience up on washer necklaces and ended up skipping this project after the first few tries.  I searched a few different ideas for walnut boats and finally ended up using this one because clay sounded a lot safer than pouring in hot candle wax.  I cut out small squares of scrapbook paper, and put them out with clay, toothpicks, walnuts to crack and eat, and a small “pond” to test their floating in.  The testing was a mandatory part at all stages.  They needed to put in the clay, test.  Add the toothpick, test.  Add the sail, and test.  But look how cute they come out!  And now we understand floating and balance better, right?

Zappy Zoomer Airplanes

These “airplanes” fly really well and do all sorts of spirals, which made them a hit even though they are a little finicky in the assembly.  The idea came from this blog, which you should check out for the dimensions to cut the paper and a very thorough explanation of how to put them together.  I’ll just say that they require four straws, two lengths of card stock, and  a whole lot of tape for each flyer.  Come to think of it, maybe the tape was the kids’ favorite part of this project.  You lay out the two sizes of card stock and then tape of the four straws so that you have one cardstock strip attached to each end.  Then you tape the carstock into a circle.  I know I’m not giving good directions here.  Just check out the link.  But, here are some fun pictures.

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.

Summer Art 2012: Play Date #6

This is our last summer art play date!  In the next two weeks most of our group will be starting kindergarten at various schools in our area.  I think they’re ready.  They get along along together the vast majority of our play time.  They can manipulate and do the art almost on their own most of the time.  They are very interested in reading and writing… So, I guess that I should be ready, too, right?!  While I am looking forward to some alone time with just my little Nancy, it will be strange to not have Clara home with me all day every day.  I’m already looking at the pace of our life changing dramatically as well.  We have to be up early, fed breakfast, lunch packed, and ready to be out the door by 7:45.  Adam is going to be assistant coaching soccer for Clara, too, so our evening schedules will be hectic, too. As much as I run around with the girls and play in the summer, I’m wary that I haven’t spent enough time going slowing in the past five years when I could.   But such is the way of  motherhood… not enough time to enjoy everything and too much time to not fill it up with fun.

This week we did all sorts of fun things, but they were all very simple and kid directed.  I learned my lesson from the fireflies at the last play date.  Our projects were: Birdie pencils, car painting, car bubble washing, and play dough.

Birdie Pencils

These were super fun and easy to make as a back-to-school craft.  All you need are pencils fluffy pipe cleaners, googlie eyes, orange foam cut into triangles, feathers, and a bit of tacky glue.  First you  hold the feathers onto the pencil, then wrap the pipe cleaner around the pencil and feathers tightly.  Continue wrapping until the pipe cleaner is completely secure, then glue on the eyes and the beak.  Done!

Car Painting

This was a very easy project and fun for all ages. I simply set out some paper plates of tempera paint and some little cars from Dollar Tree. The cars drove through the paint, then drove on our painting paper.

Bubble Car Wash

Our sensory bin this time was full of bubbles (made just with dish washing soap), water, and sponges. At first we just played with the bubbles and made more bubbles with the sponges, then when we had cars that needed the paint washed off, we brought them over and added them to the bin to get cleaned up!

Playdough
Finally, we had more playdough! It is always a hit. Some kids start there every time, and others finish there every time. Love it!

Summer Art 2012: Play date #5

I have had this blog on hold for the last two weeks for no real reason other than I have not been feeling like blogging.  It was hot, we were busy, we went out of town for the weekend, and mostly, I’ve been reading smut.  But, now that I have finished the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and I am past the insidious, repetitive prose, but delicious filth that I could not put down, I can resume writing blogs.  Hopefully my writing is somewhat better than hers!  But anyway, back to arts and crafts….

This was our fifth summer art play date this summer!  We had a great time with a jello sensory bin, clay birds, easter eggs fireflies, and sand paper drawing.

Jello Sensory Bin

Isn’t that pretty?! I loved this idea, which I got from No Time For Flashcards in this post. I followed her recipe and made gelatin using plain gelatin packets, kool-aid packets, and a bit of food coloring. The kids immediately dug in and loved playing with it, smelling it, and sorting it. It was good that they tried it immediately because since this was pretty much the hottest week of the year, it immediately started melting. Apparently, you cannot leave gelatin out in the sunshine.

Clay Birds

Years ago, before Clara had hair, I did a project with a bunch of kids that was exactly like this. Except this time the clay turned out better. But, it is a really easy and fun project that kids of all ages can enjoy. All you need is a batch of cornstarch clay (I used food coloring to make mine pink and yellow), feathers, googlie eyes, and orange foam cut into little triangles for beaks. Then the kids can make them however they like. They are pretty stinking adorable, too.

Easter Egg Fireflies

You know, sometimes I get more excited about a project than the kids do. This was one of those projects. In theory, it was going to be awesome. But, the execution was quite hard to manage. The kids really couldn’t do it themselves at all. Oh well. Live and learn. But, they are quite cute anyway. I do have to thank my sister’s sister-in-law, Brie for helping the entire play date to pull these off.

This idea came from this post and used a plastic Easter egg, a battery powered tea light (from Dollar Tree), some pipe cleaners, and some stick on googlie eyes. The hard part was that you have to punch holes with a push pin (and then we ended up changing to a screw) in the egg for the arms, legs, and antenna. So, parent involvement was a must. And the kids were only somewhat patient. But they sure were cute when we finished and their little bottoms light up!

Sand Paper Coloring

One of my kids’ obsessions this past spring was drawing on sand paper with crayons. How simple is that?! So, I put that out as an activity at the art playdate, and it turns out that everyone like it. We went through thirty-six pieces of sand paper. By the end of the play date, though, the crayons started melting, so if you’re doing this outside, do it on a cooler day!

Summer Art 2012: Play Date #4

Welcome to August!  We’ll have three art play dates this month to tell you about, so keep a watch out for the others.  This week we had a great time doing some syringe painting, using cornstarch clay, playing with cloud dough, and beading butterflies.

Syringe Painting

My husband is a wonderful nurse in the G.I. lab at our local teaching hospital.  So, he has access to IV syringes (the needle-less kind).  So I thought I would exploit that fact.  I asked him to bring home about a half-dozen of them and then, using watered down paint, we sucked and squirted!  It was actually super fun.  Each of the kids had a huge piece of paper (poster size) and they laid them down on the grass and took their syringe full of paint over to it, then came back for more paint when they were done.  I think that I was the only one who got accidentally squirted and that was because I was walking in between the projects.  Then we hung them up to dry on the laundry line.

Cloud Dough

Our sensory bin was filled with cloud dough this time.  I got the recipe here.  This is wonderful stuff.  It is just flour and baby oil that is mixed together (8 cups flour to 1 cup baby oil), but it is fun because even though it will hold its shape, it falls apart and back into a more flour-like consistency rather easily.  I threw some spoons, silicone molds, cups, etc. in to  play with.

Beaded Butterflies

This idea came from this post (via Pinterest). These took quite a bit of concentration which for the little ones was hard to come by. Most of them just added a few beads to a pipe cleaner, wore them as a bracelet, and called it good. The big kids, if they stuck it out, had a good time with this, though.

They each filled two pipe cleaners with beads, then, with adult help, twisted them into circle eights whereby the ends of the pipe cleaners came out of the middle of the eight (does that make sense?). Then they threaded those ends through the spring of a clothes pin. They added antennae by folding half a pipe cleaner in half and attaching a bead to each end, then glueing it onto the clothes pin. I think I’ll hot glue some magnet to the back of Clara’s to keep important school papers on the fridge.

Cornstarch Clay

Somehow I got no pictures of anybody actually making anything with the cornstarch clay, but since the blog I got the recipe from is fabulous, there are lots of cool pictures there.  This clay feels to me like Model Magic clay from Crayola except that it leaves a slight film on your hands as you work.  It is a huge amount cheaper than Model Magic, though, so I highly recommend it.  I think we will be using this recipe again later in the month.

To make this, combine 1 cup corn starch, 2 cups baking soda, and 1 1/2 cups water in a pot.  Cook it on medium heat until it looks like mashed potatoes, then dump it out, let it cool, and knead it a little.  When we were not working with this, I put  it in a plastic container with a wet wash cloth on top of the clay, then put the lid on.  In the sun and wind outside, this had a tendency to get dry pretty quick.

I gave the kids balls of the clay and had them make flat shapes, then I had a box of rubber stamps out for them to stamp pictures in them and chopsticks to poke holes.  These then air/sun-dried for a while and they actually harden up quite well after about 24 hours.  My girls are planning to paint theirs at some point in the near future.