Painting with Jars

Today we tried a new medium to paint with.....Jars!  My kids loved it.  I like to challenge the kids by putting out unusual items to paint with.  We have used rocks, jelly beans, Lego's, and ice.  It allows the children to use their problem solving skills, imagination, fine motor and many other benefits. 

 

this jar had ridges on the bottom and the kids figured out that if

they dragged the jar it would make this print

 

I just love how these jar paintings came out. 

*As always, when children are using anything breakable, close supervision is required. 







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DIY Australian Bilma's

We love making our own musical instruments.  I love when the kids can use their creativity and really get involved in the process of creating something they can use.  When Daria over at Daria's Music, offered to send us our own Australian Bilma's to make, I was super excited.  You can click HERE to find out more about the Bilma, and how to make your own.  Daria was kind enough to send us the wooden sticks and the paint to use.  Traditional Bilma's are decorated with stripes and dots. 

 Here are the bare sticks.

I painted them white to give us a blank canvas.  My daughter painted hers red. 

 After the coat of red dried, she started to add dots.  I don't know if you have ever painted on a cylinder object, but it isn't that easy, especially for a 4 year old.  We put aside the one with dots, to add some yellow to the other Bilma. 

She grew impatient waiting for the paint to dry so she developed her own painting technique.  I loved watching her problem solve and discover the best way for her to paint her Bilma. 

She put dots on the tray.... 

then rolled the Bilma into the paint. 

Here she used the paint to draw a line of purple on the tray.... 

and rolled the Bilma's into it.. 

We stood them up in an egg carton to dry.  

We hot glued on a little ribbon to add some pizazz.  

She loves them!!  I think they are beautiful.  So fun.   

Here are our finished Bilma's!  Beautiful, I think! 

Daria is doing a giveaway for a pair of Bilma's over on her website.  She is giving away these,

Aren't they lovely?

You can read all about how to enter HERE.

You should go over and spend some time on her website.  She has some wonderful ideas for making musical instruments for children (and adults too).

Thank you again, Daria for introducing us to the Bilma's.  I will be making more for my class. 

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Stringing Eggs

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  I was thinking this would be a fabulously fun, fine motor and math activity for my snake happy son.  We used plastic eggs and a pipe cleaner for ours, but you can see the original idea HERE.  I made a small knot at the end of the pipe cleaner so the egg ends wouldn't slip through.

I was thinking they looked a little like caterpillars, but Tayler saw his as a cobra snake.  So he stuck one of the eggs on the opposite way to create it's "hood".  Then he added eyes and left the pipe cleaner sticking out for the tongue.  Pretty dang cute cobra to me!

Another great fine motor skill.  You could incorporate patterning and counting into this as well.

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Good Finds at the Hardware Store

Here are just a couple things that you can do with FREE stuff from the hardware store. I included some for toddlers and a few for preschool age kiddos.

 Cutting paint samples, they already have those great lines for cutting on.  My daughter loves doing this!  (Do not just go grab a stack from the hardware store stash, ask the manager for their outdated samples.)

We also asked the manager for the discarded keys.  He gave us an entire bag and we have been having so much fun with them.  I just set them out and added an empty wipe container for the toddlers to put them into. 

Check out the key puzzles we created for the preschoolers HERE and our surprise prints HERE.

We have also sorted them by type into tubs.  So many things you can do with old keys..



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Candy Trees

I saw these on Pinterest and knew they were something we just had to try.  How cute are they?  All you need is a couple old fashion ice cream cones (the cone shaped ones, obviously), some frosting and whatever candy you want.  You could use M&M's, gumdrops, peppermints.  We used Skittles.  We tinted the frosting yellow, I asked the kids what color they wanted their trees and that is what they chose.  Then we frosted the cone, placed it on a paper towel and added the details.  So simple and

 "kid-friendly" as my friend stated! 

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Felt Turkey Finger Puppets

We made these really cute, no-sew finger puppet turkeys to go along with one of our favorite songs

"5 Little Turkeys are We".

They are so simple and the kids really enjoyed personalizing them.  I cut all the pieces out from felt because it is difficult for little hands to do. I cut triangles for feathers and beaks, red waddles, and used brown half ovals (not sure what to call that shape) for the bodies.  Then, the kids glued the feathers onto one side of the brown bodies and then we glued the top body, leaving an opening to put our fingers in.  Then we used googly eyes and the other felt pieces to add faces.  Then we just needed to wait for all the glue to dry.

Here is the words to the song we use them with, but really any song about turkeys would work.

Five little turkeys are we,

We hid all night in the tree,

when the cook came around we couldn't be found,

that's why we're here you see!

Then we take one away and keep going...

Four little turkeys are we,

and so on...

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What Can YOU Do With Plastic Cups?

Awhile back, my son was obsessed with building with cups.  Currently, he just simply loves to build...with anything.  While walking through the grocery store, we saw a display of plastic cups and thought it would be fun to build with them again.  So, I bought two packs of them, for 4.00 each.  This is what we did with them....

built walls....

constructed castles.....

stacked them tall...and created patterns....

filled them up and dumped them out.....

used them as platforms....

and yelled in them.....feeling the vibration and hearing our own voice!

I am not sure if it is clear from the pictures but the children from age 1 to age 5 ( and me) had a fabulous time with these cups, literally, all day. Yes, a few of them got crunched but that is the worst thing that happened!

We also learned about balance, physics, math solutions, volume, cause and effect, patterning, colors...and so much more, all while playing with cups! 

So simple, so fun, so educational!



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Shmuzzies and Bottle Caps

I wasn't going to write about this (I just take pictures all day long) but the kids had so much fun with it and really, there is lots of learning going on with this I just had to write a post on it.  I bought these extra large shmuzzies at Hobby Lobby and they are perfect for little hands. I have them in a container and we sort them into egg cartons and muffin pans, stuff like that.  The other day, my daughter got out our box of bottle caps and began making "cupcakes" with them.  She sorted the bigger shmuzzies and put them on the matching lids, the green on the green, purple on purple, then she placed all of the "cupcakes" onto a larger plastic lid and "served" us.  It was great! 

 I wonder what your kids will come up with if you place some out for them? Let me know if you do this.  I love hearing how little minds create!



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A Building Challenge

My son LOVES to build.  I am constantly trying to find something to challenge his building skills.  We were playing with old Cd's the other day (that's an upcoming post) when it struck me to get some paper towel tubes and put those and the disks with our construction equipment (just a fancy way to say blocks, but this is the terminology I use with my kids to hopefully encourage them to think bigger and outside of the box).  Anyway, his eyes lit up as he recognized the challenge.  He grabbed the egg cartons, (another piece of "equipment") and this is what he built.  What unconventional building materials do you have in your construction equipment?

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I love how the paper towel tube fits right on the egg carton!  So cool!

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Fun With Shmuzzies

We love Shmuzzies!  You know, "pom-pom's".  They are soft, colorful and oh so versatile!  Today, we used to sort into ice cube trays with little tongs.  A fun way to strengthen those little muscles they need to write with.  My kids made Shmuzzy cookies.  Some of us practiced our hand/eye coordination and placed the Shmuzzies into containers.  Seriously, we kept at this for over 1/2 hour.

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