Miss Rumphius - Painting Lupine Flowers

Nothing makes a picture book more fun than letting the kids do a special activity related to the story.  After reading Miss Rumphius a book by Barbara Cooney about a woman who plants Lupines to make the world more beautiful, the girls painted their own Lupine flowers.  Here's what we did...

Rainbow Toast {Painting Bread}

When the girls saw Rainbow Toast in their Highlights High Five Magazine (back-issue from 2007 from Ebay), they begged me to let them try it out... so we did!  This activity was a great way to make a snack using all sorts of Montessori practical life skills and creativity.  Here's how to do it..

Sensory Play for Kids

All play is pretty much "sensory play" as kids use all their senses to explore their world.  However, I just love creating novel experiences for the little ones to engage in.  It's a joy sitting back and watching the exploration process and the immense pleasure my kids get from simple experiences that adults take for granted like putting their hands in something gooey or smelling something new.  Here is a collection of my favorite Sensory Play Experiences over the past year...

Montessori Monday - Painting and Washing Plastic Animals

One of my kids' favorite Montessori-inspired activities involves painting their plastic animals and subsequently giving them baths.  They've been doing this activity every once in a while since before they were 2 years old.  This morning I made the mistake of asking the kids what they wanted to do (I usually pick what we do for Preschool in the morning).  L said she wanted to paint, and E said she wanted to play with animals, so I was reminded of this animal painting/bathing activity, and both kids were happy...

Glitter Gourds Autumn Table Decoration

A little glitter goes a long way in making ordinary objects look more festive.  This autumn/Thanksgiving centerpiece is ridiculously easy to make, but really looks beautiful (I don't think the photos captured it well, so you'll have to take my word for it).  As a bonus, my 3-year-olds were able to create it pretty much by themselves.  Here's how it's done...

Masking Tape Resist Painting

I mixed up our usual painting routine by giving L and E (3 years old) some painters tape and creating tape-resist artwork.  It's really easy to do and produces neat results.  The tape (both sticking it on and peeling it off) added some new fine motor-skills practice, and the girls had a great time..

Paint Exploration

What do we do when my mess-averse husband is away all morning?  We paint!  The girls and I had fun exploring different ways to paint, from golf-ball painting, to painting with cars, to making bubble-wrap prints.  It wasn't so much about the final product, but the experience of exploring this medium in different ways...

Decorative Picture Frame and Painting Wooden Objects

On a recent trip to the craft store, I bought a bunch of wooden frames and other wooden objects for $1 each, and the girls (33 months) have been having such a wonderful time painting and embellishing them over the past couple weeks.  I wanted to share the process for making this lovely sparkly picture frame because it was so much fun, and actually ended up looking pretty neat (the photo doesn't do it justice)...

Fairy Rocks

It's always fun painting on something other than paper.  Paint some rocks, add a layer of glitter glue and you've got beautiful sparkly.... Fairy Rocks!

An Attempt at Writing Letters - T

The twins (32 months) meet almost all of the Kindergarten readiness skills, except being able to write their names, so last week I started teaching L and E to write letters.  The plan was to work on writing at least one letter a week, starting with the ones that are easier (straight lines), and then going through until they can write the entire alphabet.  We started with letter 'T'.  First I asked them to form the letter (both uppercase and lowercase) from craft sticks, then we went on to some worksheets:

Watercolor Textures with Salt and Plastic Wrap

Here are two simple watercolor 'texture' painting techniques I've seen all over the web, which I've wanted to try for some time.  So when the kids wanted to watercolor paint their coloring pages today, I thought I'd give it a try.

First wet your paper (learned that it's best to get it really wet by running water on both sides of the paper until it is almost translucent, but doesn't fall apart).  Then do some watercolor painting, covering the sheet:

We worked on the one above together.  I was originally planning on trying the plastic-wrap technique on this one, but the paper was too try when we were done, so we tried sprinkling salt on it instead (both E and L loved this part).  When the painting was (mostly) dry, the girls and I took a look at it in the sunlight:

I love the 'snow' effect the salt creates.  This would be wonderful for children's artwork with a winter/snow theme.

Then L helped me paint another piece of paper (this time making sure it was really wet before we started painting).  When we were done covering the paper, we put wrinkled plastic wrap on top:

You're supposed to wait until the paint is completely dry before removing the plastic wrap, but the kids (or Mommy), couldn't wait..  Here is the result:

What a neat texture!  These would be so beautiful for making greeting cards or backgrounds for unique art.  We'll be experimenting with these techniques again, for sure.

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Painting and Prints with Foam Stickers

Today's "Messy Morning" activity (an elaborate foil-impression-paint-project I devised) did not work out as planned, so I quickly improvised and turned it into a project based on the Kid-Friendly Printmaking Tutorial at Frugal Family Fun Blog, which I saw last month.

Foam stickers are really inexpensive and my kids like them quite a bit more than regular stickers.  The first step of this activity was to stick some foam stickers on fairly thick paper:

I couldn't resist joining in (mine is the paper in the middle with the symmetrical design).  Next I gave the girls some paint and brushes.  It was actually a really fun experience painting over the foam stickers and produced some interesting artwork on its own:

The final step, however, was to see if we could make some prints by placing another paper on top of the painted paper and using a rolling pin on top:

The results looked more like modern art than precise prints, but I think they're fabulous:

The process was really enjoyable for the girls, and this is definitely an activity we'll be repeating.

  

Messy Mornings: Color mixing and handprints/footprints

We recently changed bathtime from nights to mornings, which not only means that I'm less exhausted at the end of the day, but also that we get to have Messy Mornings, where we do our messiest art and science explorations and then head straight for the bath.

This morning we read Mouse Paint by Ellen Walsh (super-cute book about mixing primary colors), and then experimented with color mixing.  I squirted two colors on a plastic disposable plate and asked the girls to predict the new color before mixing in up with their hands.

This was a neat sensory experience for them.  Then we made hand-prints and footprints all over a piece of butcher paper.  Yes, I actually let my kids walk through paint indoors and the house survived (the only rule was that they have to stay on the canvas tarp - I repeated this a couple times during the activity and they actually listened).  Here's more of the fun (my picture-taking ability was limited once they started the footprints, for obvious reasons).

Messy, but fun!

Circle Art Exploration

After breakfast yesterday, I asked the girls to go around the house and find as many circles as they could.  This ended up being a fun little scavenger hunt and they found a wide array of circles in different sizes:

Then I put some paint in shallow plastic dishes and showed them how to use these objects to make circle prints by pressing them first in the paint and then on a large piece of butcher-paper I had taped to their table:

Then we tried experimenting with using paintbrushes to paint inside the cookie cutters to make circles, use them to trace the outside of the circles, mix colors, and of course get some fingerpainting in as well.

This is the only picture I have of E (or rather, her hands), since she decided to do this activity without any clothes on.  That was probably a smart move, since it got very messy and the girls headed straight for the bath when they were done.  The final result was not the perfect masterpiece I had imagined, but it's the art experience that really counts.

Paper Bag Creative Challenge: Hungry Lion

Today we joined the fun of TinkerLab's Creative Challenge: Create something with a paper bag.  We made paper bag lions with big open mouths that can be fed.  I love art projects that you can play with when they are done!

This was a really easy project.  First we painted paper plates with yellow and orange paint:

Once the paint dried, we glued on googly-eyes, drew on a nose, and cut slits around the paper plate so we could ruffle his mane.  Then I cut holes in both the paper bag and the paper plate for the mouth.  Here are the girls' lions (L's is the one with the orange body and the other one is E's):

Aren't they cute?  Of course, Mommy had to make a lion too (did I mention that I love having kids because I get to play too?).

We looked at some photographs of lions, and practiced marching around the room and roaring.  Then it was feeding time..  What do lions eat?

"The lordly lion longs to sup
On living prey, and chew it up.
Try not to fall within his sight,
Lest he dispatch you, bite by bite."  -Jack Prelutsky (Carnival of the Animals)

I realize this poem is a bit dark for 2-year-olds, but L loves to recite it.

Our lions especially enjoy eating plastic monkeys... with a spoon!

Here's a link to the TinkerLab Paper Bag Challenge.  Be sure to check out all the other creative ideas, too.