Teaching Two » Saturday Showcase

Creepy, Crawly, Bugs!

Anne — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:51:32 +0000

This week at summer camp the theme was Creepy Crawly Bugs. We did so many cute crafts but this one was my favorite. Each kid got a gardening glove (pink for girls and blue for boys). We hot glued a piece of foam shaped like a body to the top of the glove. The kids got to pick out whatever colored wings (also made of foam) they wanted to. Some decorated the wings with pom poms. I cut Styrofoam balls in half and then glued googly eyes to those. They each ended up with really cute bug puppets to take home with them. Here are my girls’ bugs.

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More Fireworks

Anne — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:20:08 +0000

We made fireworks the other day but the girls wanted to make more. I used pipecleaners this time and folded them in half and arranged them to look like a firework. Then we dipped them in red and blue paint and added glitter. Ashlyn would use glitter on every craft we did if I let her. Very simple but lots of fun. We are headed to a 4th of July parade tomorrow so we made star wands (princess wands) to take with us. Hope everyone has a great 4th!

Check out more craft ideas here.

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Camping Day

Anne — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:08:54 +0000

We are going camping for the first time with the girls (and as a couple) in a week and the kids are so excited. I thought I would have a camping day indoors first . So today while they were resting I planned a whole day of fun activities for Friday. I took these pictures the night before because I knew I wouldn’ t have time to blog about it tomorrow. Below is a picture of everything I will need. Here is what I have planned for them:

After breakfast they will decorate two toilet paper rolls using bug stickers, markers, stamps, etc. to make binoculars.
rock painting- I found 4 awesome rocks that I “borrowed” from a distant neighbor.
creating sculptures using toothpicks and mini marshmallows
making numbers using playdoh (not really a camping activity but I found a sheet that had snakes on it)
bug hunting in the backyard using their binoculars and bug jars they made at Emily’s b-day party.
making their own “trail mix”- popcorn, peanuts, m&m’s, Cheerios
reading in their tent and sleeping bags
having an indoor picnic using our picnic basket
counting activities with fireflies that I found here.

I will let you know how it goes and try to take pictures but I can’t promise anything. I plan on tackling Emily’s dresser in between activities.

Check out more Friday Showcase crafts here and Kid Friendly Friday ideas here.

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Friday Showcase- Painting with Feathers

Anne — Fri, 29 May 2009 03:24:19 +0000

My girls love bird books. They love to go to the nonfiction section at the library and pick out the kind that identify the different types of birds, you know the books that are like thousands of pages long. I love that they enjoy these types of books but I also try to get them to check out the kind I can actually read to them. I found a cute one simply called “Birds”.

As we read it we came to a page that talked about how the sky would look if birds painted with their tail feathers. So we decided to try and recreate that page by painting with feathers.

I had the girls water color their papers blue first. Then they picked out what colors they wanted in their skies. I gave them a different feather for each color, ( I’m very anal about having the colors mix) and they began creating. They loved it and asked to do more.

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Friday Showcase-Dot Art

Anne — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:57:41 +0000

I love Dot Art. There are so many things you can do with them. Here are a few things we have been doing this week. I have so many more ideas to do with Dot Art just not enough time to get them all done.

We made birthday cards! Make sure you use thicker paper or it will go through.

Ashlyn made a rainbow using a paper plate cut in half.

Emily had to put the correct number of dots in each box.

Emily loved tracing her name.

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Showcase Saturday- Jelly Bean Painting

Anne — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:58:34 +0000

My girls love marble painting so today we tried painting with jelly beans. They don’t roll as nicely but it was still fun and turned out cute. I cut out a shape of a jelly bean (kind of, I’m no artist). Then we placed it in the top of a shoe box and I had the girls pick out what color paint they wanted to use. They dropped the jelly beans in the different colored paint and then put them in their box tops. They tilted and shook them until they were happy with how it looked. The best part was being able to eat the left overs. Emily did this craft too but the picture I took of her won’t upload for some reason.

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Saturday Showcase- Insects and Spiders

Anne — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:07:40 +0000

This week we’ve been talking about insects and spiders. The first project was free art. I had left over flower patterns from my class and then I made some leaves and stems and let my girls go to work. I also gave them green paper to fringe to make the grass. Then I gave them bug stickers and had them put them on their pictures where they thought the bugs would go (ex. butterflies and bees next to the flowers, grasshoppers near the grass). After that, we talked about why the bugs would be near those places.

For lunch that day I gave them a flower pattern to put over their cups. I gave them both straws and let them pretend to be butterflies sucking nectar from a flower.

This is my 2 year olds picture. She loves to line everything up. She told me that the bugs were flying in a line and playing follow the leader.

My 5-year old’s picture.

The next day we made hand-print spiders. I had Ashlyn make the #4 with her fingers and I trace them on both sides to make 8 spider legs. I cut them out and had her pick out googly eyes to glue on. We found some black felt and cut out a circle for the web. Ashlyn made a design on it with glue and then sprinkled silver glitter on it. With my preschool class I had them marble paint a black circle with white glue to make their webs. Both turned out cute.

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Saturday Showcase- trains

Anne — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:29:16 +0000

I just finished up a transportation unit with my preschoolers and my girls saw one of the projects I did with my class that they wanted to do. So we decided to make a train. It’s a fun craft that has many great skills built into it.

I gave them a white piece of paper and we talked about vertical and horizontal lines. I gave them a brown marker and had them make train tracks. I was surprised at how well my 2 year old could do these.
I gave them each 5 different colored squares to be the train cars. On my 2 year olds, I wrote the numbers 1-5 and mixed them up. She had to glue them on the tracks in the correct order. My 5 year old didn’t want to do this so she just glued them in whatever order she wanted.
Then I let them choose what color wheels they wanted from some old garage sale dot stickers. I had them put 2 wheels on each train car.
I happened to have two different pictures of train engines left over and had them cut them out and glue them on the front of the train.

They turned out cute!

She’s making her train tracks.

Emily’s finished train. She refused to be in the picture.

Check out more great craft ideas at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.

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Saturday Showcase

Anne — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:58:55 +0000

Apparently I can’t wait for Spring to come. We have been making pretty flowers all week long. Here are a few.

Emily and I did these the other morning. We used cupcake liners, scissors, markers, a spray bottle, and pipe cleaners.

Emily cut little triangles out for the petals.
Then I had her color them with washable markers. I thought we had colored cupcake liners but could only find white. She had fun using the markers to decorate them though.
I let her spray them to blend some of the marker together. It doesn’t do a great job of it but it turned out fine.
I made a yellow circle in the middle and let her color it in.
She picked out the color pipe cleaner she wanted and then I made leaves.

Ashlyn wanted to make bigger flowers so we did the ole’ coffee filter flowers. She decorated 6 coffee filters with washable markers. She had fun coloring them different ways (circles, scibbles, etc) to see how they would blend together. Then she sprayed them with the spray bottle and waited for them to dry. We folded them all in half together and then twist the bottom of the stack tightly. She wrapped a pipe cleaner around the twisted part.

For more Saturday Showcase crafts head on over to Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.

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Saturday Showcase

Anne — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:12:22 +0000

Here are some crafts we made this week. We have been talking about what trees look like in the different seasons and decided to make a couple “trees” of our own. We made a “fall tree” and a “winter tree”.

First, trace your child’s arm and hand from about their elbow up. Make sure they spread their fingers out as far as possible.
Cut out the arm and hand and glue it on a different colored paper.
Then for the fall tree, I had Ashlyn tear different fall colored tissue paper to glue on the paper. You can also have them use paint to dip their fingers in and make fingerprint leaves. I personally like the 3-D look.
For the Winter tree, she used blue background paper and tore white tissue paper to look like snow.

It’s that simple. We plan on doing one for the other two seasons as well.

Head on over to Ramblings of a Crazy Woman to see lots of other cute craft ideas.

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