Mud Painting for International Mud Day!!!

We decided to join in the fun and paint with Mud for International Mud Day! Never heard of the day until recently (I guess it is the first?)!  If you have ever played with mud or have an activity that goes along with it be sure to add your idea in the the linky after this post! If you have no idea of what to do... check out the ideas below or head over to Hands on : as we grow for a great collection of 30+ Dirty Kid Activities here!

First we collected some mud in a pail, added some water, mixed it around and there you have some MUD Paint! If you could find a mud puddle it would be the same thing!

Cassie grabbed a paint brush and the FUN began!

Starting to do some Splatter Mud Painting!

Finished Splatter Mud Painting! (Yuck!....but fun!)

Put your feet into the pail and it is a Great sensory Experience! This girl Loves getting her feet dirty, but not her hands!!!!!

Making Mud Foot Prints! 

Back to brush painting with the Mud! This Girl had a Great Time in the Mud!

We were almost up to our elbows in MUD!!!

Mud paintings Galore!

We had a Great MUD Day! I didn't think C could have this much FUN!

Tin Can Magnetic Robots

I saw this idea over at the Family Fun Magazine  and knew that we had to do this! I'm sure glad that we did! Don't these Robots look Fabulous?  You'll need some recycled tin cans, various hardware pieces, plastic lids, pipe cleaners, strong disk magnets, and a hot glue gun. These robots inspired hours of imaginative play and were fun to create! Take a look at the fun we had...

First, we got together different pieces of hardware, lids, scrubbers, and pipe cleaners. 

Then we got our recycled tin cans together and some strong disk magnets.  Also, you'll need a hot-glue gun to attach magnets to the hardware and lids.

Cassie had a lot of FUN just playing with the magnets and the metal hardware even before we put anything together!  She made some Magnetic and Hardware Sculptures! Magnets inspire imaginations!

Here is C adding some hot glue to some plastic lids so she can attach the magnets.

Here she is pleased with adding the magnets!

After some of the magnets were glued to the hardware/lids, Cassie began to construct some robots. The nice thing is that the robots can be changed over and over! C liked using the scrubbers for hair. These were just placed on top of the cans without magnets.

More play going on here!

We added metallic pipe cleaners into the scrubbers for hair and then we were basically done. You could easily add more pieces or cans! Now there is a new toy to play with in our house!

These tin can robots inspired some robot drawings too! Love these drawings!

We hope to have many more hours of play with these Tin Can Robots!!!

What kinds of toys have you created with kids?

Patriotic Folded Flag

This is a simple folded paper flag which always entertained my Elementary art students every time! Cassie has enjoyed making these flags too. We decided to make some for the upcoming Patriotic Holidays over the summer! You will be amazed how simple these flags are to make! 

    

First begin with a rectangular paper like 12x18 or 9x12 size.

Fold the paper in half short side to short side.

Fold the folded piece again, short side to short side.

Then open up the paper so you have four sections.  I marked one section with a black pen.

Cut that marked section out.

Next, roll up the end of the paper that is pictured below. (this will become the flag pole)

Roll it all the way to the cut out piece and use tape or glue to hold the flag pole in place.  Once it is taped it is ready to be painted or colored with markers or crayons.

Cassie used red and blue paint to design her flag.

She even designed the flag pole too.  C wanted to paint the other side but needed to let it dry. 

Lastly, we added metallic stickers.  I think they turned out GREAT!

HAPPY SUMMER HOLIDAYS!

This post is linked to:

No Time For Flashcards
Craft Schooling Sunday
Summer Fun

Happy Birthday Eric Carle!

Today we made some Very Hungry Caterpillars with our Microwave Kool Aid Play Dough!!! The recipe is in my last post here.  Wishing Eric Carle a Happy Birthday again on his real Birthday! I can't imagine a world without his wonderful books! What are you doing to celebrate?

Most of our inspiration to make these caterpillars comes from this wonderful stuffed Hungry Caterpillar that my daughter absolutely loves!

Be sure to check out our post here on Two Activities inspired by Eric Carle's book Little Cloud!
***Also be sure to check out the other wonderful Eric Carle activities linked up to that post here! (There are over 82 of them!)

Microwave Kool Aid Play Dough

We made play dough and love this recipe from Cassie's preschool! It says you can add a scent, but we used unsweetened kool aid for the scent and color of the play dough. I like the idea that it can be made using the microwave too.  We don't drink a whole lot of kool aid here, but have used it for homemade popsicles. Some of the flavors add a nice scent to the play dough too. I don't know if C was fond of all the scents, but it was a fun way to mix up the recipe a bit.

Here is the recipe:

(we divided it in half to make more colors)

2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Salt

2 Tablespoons Oil

4 teaspoons Cream of Tartar

2 Cups Water

Food coloring/Scent (We used unsweetened kool aid)

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the oil and water in a microwave safe bowl until it is almost boiling.  Add the food coloring. (we did not add food coloring for color--- we added the kool aid  powder with the dry ingredients) Mix the liquid and the dry ingredients together. Once the mixture has cooled, knead the dough until it becomes smooth and soft.

Here are the flavors/colors of kool aid that we use for our kool aid play dough: Cherry, Orange, Lemonade, Lemon-Lime, Ice-Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and Grape. ***For the Lemonade color we use added a little yellow food coloring because it was so light. Grape is a little dark, but the scent is good.

Here is C mixing the dry ingredients and the Ice-Blue-Raspberry Lemonade powder for blue play dough.

Here is C carefully mixing in the wet ingredients! (Careful because it is HOT!)

After the play dough kool aid cooled, we knead the play dough and it was ready for playing!

Here are some play dough snails in each color with tooth picks and googly eyes added in! Cassie's favorite scent was the Cherry! This was the best, I agree!

Here are her play dough monsters and C found some popsicle sticks to add in to the FUN!

We've been having some more kool aid fun so stay tuned for some future posts!

This post is linked to:

No Time For Flashcards

Craft Schooling Sunday

Monster Linkie Party

Little Cloud Activities

To celebrate Author Eric Carle's 82nd Birthday (June 25th), Kate from An Amazing Child is having an Eric Carle week.  Other Bloggers will be posting different activities that they have done with their children that go along with an Eric Carle book. Some of these will be in the linky  after this post. We are celebrating with two activities that go along with the book Little Cloud. This book is about a cloud that drifts away from the group of clouds to become a giant cloud and changes into many different things! It changes into a sheep, a shark, a clown, and many other things. At the end it returns make to the group. It is the adventure of a cloud!!! Pictured here is our first activity of a painting C did of a Flower Cloud! We made Cloud Paint!

We mixed up some shaving cream and white tempera paint to create our Cloud Paint. The shaving cream made it a nice fluffy paint. Cassie loves shaving cream so she had a wonderful time painting with it! We have done Shaving Cream Bath Tub Paint which she loved so it didn't surprise me!

Here is another picture of C creating her Flower Cloud Painting! This painting is definitely one to be framed. You could easily just paint with shaving cream on a a smooth surface too!

C enjoyed this so much she did a second Cloud painting too. So sweet!

One unexpected spontaneous activity that Cassie loved was to play in the Polyfil Stuffing material!!! I spotted a whole bag of it in the basement and put it on our living room floor! It was instant Sensory Play and I told  C that she looked like she was on a cloud.

It quickly became inspiration for imaginary snow balls too! This girl was enjoying herself! Silly!!!

 Here is C relaxing on a cloud! She kept saying that it was so soft and silky! 

I tried to inspire cloud creations with the stuffing, but C had no interest in that! She so enjoyed rolling around and floating on her clouds!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC CARLE!!!

You've inspired some wonderful paintings and imaginary play!

My daughter's favorite stuffed toy for the past 6 months has been her Very Hungry Caterpillar!

This post is linked to:

READ. EXPLORE. LEARN.

No Time For Flashcards
Craft Schooling Sunday

So Easy Kaleidoscope!

We created a kaleidoscope out of a Pringles can! This great idea came over from a link that Jen from Paint Cut Paste suggested after her post on Creating A Kaleidoscope.  The link she suggested is on a site called MakingFriends.com and the link is here if you want their instructions. We don't usually have pringles, but saved the can for a school project that C had missed. Here is C looking through her newly made kaleidoscope!

 

Before constructing the kaleidoscope we had to decorate the outside of the can, so we sponged acrylic paint over the can with different colors! The acrylic paint worked well to cover the glossy can and it won't chip off like tempera paint might! You could decorate the can with scrap paper or stickers if you don't want to fuss with paint.

Here is the finished can.....very pretty! We also mixed up some glue and glitter to paint on to give it a glittery finish! We let the paint dry for the next steps.

Next we needed to make a small hole to look through on the metal side of the can. We used a hammer and nail to do this. I had to steady the can so C could do this.

Here is the hole so you can see how small it is. This is the hole you look through for the kaleidoscope.

You'll need some small pieces of cut up colorful tissue paper to glue on the plastic lid and for a piece of contact paper.

I mixed up some glitter, white glue, and a pinch of water so C could paint the pieces of tissue paper on to  the plastic pringles lid. We painted them on outside part of the lid.

Here is the finished lid part with tissue paper and our homemade glitter glue! Let this dry. This is the part you twist to make the kaleidoscope move.

Next, we used a piece of contact paper for the part that won't move on the kaleidoscope.  C put the small pieces of colorful tissue paper on the sticky side of the contact paper and I put another layer on top (no glue needed).

This shows the tissue paper in between the layers of contact paper. I took the pringles can and roughly traced around it because this part will be glued on the open end of the can. Now cut the circle out!

Put some glue on the edge of the opening. I used stronger craft glue.  I tried a glue gun and that did not work because you want the surface to be smooth so the lid can be turned. Let both parts dry before working the kaleidoscope!!!

Here is how the open end with the contact paper will look. You may want to trim the edges of the contact paper if it is hanging off the edge. This will allow the lid part to turn more easily. Let dry!

Now put the the lid on the end like this and your kaleidoscope is ready to go! The lid part is what you turn. So make sure it can turn easily or the contact paper may come off.

Here is C enjoying her kaleidoscope! She is not turning it here! I think she just likes looking through it without making it turn! Either way it was a fun process to create a simple kaleidoscope without mirrors! It looks pretty too!

What Do You Think?

More simple Kaleidoscope ideas:

How to Make a Kaleidoscope for Preschool

How to Make a Kaleidoscope for a Science Project

Recycled Kaleidoscopes from Mrs. Bearden's Art Room

This post is linked to:
Sunday Showcase
No Time For Flashcards
Craft Schooling Sunday
The Play Academy
Made By Little Hands Monday