So what are you doing for National Crayon Day today? 😉
I have loved crayons ever since I was a little girl! And now there are more colors and kinds of crayons than ever before! Like Metallic and Neon…
Or Colors of Kindness…
Confetti…
Glitter…
Pastel…
Pearl…
Uni-crayons…
Cosmic…
And who can resist a big box of 96 crayons?! Wow! 🙂
So whatever crayon colors or styles you like, I hope you’ll get out some crayons today and have some fun coloring! 🙂
Today is the last day of February! Who is ready for Spring?! 🙂 To celebrate that winter will (hopefully) be leaving us soon, we made a melting snowman!
You will need some shaving cream (I used Barbasol), some Elmer’s glue, 2 big wiggly eyes, a piece of cardstock (a darker color shows up the best), some brown or black pipe cleaners, 3 small black pom poms or buttons and some colored paper. (You can make the snowman parts all out of colored paper if you’d like to.) You will need a bowl and spoon for mixing and a disposable bowl and spoon works best for easy cleanup.
Mix 1/2 Cup of shaving cream and 1/8 Cup of Elmer’s glue in the disposable bowl.
I suggest you wash your measuring cups right away to prevent the glue from drying in them. After you’ve mixed the shaving cream and glue together, spoon it out onto your piece of cardstock.
Spread the mixture using the back of the spoon until you have the shape you want for your melted snowman.
I cut 2 brown pipe cleaners in half and wrapped one half-piece around another to make some stick arms for the snowman. You can also cut some arms out of paper instead.
Stick the arms onto the melted snowman. I started out with my arms too high and I moved them down a little farther.
Add 2 wiggly eyes, some black pom poms or buttons and an orange carrot nose and a black hat cut from paper.
I cut a thin squiggly line from black paper for the snowman’s mouth.
Allow your snowman to dry for a couple of hours. It will still be puffy and soft to the touch but not sticky. And there you are! The last of the snowmen have melted on this last day of February! (Keeping my fingers crossed that we are done with snow, but we might not get that lucky!) 🙂
Yesterday it was raining and storming and so gloomy and today it’s cold and snowing! I think we all need something to cheer us up, so let’s make some flowers!
This project calls for some cardstock or regular paper, some sticker note flags, a large button for each flower and some glue.
The sticker note flags that I’m using I found at a Dollar Tree store, but you can likely find some in the stationery section of any big box store or an office supply store.
Only the pointed tip of these flags is sticky, but it’s not necessary to glue down the rest of the flag because they will be glued in place later all at one time. Pick the color of flags that you would like your flower to be. I went with yellow for my first flower. (Note: While I used colored paper, the flowers will show up brighter on white paper.)
Begin by placing the flags in a circle with the points facing out. These will be the petals of the flower. Overlap the square ends of the flags in the center.
Keep placing the flags until you’ve made a complete circle. It doesn’t matter that the center looks a bit messy because it will be covered up.
Glue a large button in the center and your first flower is complete! Feel free to decorate the rest of the paper as you like.
My second flower was made using blue flags on red paper. This time I laid the flags out opposite each other and they look lined up a little better on this flower.
I glued a yellow button in the center of this flower.
One more little trick you might want to try is to add another layer of flower petals before gluing on the button. I like using a different color of flags and trimming a little bit off the square end to make them fit on the flower.
And then add the button. 🙂
Your flowers could be hung up and enjoyed by the whole family or you could turn them into a card to share with someone special. I hope you’ll have fun making some colorful flowers and brightening your part of the world. 🙂
I made a stop at a Dollar Tree store a couple days ago and I found some cute finger puppet craft kits. The store I was in had 3 different sets.
Monsters…
Medieval…
And animals.
I bought the animal one and thought I would share it with you today. 🙂
This is what you will find inside the package:
The 3 colored squares of felt actually have shapes cut into them that you will need to punch out. Have a pair of scissors handy for any pieces that might need a little help getting free.
You are now ready to start making your puppets! You will need your own glue. I suggest you lay all the pieces together for each puppet before you start gluing the pieces on. These little guys are pretty cute!
Mouse
Dog. The picture on the package shows curling the dogs ears down in front but I didn’t actually glue these puppets together because I wanted to pass this set on to some kids. So my dog’s ears are straight up. 🙂
Bee. This one is so cute!
Tiger
And last, but not least, an adorable owl!
Each kit costs $1.25 (plus tax) and makes 5 puppets. Not bad, eh?
I found these in the Valentine’s Day section of the store. I hope you can find some near you! The kids will be putting on a puppet show before you know it! 🙂
Have you been saving up those paper towel and toilet paper rolls and wondering what crafts your kids can use them for? Here’s a fun one that girls will like maybe more than boys, but boys can have fun with it too. Let’s make some funny heads with hair you can fix into different hairstyles. 🙂 You will need a toilet paper roll, a single hole punch, yarn, some markers and a pair of scissors.
Start off using the hole punch to make holes all around one end of the paper tube.
Leave a little space from the end of the tube. If you get the holes too close to the end, the holes will tear out easily. (I found out the hard way.)
Cut 1 piece of yarn at least 12″ long for each hole. I had 17 holes on my tube. You can do just 1 piece of yarn per hole, which is how I started out, but I went back and put 2 pieces of yarn in each hole and I like it better with 2.
Take a piece of yarn and fold it in half.
Slide the loop through 1 hole. It doesn’t matter if you start on the inside or the outside of the tube. It will work fine either way.
Pull the loop partway through the hole and then push the ends of the piece of yarn through the loop.
Pull on the ends until the loop part touches back to the paper tube. Pull it gently snug but not hard enough that the paper rips.
Continue adding 1 or 2 pieces of yarn in the same manner to each hole.
It will look something like this when you have put yarn in each hole.
Draw a face on the side of the paper roll.
Now you are ready to start styling your character’s hair! Like tying another piece of yarn around the hair to make a ponytail.
Or a side ponytail…
Or maybe try a braid.
In the next 3 pictures, the character has 2 pieces of yarn per hole. I like it because there is more hair to work with.
Swept to one side…
For this last picture, I twisted the hair together and stuffed some of it down inside the paper tube. 🙂
I’m sure your little hairdressers will come up with ideas of their own. 😉 Some barrettes or clips would add to the fun. I hope this will bring some fun to your day!
Hello, again and Happy Monday! Today I want to share an inexpensive Halloween craft with you that I found at Walmart. (I know, it’s still September, but the stores are FULL of Halloween stuff!) This package comes with 6 sets of a foam craft for only $1.98! When 6 kids can do a craft for $2, I think that’s a bargain!
Here’s what comes inside the package…
And these are the 6 Halloween characters you can make.
I made the Jack O’Lantern. The foam pieces are partially cut and they have adhesive on the back of them. I found it a bit difficult to punch the pieces completely out because the paper backing isn’t cut through all the way. But never fear! There is a simple way around that problem!
Use a piece of paper for the kids to stick the pieces on and just pull the foam pieces off the backing like you would do with a regular sticker. Don’t worry about punching each piece out because it isn’t necessary.
Use a different color of paper than the color the largest part of the character is so it will show up nicely.
Continue applying the stickers to make your character. The wiggly eyes do not have the adhesive backing so you will need some glue to apply those.
And the Jack O’Lantern is complete! 🙂 The tiny holes on the word “Boo” were a little tricky to get the extra pieces punched out, but using a toothpick helped.
You could use the picture as it is or turn it into a Halloween card. Have fun creating your 6 Halloween characters! 🙂
There are times when you need something quiet to entertain your children. Perhaps when you go to a funeral or church or the doctor’s office, etc, it’s nice if the kids can do something quiet. If you have a notebook handy, you can make a quiet learning book fairly easily. The quiet book can, of course, be tailored to your child’s age.
Here are a few suggestions for pages you can make for your child to do.
1.) Match the capital letters. Have your child draw a line between the letters that are the same. The size of the notebook you have will determine how many letters you can fit on a page. You can do a few letters or the entire alphabet.
2.) Match the numbers.
3.) Draw lines to match the simple shapes.
4.) Match the capital letters with the lower case letters.
5.) Draw a line between the matching stickers.
6.) Draw a line between the stickers that are the same TYPE of thing. For example, the 2 kittens, even though the stickers are not of the same kitten.
7.) Draw lines to connect the matching words.
8.) Draw lines to match the colors.
9.) Draw the same picture on the bottom of the page.
10.) Draw the same shape beside each shape on the left.
11.) Draw another caterpillar like this one.
You’ve got the idea now and I’m sure you will think of other pages to make that your child will enjoy doing. There’s no reason that a quiet time can’t also be a time of reinforcing some learning! 🙂
Have you tried the Crayola Confetti Crayons yet? They really are quite fun! I found them at a Walmart store. I would say they are an inexpensive box of fun!
As you can see from the writing on the box, there are 24 crayons included. The box also says “Bursting bits of color! Each Crayola Confetti Crayon has specks of color inside for surprising streaks and a party in every crayon!”
The crayons have some pretty awesome names too! Like party fish…
Or meteor shower or new year’s eve or rain drops… It’s fun just reading the name on each crayon!
Take a look at all the crayons that look mostly white.
Buuuut….surprise!! Look what it looks like when you start coloring with them!
Pretty cool, right?! Coloring is so much fun because you don’t know when a streak will show up or what color the streak might be! 🙂 Can you see the colorful streaks in this picture?
Let’s look a little closer…look at the colors in this bird.
You can see the streaks in the girl’s skate and in the green bush and the colorful flowers.
The colors look much better in person, of course! 😉 Crayola Confetti Crayons are a lot of fun in one small box! 🙂
Have you ever checked out Kinetic Sand? I tried it for the first time the other day and it’s great fun! You can buy small containers fairly cheaply and the fun lasts for hours!
The one I picked up had 4 different colors inside. Pretty cool, right?
I taped a piece of parchment paper to our table before I started. I was able to separate the colors for the most part with a little bit of the colors mixing together.
This sand feels pretty cool and “smooshie”. It holds together much better than regular sand and it doesn’t stick to your hands. You can flatten it.
You can use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes.
You can roll it into little balls…
Or roll it into larger balls.
You can make snakes…
I used a toothpick to give the snakes eyes.
You can make flowers.
Or pretend to make peanut butter cookies by rolling little balls…
Using a fork to press a mark into the top…
And then crisscross a mark in the other direction.
If you want to hold the sand in your hand, it will crumble up nicely like regular sand does.
You can pack the kinetic sand into a cookie cutter…
And gently push it out of the cookie cutter and you’ll have a 3-D shape.
I’m guessing there are a lot of other things you can think of to do with kinetic sand so be sure you give it a try! 😃
Hi there! Welcome to a new week of fun things for kids to do! Today I want to show you a way for kids to draw a cool tree.
All you need is a piece of paper and a brown crayon and several different shades of green crayons. You might want to start out with a smallish sized piece of paper, say, around 6″ x 9″. A full sheet of paper for this tree could take quite a while to finish and therefore lose your child’s attention.
Grab your paper and your brown crayon and here we go! Start by drawing the outline of a tree with a few main branches.
Color the tree trunk and branches with your brown crayon.
Add a few branches to each of the main large branches on your tree.
Then add a few more smaller branches to the medium sized branches you just drew. It’s fine if your branches overlap each other.
Switch to a green crayon. Color small little patches all over the tree branches. Don’t cover the entire tree because you will switch and use a few more shades of green to fill up your tree with leaves.
Switch to the second shade of green crayon and make some more small patches of green.
Continue adding small patches using as many shades of green crayons you have. Green color number 3…
Green color number 4…
And number 5… If you don’t have 5 different colors of green, just use as many different greens as you have. Continue making leaves until your tree is as full as you would like it to be.
Your tree can be finished now or you can add a few more details. Maybe you would like to lightly add some different shades of brown to your tree trunk and branches. Or maybe you would like a hole in your tree trunk for some animals to nest in. Some green grass around the bottom of the tree would be great.
Using a red crayon, you could add some tiny little red circles to your tree for apples. 🙂
And your tree looks wonderful! Great job! Remember, all the gazillions of trees in the world and none of them look exactly like another. 😉 Your tree is unique and is as wonderful as you are! 🙂 Have fun and maybe draw a whole forest of trees! 😉
The Kids Niche 