I also took a break from Pinterest for a while, but I've found myself addicted again. And that means we've been doing more crafts and activities around here. I just wanted to share a few of them with you that we really enjoyed.
Celery Stamping (or Painting - which is what we did)
Found here on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/119978777542413166/
This idea seemed to be pinned a lot around Valentines day as people were suggesting making cards and Valentine's with the very pretty shape of the celery heart. I didn't have a big stamp pad on hand so I decided to use paint instead. The kids each picked their color of construction paper and two colors of paint (it's always more fun with options!).
The paint was thick so it made it a little harder to see the actual design of the celery stalk, but they still had fun with it. My son even informed me that he would "let me sell his painting in my shop!". He's so cute! He covered his page with the paint on his celery stamp so the design it was making became pretty moot!
I helped my daughter by turning a few of the spots where she had already stamped into a flower shape and that got her even more excited. She was using a tiny inside piece of the celery heart which was just the right size for her to hold onto at 22 months.
Handprint Goldfish
Found here on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/98305204335901407/
I'm thoroughly in love with all of the hand-print craft projects, and this is one I've had pinned for a while just waiting for us to get around to it! I just looked at the original pin and did our best to replicate it. We used a sheet of orange construction paper. I cut out the shape of the fish bowl on blue construction paper for my son to glue on to the page. He thought it felt funny painting the orange paint onto his hand, but he was still happy to get messy!
After gluing on some googly eyes and a handful of dried beans, he used the tip of the paintbrush dipped in white paint to make the bubbles. And no activity is complete now without learning how to write/spell something so I had him write 'fish' out across the top of the page.
He now has his fish proudly displayed on the front of our fridge. On a side note, if you ask him "What sound does a fish make?", my son always responds with "bubble, bubble, bubble". Which always gets a laugh from me! Did I mention he's so cute?!
Frog Craft with Retractable Tongue!
Found here on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/98305204335976722/
Looking over my Preschool board on Pinterest today I decided we'd make this little froggy. I knew we had the book "Frog's Lunch" and it was perfect to read after we finished making the frog.
I cut out the shape of the body (a circle folded in half), the legs, and eyes from green construction paper, and my son glued them all on to make the frog. Cardstock would be preferred, but we keep the construction paper on hand. The eyes could be made with construction paper as well, but we just used a black Sharpie to draw them in.
The instructions said to paint a popsicle stick red, but I bought a package of colored popsickle sticks to save this kind of step in countless other craft projects so all we had to do was go pick out the red one! It simply gets poked through the crease at the back of the "mouth" and then can be moved back and forth to simulate a frog's tongue.
My son used his new little frog to act out the frog catching the fly in the book, over and over! I started talking to him more about frogs and tadpoles, so we picked up a few books at the library today on the subject for him to learn more. It's so neat to see him get excited about learning new things!
I also picked up a book on lobsters today while we were at the library so this hand-print craft is next up on our to-do list:
Hope to have more for you soon!!
