Author Archives: TodayWeDid

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About TodayWeDid

I spend my time sharing my love of reading, arts and crafts with my four children. I also review children's and YA books.
Mar21

Cupcake Monsters

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With some frosting, lollies and fudge writing gel, we turned our plain vanilla cupcakes into monster treats. Big L cooked the cupcakes for us and then we decorated them as a family. It was lots of fun, and we ended up with some awesome cupcakes!

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The kids enjoyed spreading the frosting onto each cupcake, though A kept leaning through the work area, and ended up with three shades of frosting all over her. She even tried licking some of it off her elbow!

Spreading the frosting.

Spreading the frosting.

Adding mini marshmallows.

Adding mini marshmallows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the frosting was completed we used a range of lollies, including some strawberry jellies, mini m&ms, yoghurt buttons and mini marshmallows, and some writing fudge, to create our monsters. L used some frosting to stick mini marshmallows together to create long horns. Big L made a Cookie Monster cupcake, complete with mini cookie in his mouth. A just liked using lots of m&ms and marshmallows (and eating them when she thought we weren’t watching!). I used the writing fudge to add pupils to my monsters’ eyes.

Big L's attempt at making Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

Big L’s attempt at making Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

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Mar17

Monster Paintings

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The hand-print monsters worked so well, I thought we would have a go at painting monsters. And if it involves paint, A is always keen!

A's monster.

A’s monster.

A started by painting a monster with lots of legs and arms, and then she told me she was going to paint a mermaid monster, but then she changed her mind, and painted a pink, blue, green and purple blob. When it was dry, she turned this blob into a monster using markers, paper cut-out teeth and eyes. She even added a heart on the monster’s chest. She also used markers on her first painting to add details such as eyelashes, pupils and a tongue.

A's monster.

A’s blob monster.

We made some squish paintings to use for creating more paint monsters using markers after they were dry.

L made a magical cat monster with blue and yellow magic all around it, and a large green tail. There was a monster with one eye in its bottom, and lots and lots of brains all over its body. According to L, this monster also has the ability to shoot brains from its sides to defeat its enemies. Her third monster was a hypnotising monster, with swirls for eyes and nose and green spiky horns and swirly arms.  If you look at this monster for too long you would come under it’s control, and you would have to do anything that it wanted you to. L has a very good imagination!

L's magical cat monster.

L’s magical cat monster.

L's brain monster.

L’s brain monster.

L's flying monster.

L’s hypnotising monster.

Mar16

Paint Bellows and Sprinkle Painting

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We like to experiment with different types of painting. Today we tried using paint bellows and a screen with a toothbrush to create some rainbow paintings.

Paint bellows.

Paint bellows.

We used canvases for this, and as it had the potential to be quite messy, we decided to paint outside with art smocks on. This was a very good choice, given how much paint the kids managed to get on themselves despite the smocks!

Using the paint bellows.

Using the paint bellows.

A used the paint bellows on her canvas. We only have three, so she used three colours at a time, and then I washed them out, and she used three different colours. She had a little trouble drawing the paint into the bellows, but she really enjoyed blowing the paint out onto the canvas. It made lots of sprays of colours with some larger blobs of paint. She continued using different colours until she had a nice rainbow of colour right across the canvas.

A's paint bellows canvas.

A’s paint bellows canvas.

Close up of the bellows painting.

Close up of the bellows painting.

Using the screen and toothbrush.

Using the screen and toothbrush.

L used the screen and toothbrush on her canvas to create a sprinkle painting. She used one colour at a time because the screen was very small. She put some paint onto the brush and rubbed it across the screen, whilst holding the screen fairly close to the canvas, but not touching it. This produced a fine mist of paint directed onto the canvas. She washed and dried the screen and brush between colours, and continued using paint until her canvas was covered by rainbow mist.

L's sprinkle painting.

L’s sprinkle painting.

Close-up of the sprinkle painting.

Close-up of the sprinkle painting.

The screen and toothbrush produced a much finer droplet pattern than the paint bellows, but both methods created pleasing paintings.

Mar16

Hand-print Monsters

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Two hand print monsters.

Two hand print monsters.

Paint hand prints.

Paint hand prints.

 

 

 

 

 

A was more than happy to paint her hands to make hand prints for this activity! She made some paint hand prints on some white paper, and we put these aside to dry. She also added some fingerprints to one of the paintings. Another of her hand print paintings was pretty messy, as she placed her palm on the paper over and over again, but it was still useful for making monsters out of.

Painting her hand for the prints.

Painting her hand for the prints.

Creating a blue hand print.

Creating a blue hand print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the paint had dried, we used markers to create monsters from the hand prints. A used one of her paintings with the hand prints upside down, using the fingers for monster legs. She gave each leg some claws, and each monster a head and spikes. These are very happy monsters.

L didn’t do the painting with us, but A let L use the messy hand print painting to make a monster out of too. L enjoyed drawing her monsters. Her green monster has eyes on each one of it’s spiked tentacles, and a really big bottom, while its pink friend is a one-eyed blob monster.

L's monster drawing using A's messy hand print painting.

L’s monster drawing using A’s messy hand print painting.

Two hand print monster with fingerprint eyes.

Two hand print monster with fingerprint eyes.

 

Mar16

Foam Monsters

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Foam sheets are easy and fun to make craft with. They are easy to cut to your desired shape, and they glue together well. We used some foam to make monsters. I cut out the base shapes and let the kids decorate them as they pleased.

A's monster and flower.

A’s monster and flower.

Adding rhinestones.

Adding rhinestones.

A used plenty of glitter glue to stick on some legs and arms, and lots of rhinestones. She also gave her monster two large eyes and one tiny eye. After A made her monster, she also asked me to cut out a flower for her to decorate using rhinestones and glitter glue.

L's monsters.

L’s monsters.

L made up a monster similar to A’s, using different coloured foam. She gave her monster a tail and some feet, and glitter glue for eyebrows and mouth. She cut up some scraps of foam into tiny pieces and spread them onto some craft glue to form a spiky looking beard and spiky hair for her monster. L made a second monster of her own design, cutting the orange foam into a ghost-like shape, and adding eyes, rhinestones and glitter glue for its features. I liked these monsters so much that L gave them to me to put up on my bedroom door.

Adding legs to her monster.

Adding legs to her monster.

Decorated flower head.

Decorated flower head.

Mar15

Paper Bag Monster Puppets

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Brown paper lunch bags have many uses, and just one of these is making puppets. The most important thing to do before decorating the bag, is to make sure that the opening of the bag is at the bottom, so one’s hand can be placed inside the bag, and the puppet is up the right way!

A's monster puppet.

A’s monster puppet.

L's monster puppet.

L’s monster puppet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I brought out a range of collage materials for the kids to use in making their puppets, and let them decide what to use and how their puppets would look.

Gluing on eyes and nostrils.

Gluing on eyes and nostrils.

A glued on some muffin cases with blue paper circles in them for eyes, and then she covered most of the bag with feathers. Her’s is a feathery monster, and the little pompoms around the eyes are actually nostrils. Somewhere, buried in the feathers, is a white ribbon mouth too, and some gold ribbon for legs and arms.

Adding feathers.

Adding feathers.

 

 

L also used some muffin cases for eyes, but she used her’s upside down with a pipe cleaner through them, and attached the piper cleaner to the bag using staples. Another piper cleaner was turned into teeth in a paper mouth, and her monster had some feathers for arms.

These monster puppets were fun to create, and now they are fun to play with!

Upside down muffin cases as eyes.

Upside down muffin cases as eyes.

 

Mar15

Pom Pom Monsters

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I put out a tray of pom poms, a tub of googly eyes and some glue, and let the kids’ imaginations go wild making monsters.

I thought these were arms, but A told me they are monster ears.

I thought these were arms, but A told me they are monster ears.

L made a very elaborate monster using lots of pom poms. She did all the gluing and construction herself, while A needed some help with the glue. L managed to stick one of the pom poms to her finger, and another to the table though, so perhaps she also would have benefited from some help with the glue!

L's monster nurse.

L’s monster nurse.

When L had finished her monster, I asked about her monster’s head. I though the white pom pom with small red pompoms between its black horns, was its brain outside its body. I couldn’t have been more wrong, it is actually a nurse’s hat, as her monster is a monster nurse.

One-eyed worm monster.

One-eyed worm monster.

A’s first monster had two big fat legs, a head, and big ears. She gave it one big eye on the middle of its head. Her second monster also had only one big eye, so to make up for this, her third monster was covered in eyes. It even has an eye on each of its four legs, and eyes able to look in every directions around its body. A named this last monster ’20 Eyes’.

20 Eyes the monster. There are more eyes on the other side too.

20 Eyes the monster. There are more eyes on the other side too.

Mar15

Harry the Poisonous Centipede by Lynne Reid Banks

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IMG_8239Harry the Poisonous Centipede by Lynne Reid Banks and illustrated by Tony Ross, paperback, 159 pages, first published in 1996 by Collins, this edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2012.

Harry is a young poisonous centipede, whose name is actually Hxzltl, but since Centipedish has no vowels, it is much too hard for humans (Hoo-mins in Harry’s world) to say. Harry lives underground in damp tunnels with his mother, Belinda, and he spends his time playing with his best friend George, another young poisonous centipede. George is known for his reckless and adventurous nature, often pulling Harry into his escapades.

Belinda strictly forbids Harry to play near or go up the up-pipe, as that is where the Hoo-mins are and they are very, very dangerous. Of course, this doesn’t deter George at all, he actually wants to see a Hoo-min for himself. And as usual, his bravado sways Harry into tagging along for the ride. In an emergency, Belinda tells the young centis to climb the up-pipe to save themselves, and Harry and George have a frightening, but exhilarating adventure in the world of the Hoo-mins.

This was an enjoyable tale that I wanted to read to the end to find out what happened to Harry and George. It is written in a pleasing way, and interspersed with some black and white illustrations. At the end of the story there is some extra bug related content, including some centipede facts, activities and a quiz. It is suitable for lower to middle primary school children to read themselves, but my preschooler liked it too.

Feb15

The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

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IMG_8258The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, paperback, 121 pages, published by The Blue Sky Press/Scholastic Inc. in 1997.

Harold and George are two rather mischievous and naughty boys. They like to play pranks on their fellow students, and their teachers, clown around in class, and just generally be pretty silly. They also write their own comic books together, creating various super heroes and villains, with Captain Underpants being their best loved hero. They sell their home-made comics to other kids at school.

The very mean and grumpy principal of Harold and George’s school has been trying to catch them playing their pranks for years, and finally he gets them on video destroying an important football match. He uses this tape to blackmail the boys into being his personal slaves. The boys have an idea to escape their slavery involving a hypnotic ring , but things don’t go quite the way they imagined when the principal believes himself to be Captain Underpants, and wants to go and save the day.

This book is the first in a series of Captain Underpants adventures. It was pretty silly, but still entertaining. My seven year old and all her friends love reading Captain Underpants’ adventures, again and again. Toilet humour is big with the kids at the moment, and this book really caters to that obsession. This is an easy read great for early primary school children with funny black and white illustrations throughout. With short chapters and text broken up with plenty of pictures, this book would be good for reluctant readers too. There is also a ‘flip-o-rama’ section, where one is instructed to flip the page back and forth to animate some of the pictures, which was fun. Overall, not a literary classic, but good as a light and amusing read for kids.

Feb15

Spot Goes to School by Eric Hill

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IMG_8247Spot Goes to School by Eric Hill, paperback lift-the-flap book, first published in 1984 by William Heinemann Ltd, this edition was published by Puffin Books in 2013.

This was the very first Spot book I can ever remember reading, and there was a lovely feeling of nostalgia when I first read it to my own children. I think every child likes Spot books. Lift-the-flap books are lots of fun, and Spot and his friends are quite lovable.

In this Spot adventure, he is off to school for the first time. All his friends are there, and they sing, and play and build and paint. It’s so much fun Spot doesn’t want to go home.

Great for young children, from about two years, this book was also enjoyed by my seven year old. The lure of lift-the-flaps is high, and I had to make the kids take turns, but the flaps add some extra fun to the story. The illustrations are big and bright, yet simple. The text is also large with simple language, good for children beginning to read. Spot is a firm favourite for us.