Tag Archives: kids craft

May9

Pom Pom Rainbow

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A is into rainbows at the moment.IMG_9867

Sorting pom poms.

Sorting pom poms.

I got out our tray of pom poms, which contains many pom poms in various sizes and colours. A first sorted through them to find the pom poms she wanted to use, placing them in piles of like colours. She chose to use six colours in her rainbow, and to place it on clouds. The clouds are made of cotton balls as A thought they were fluffier, and more cloud-like than the white pom poms we had.

Placing a line of pom poms.

Placing a line of pom poms.

A asked me to place a line of craft glue on her paper in the shape of a rainbow. She carefully placed the pom poms onto the line of glue, one at a time, making an arch in one colour. Then she worked on the next colour, and the next until she had her rainbow complete. Placing the pom poms using her pincer grip was good for her fine motor skills.

Sticking on the clouds.

Sticking on the clouds.

Once all the pom poms were placed onto the paper, A put some glue at the bottom on each side of the rainbow. This is where she placed the cotton ball clouds. I thought it looked very good like this, but A decided that it needed some birds (some birds turned into a lot of birds!).

We have put this one up on our wall. It looks a little lonely at the moment, but we are planning to make some more rainbow pictures to go alongside it.

Rainbow picture with birds.

Rainbow picture with birds.

May6

Cardboard Roll Bunnies

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IMG_9557These cute little bunnies are made from toilet rolls, but any cardboard tubes could be used. We covered the rolls with white paper first. We glued the paper to the tubes, and folded the ends inside the tube for neatness.

Making bunny ears.

Making bunny ears.

Drawing on details.

Drawing on details.

Adding a tail.

Adding a tail.

 

 

 

 

I cut out some pink cardboard for the inner sections of the white paper ears, and L glued the cardboard to the paper. The kids glued two ears into the top of their cardboard roll. Then they got busy gluing on googly eyes and using markers to add the facial features and arms. L also drew a little carrot in the hands of her bunny, which A promptly copied onto her bunny too. L drew her bunny’s feet on, but A wanted to use a white pipe cleaner as feet for her bunny. I cut two small lengths of pipe cleaner, and bent them around to form little feet, then A glued the end of them into the base of her roll.

To finish the bunnies off, the kids glued a cotton ball onto the back of the cardboard roll as a tail. While we had the cotton balls out, L had an idea for making baby bunnies. She made some ears out of paper and markers, and glued them to a cotton ball. Then she added some tiny googly eyes. She gave this baby bunny to A to play with. They called this one Baby Hopsity, and the bigger bunnies were Father and Mother Hopsity.

Baby Hopsity.

Baby Hopsity.

Apr25

Cardboard Roll Chicks

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Gluing on the yellow paper.

Gluing on the yellow paper.

The roll covered in paper. The edges have been folded into the roll.

The roll covered in paper. The edges have been folded into the roll.

We used toilet paper rolls for these chicks, but rolls from paper towel or similar could have been cut in half to use instead. We covered the cardboard rolls in yellow paper so that the paper extended beyond the ends of the roll. We cut these sections just to the edge of the cardboard to create a fringe of paper at the ends of the roll.  Then we folded the excess paper fringe into the centre of the roll to make a neatly covered cardboard roll.

 

Adding feet.

Adding feet.

Adding eyes.

Adding eyes.

I cut out some feet shapes from orange cardboard and the kids added them to the base of their rolls. Each foot had a little tab of cardboard folded up and glued on the inside of the roll. L and A added googly eyes and the beaks were made from a small piece of pipe cleaner folded into a little triangle and glued onto the roll.

L cut down some yellow feathers to the size she wanted, and placed them on the sides of her chick for wings. She also glued a small piece of feather to the back as a tail. A cut up feathers to use on her chick too. She added wings, a tail, and some hair to her chick. Both chicks are really cute.

The back of L's chick.

The back of L’s chick.

Showing the placement of feathers on A's chick.

Showing the placement of feathers on A’s chick.

 

 

Apr25

Sand in a Bottle

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IMG_9460I had been sourcing supplies to try layering coloured sand in bottles, when I saw this kit advertised in the Scholastic Book Club (Australia). It was a good opportunity for the kids to try this craft activity on a small scale. The kit came with small bags of coloured sand, plastic bottles and stoppers, a little funnel and a styling stick. The sand was purple, orange, blue, pink and yellow.

Some of the bags of sand.

Some of the bags of sand.

Pouring sand.

Pouring sand.

Each of the kids picked a bottle and got started. Surprisingly we had very few spills of sand, and the kids were very careful pouring it into the funnel. They even took turns using the funnel to pour sand into their bottles. It was nice to see them sharing.

L's bottle.

L’s bottle.

A’s first bottle was very tall and skinny, so it didn’t take much sand to make thick layers. L made her layers reasonably flat, while A liked her layers to be angled. They were unable to use the styling stick on these bottles, as the shape of them prevented the stick getting to the edge to push the sand down.

Using the styling stick.

Using the styling stick.

A's second bottle.

A’s second bottle.

A filled another bottle and we were able to use the styling stick in this one as the sides were straight and flat. A would pour a few layers, and then scrape the stick down the inside to push some of the sand down through the layers, forming unique variations in the layers. This looked really good.

Once the bottles were filled, we placed a stopper in the top to prevent the sand escaping. The sand settled a little too. Then they were ready to be displayed.

This was a fun activity, and the kids really liked it. The only disappointing thing was that the plastic of the bottles wasn’t as clear as glass would have been. As we poured the sand into the bottle some coloured dust stuck to the inside of the bottles dulling the colours a bit. This was a fairly minor issue though, and it didn’t detract from the fun of filling the bottles with sand.

I would like to try this activity again using glass bottles and other colours of sand. The layers of sand in the bottles look fantastic displayed on our shelf.

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Apr5

Wooden Beads

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The pile of wooden beads.

The pile of wooden beads.

A found a little box of wooden beads and laces while we were tidying up her room. She asked to do some beading with them today.

Sorting the beads.

Sorting the beads.

She tipped them out into a pile, and then sorted them by colour. There was also a few bigger beads with flowers on them, and A placed all of these ones together. Once she had them in separate piles, I gave her some little cardboard labels on which I had written the French words for the colours. She read each one, and then put the label next to the correct pile.

Sorted beads with French labels.

Sorted beads with French labels.

A placed the beads onto the laces, making patterns with the colours. Once she was happy with her string of beads, we hung them up in her room.

Bead pattern.

Bead pattern.

Apr4

Paper Plate Rabbit

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A made a paper plate rabbit today. It has paper ears, a button for a nose, googly eyes, a pipe cleaner mouth and little pom pom teeth.

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Adding a button nose.

Adding a button nose.

I cut out the ears for A, and she glued them together. Once she had glued the ears to the top of the paper plate, they were a bit floppy, so we added a couple of popsticks behind the ears to keep them upright. A glued down the nose, eyes, mouth and teeth, and then left it to dry.

Adding popsticks to keep the ears up.

Adding popsticks to keep the ears up.

We used the hole punch to put a hole in the plate between the ears and added some string so that it could be hung up in her room. This was pretty simple and quick, and A is very happy with her rabbit.

Apr4

Backyard Teepee

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IMG_8907Our simple teepee is just the right size for one child. L has been using it for some quiet time by herself, where she can read and eat a snack in peace.

IMG_8900We used a small plastic hoop (I think it was 50cm in diameter) at the top of the teepee. To this we attached a plastic shower curtain using plastic shower curtain rings. Last time I actually had a shower curtain the rings clipped together once they went through the curtain and around the curtain rod. These curtain rings didn’t clip, and the shower curtain kept popping off them. To solve this we taped the opening of the ring shut. I overlapped the shower curtain, placing the last ring through the first and last holes to  stop it from moving around the hoop so much.

At the base, we used a larger plastic hoop (this one was 75cm in diameter). L helped me to punch holes around the bottom edge of the shower curtain with the hole punch. Then we used the rest of the shower curtain rings to attach the bottom of the curtain to the bigger hoop, and taped up the gaps.

Placing the curtain rings.

Placing the curtain rings.

Punching holes in the shower curtain.

Punching holes in the shower curtain.

I tied the small hoop onto the branch of one of our trees, to hang at about the right height for the big hoop to rest on the ground, but without the curtain billowing out too much. We didn’t have enough rope, so I used some poly string as a temporary tie until I can get some more. We added a soft-fall mat under the teepee so that the kids didn’t have to sit on the ground while they were using the teepee.

The kids are very happy with this little teepee, and they have both been playing in it. A took some toys out and had a little tea party, while L has mostly been using it as a reading spot.

Apr2

Yarn Dolls

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I remembered making yarn dolls when I was a child, and I wanted to try it with the girls.

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Wrapping the yarn around the cardboard.

Wrapping the yarn around the cardboard.

First I cut some sturdy cardboard up into two rectangles to use to wrap the yarn around to make the body of the doll. I started each child off by winding the yarn around a few times, and then they continued to wind it until it was as thick as they wanted it to be. Once that was done, I helped them remove the hank of yarn from the cardboard. From this yarn we would make the head, body and legs of the doll.

 

 

Tying yarn around the body to form the head.

Tying yarn around the body to form the head.

The body with hair, head, body and legs.

The body with hair, head, body and legs.

L cut a few pieces of yarn off the ball to use to tie around the hank of yarn to differentiate the hair from the head, and the head from the body and the body from the legs. L tied her knots, but A had difficulty, and asked me to help her do this part. Once the yarn was tied around the body at the top of the legs, we split the yarn beneath this into two roughly equal parts, forming the legs. A small section at the base was also tied off to form feet.

Arms ready to be added to the body.

Arms ready to be added to the body.

To make the arms, the kids wrapped some more yarn around their cardboard, but this time, around the shorter sides of the rectangle. This hank of yarn was also not as thick as that of the body. Once we had removed this yarn from the cardboard, a small section on each end was tied off to form the hands.

We carefully threaded the arms through the body of the doll, and secured the arms in place using another piece of yarn wrapped around the doll’s chest in a criss-cross under the arms and around the back. We snipped off all the loose threads from our knots, and then the dolls were done. L left her doll just as it was, but A added some tiny googly eyes to her doll, but not other facial features.

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Mar31

Pom Pom Bunnies and Chicks

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IMG_8836When we went into Riot Art & Craft last week they had a large display of Easter crafts, including some little craft kits. Each of the kids picked out a pom pom critter kit to make at home. L chose mini chicks and bunnies, and A chose some chicks.

IMG_8818IMG_8819There were some instructions on the back of the pack, but it would have been possible to complete the pom pom critters from the picture alone, given what was in each kit. We had to cut up some of the pipe cleaners to the right length, but otherwise everything was ready to go.

 

Adding the chick's bunny ears headband.

Adding the chick’s bunny ears headband.

L got started on hers straight away, getting the beak and little puffy cheeks onto her chicks. A asked that I help her with the glue, and making the pipe cleaners into the right shapes. Once I’d placed the glue, she put the pieces together carefully.

One of L’s mini bunnies experienced a small accident which left its face elongated, so L started calling it the ele-bunny. I think she just damaged the pom pom, making it a weird shape.

L's mini bunnies and mini chicks.

L’s mini bunnies and mini chicks.

It was a fun way to pass an hour or so, and once the pom pom critters dried, the kids had great fun playing with them. A even took her chicks to bed with her and cuddled them to sleep.

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Mar31

Bunny Ears

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A as a cute little bunny.

A as a cute little bunny.

After the bunny cake was all eaten last week, I was left with the felt and foam ears. We decided to put them to good use making some bunny ear headbands for the kids to wear.

White felt ears.

White felt ears.

We had to make another set of ears for the second headband. L glued the pink foam onto the white felt to make the ears, and then we left them to dry.

Bunny ears ready for gluing.

Bunny ears ready for gluing.

I cut some strips of cardboard and stapled them together to the right size for the kids’ heads. Then the kids glued their ears onto the cardboard band. They placed the base of the ears behind the cardboard at the front of the headband so that the pink foam sections were lined up against the cardboard.

Sticking the ears to the headband.

Sticking the ears to the headband.

Once the headbands were completely dry, the kids placed them on their heads and hopped all around the house just like rabbits.

L being a mischievous little bunny.

L being a mischievous little bunny.