Stuffed Dinosaur Softie - Preschool Craft

Stuffed Dinosaur Craft for toddlers and preschoolers

I'll try to make this as quick and easy as possible. This craft was easy, but it does take some work on your part ahead of time. You don't have to sew these. You could use the pattern to make a paper craft, and you can even stuff them by hot gluing the edges or stapling them and stuffing polyfil or paper in your dino. I make dolls for fun, so I didn't mind sewing this up, and it took less than ten minutes to sew six of them so don't fret! Print out the pattern piece, cut out, trace on your doubled fabric and sew on traced lines. Then cut it out 1/4 inch from sewing line, clip corners, and turn. (When sewing, leave a one inch slit between the legs on the belly open for turning and stuffing.) Stuff it as firm as you want (my toddlers got bored pretty fast with stuffing so ours are a little limp). I used hot glue to sew the opening closed, but you can sew it if you aren't as lazy as me!!! I let the kiddos decide colors and decorations so every dino was different and adorable. We used craft glue to attach our FELT decorations. I used hot glue on their eyes after they glued them with the craft glue (because I wanted to make sure they were stuff on there.) Obviously, buttons can be a choking hazard and are not recommended for young children . . . blah blah blah - you know the drill.

Shape-o-saurus - Preschool Dinosaur Craft

Well, first of all, I didn't have time to take a picture of the craft from yesterday because I was doing another observation for school, BUT they did a cute little dinosaur headband that is very simple. We just cut out bright green strips, added a strip of triangle shaped teeth, two white oval eyes and black circles in those . . . voila - dino headband. Oh, to make it, you staple the strips together and glue the pieces on. Tape over the staples for safety.

For our SHAPE-O-SAURUS (which is mighty cute), we cute out two squares, one oval, one circle, one rectangle and a tail shape from bright green paper. Next, we cut out yellow triangles. I did this myself because we aren't ready for scissors just yet. I punched out a black eye and lots of darker green dots/circles for the body. Then we started glueing. They all looked different. Some were holding their heads down looking for food while others were looking for friends. Some had more spikes than others . . . that's what I love about crafts because even if they are organized, everyone can express themselves differently. To finish off, you can simple draw on a mouth and draw a straight line down the square legs with a black marker and draw on toes. Be sure to talk about the shapes before and during this project.

Today, we also did a dino match worksheet. If I could figure out how to attach pdf files, it would be nice, but I am still technologically challenged. I create my own worksheets most of the time. I used graphics from pccrafter.com and created a simple matching sheet for them.

DINOSAUR WEEK

Centers:

Math center - counting dinosaurs and dinosaur math mats

Sensory table - dinosaur puzzles (printed, laminated, and cut out by me) hidden in sand

Dinosaur match - same concept but two of each dinosaur hidden in the sand

Blocks - large dinosaurs added

Art - misc. dino coloring sheets

Playdoh - dinosaurs added to make fossils by pressing dinos into it

Dramatic play - dinosaur cave and foot prints

Literacy - Dinosaurs with names for ghost tracing

Teacher table - dinosaur match file folder game, dino shape match, dino colors (depends on level), dino scissor skills, dino writing skills, dinosaur match worksheet

Big Mouth - Tooth stamping - Dental Health Week

Another really easy craft for dental health week. Cut out a large mouth shape from black construction paper. Use a square stamp (or to make one, cut a square from a sponge and hot glue it to a clothespin) and white paint to make the teeth. Sooooo simple, but they enjoyed it. You might also have one already made up so they can see the teeth, and some extra paper because they love to continue stamping when they are done with this!

Tooth Pocket Poem - Dental Health Week

I didn't take a picture of this one because they wouldn't put them down long enough for me, but it's a simple craft and lots of fun. I printed this saying on a piece of colored paper at the bottom:

Three little teeth were lined up in a row. Others were on top, but these were below.

One little tooth had some brushing to do. He fell out and then there were two.

One little tooth wanted tooth fairy fun. He fell out and then there was one.

One little tooth bit an apple core. Now there are no more!

Above that saying, I put little black paper pockets approx. 2 x 3 inches. To glue them on, just put a thin line of glue around three sides leaving the top open and attach them to the paper (I did this in advance). Cut out small teeth from white paper about 2 inches wide (3 for each child). With the kids, I let them choose their background paper color, and we glued our printed paper to it. Then, we went over the pocket poem, and they got to pull them in and out of the pockets while I read it.

TOOTH BRUSH CRAFT - PUFFY PAINT

I'm not going to lie . . . . dental health week isn't as much fun as a lot of others, BUT it is important for them. I was happy to hear a good report this morning when one of the parents said "Oh, now I understand why she has been letting me brush her teeth without a fight. You guys are talking about it here."

Well, this is probably the favorite craft of the week so I'll get to it. You just cut out a simple toothbrush shape (long rectangle with rounded ends). Use any color. For the "brush", cut a small white rectangle and make slits in it. For the toothpaste, you mix shaving cream, glue, and paint. I just eyeball it, but there's more shaving cream than anything else. Just drop of paint and a little more glue than that. To put it on the picture, we used a plastic knife and "plopped" it on there.

Let's learn about healthy teeth!

This is far from an exciting craft - sorry for the ugly pic. It is, however, important for the kiddos to learn about this stuff, and this is a great way to teach them about getting their teeth clean. You start with a yellow (or brown) tooth cutout. Glue that on to a piece of paper (or you can wait and put it on a colored paper after they are done if you want it to stand out better. Today was a professional day for teachers, so we wanted to take the day off of school too . . . so we hurried through craft time. To paint it, take white paint and an old toothbrush and have the kids BRUSH their teeth clean with the white paint. Encourage them to use circular motions and to cover the entire tooth. This tooth was painted by a 21 month old.

Valentine's Party - Sugar cookie bouquet flower pot craft

My toddlers don't understand the concept of Valentine's Day, so we made a special Valentine for the person/people we love the most (usually mom and dad). I'm sorry that I don't have many pics, but it gets really crazy at parties, so I think I was doing good to get a picture at all! LOL.

These are easy to make, and the kids had fun making something special for their "Valentine". We actually made handprint heart cards (I'll try to get a picture) to go along with these. To make these flower pot cookie bouquet, first I bought terra cotta pots at Hobby Lobby and painted them red with acrylic paint (spray paint would be nice, but it's too cold here). I bought floral foam and cut small circles with a biscuit cutter about 1-1.5 inch thick. Shove that down in the pot, glue on some shredded paper, and you have your pot. For the cookies, I made sugar cookies from a packet and cut out with a flower shaped cookie cutter. Shove a wooden skewer up in the cookie (I cut mine down to about 8 inches, but don't put the cut side in the cookie if they are the type that splinter - mine were). Bake the cookies and let cool before handling. For the icing, I mixed 1 cup of confectioner's sugar with 3 teaspoons of milk until smooth. Then I added in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (apparently you can use almond also) and 2 tsp. light corn syrup. You can add more corn syrup if it's too thick. Mine was a little runny. Add in your food coloring and use baking paintbrushes to paint your cookies. We added sprinkles as well. Let them dry and then put them in your flower pot to send home.

Paint stamping - Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day Paint Stamping

This is an easy project, and they LOVE it. I took regular paint stamps and hot glued wooden clothespins for handles (saves on the mess). Pour some paint in paper plates and spread it thin.

Stamp, Stamp, Stamp!

Valentine Teddy Bear Craft

Valentine Teddy Bear Craft

This craft takes a little time to prepare, and it's a little tedious for toddlers, but they were so cute when they were finished, and the kids really enjoyed making them. They have been telling me to look at them all day.Proudly displaying their teddy bears for a picture!

As always, right click on the pattern and save as. Open and print. Cut out as directed. The only extra information I can think of right now is that I used a permanent marker to make stitching marks on the inner ear, and I outlined the flower petals and flower center. Oh, and I used a circle punch to make black circles for the ladybug wings.

We glued in this order: dots on wings, wings on body, head, ears, inner ear, nose, eyes, hands, legs, feet, stem, leaf. Then we glued the petals on the flower center and attached that to the stem/hand. I let the kids draw their own mouth, but I helped with the line down from the nose, and I drew on the eye brows.

Tissue paper flowers - Heart Collages

Tissue Paper Flowers

Supplies needed:

Tissue paper (in various colors)

small bowl or circle for tracing

hole punch

green pipe cleaner

You will be amazed at how easy and quick these little flowers come together. I used a small cereal bowl for my template. It was probably a 4 inch circle. You can do any size you want, but remember to use the appropriate size chenille stem/pipe cleaner to hold the weight. Cut out 10 circles per flower. You can use a solid color mix them - either way is cute.

Stack your 10 circles and punch two holes in the center approx. 1 inch apart. Thread your piper cleaner up through back and then back down through the other hole leaving approximately 1.5-2 inches of pipe cleaner and wrap around the stem tightly. Next, you will start with the top piece of tissue paper and fold in toward the center of the circle pinching the bottom of each piece as you go. Do this for each piece of tissue until you have reached the last piece. Crimp/pinch a little less with each piece, and you will have a gorgeous tissue paper flower. We wrapped our stems around our clothespin wall hangers so you can't see them in the pic, but you can add paper or pipe cleaner leaves. This is a great gift for parents, and it's adorable when used with other crafts. Put them in a vase or cup. Let a teddy bear or other paper animal craft hold the flower. Make a basket of these flowers. What are you going to do with yours?

HEART PAPER COLLAGE (WITH GLITTER)

I'm not going to give you a supply list on this one because it's up to you what you use. I personally used my Sizzix die cutter to cut out a supply of prim hearts in magenta, pink, hot pink, red, and purple. I let the kids glue the hearts to white paper however they wanted. Then we added some red glitter for extra interest. I always love doing collages because the kids get to be as creative as they want, and nobody ever has the same picture.

Love Bug Valentine Card Holder - Paper Plate

Love Bug Valentine Card Holder

We finished up our Fairy tale unit yesterday so today we reviewed our Fairy Tales and began preparations for Valentine's Day. We are having a Love Bug themed Valentine's Day party, so we made these cute Ladybug / Love Bug Valentine card holder. Start with two paper plates, and cut one in half (or just above half way) with pinking shears.

Staple the plates together around the edges (food side in). Then have your child(ren) paint the paper plate red. Let that dry. Once it is dry, cut out a black circle (use a small bowl for template), eyes, red hearts, and black dots. Glue the antennas on (I used hot glue for security on these). Have the kids glue on dots and the face and draw a mouth with a white crayon. You can add ribbon hangers by punching holes and tying ribbon to it. Now, you just have to drop their cards in the little pocket.

I couldn't resist this little guy - he looks grumpy, huh?

More to come, but I'll give you a sneak peek. We are going to have LIVE ladybugs at our party. You can order them on ebay and store in the fridge. We will decorate baby food jars for their little homes. We are also going to make a special Valentine gift for the parents using cookie dough and a flower pot. :)

Fairy Tale Week - Little Red Riding Hood

The Little Red Riding Hood project takes a little more time than the usual craft, so plan ahead if you want to do this one. I got this idea from here: http://www.ehow.com/video_4433528_finger-puppets-little-red-riding.html There are lots of finger puppets here including Red Riding Hood and the wolf. I did not follow the wolf directions, and I changed Red a little. I drew my patterns out, and you can use them if you wish. Just right click and save to your computer, open and print. I used supplies I had on hand, so you can do the same - change to fit what you have. I used red felt, peach/skin colored felt, beige felt, black felt, light blue felt, brown doll hair scrap (you can use yarn), google eyes, permanent marker, Aleene's craft glue (or similar). For the wolf, I used a gray fur I had in my stash, but beige, brown or gray felt would work just as well, google eyes and glue. Follow the directions in the video link to make the puppets. The kids really love these (even if the wolf was huffing and puffing and blowing grandma's house down during dramatic play - lol).

Fairytale Week (cont'd) - Wednesday - Cinderella

We are back in the routine after almost a week out due to an ice storm! (Sorta!) We are continuing our fairytale theme since we missed a few days. Today, we read the story of Cinderella. We continued our centers from last week but added a computer center. It's a slow process, but they are learning to use the computer mouse, and today they got to read an interactive Cinderella story online and follow directions for clicking on things in the story. We also created this glass slipper above. It's a lot cuter in person because the glitter really shines and shimmers. To make this, use the pattern below (right click and save to your computer - print out) and cut out the slipper from wax paper. Glue that to black paper with a watered down glue mixture and spongebrush. Then sponge the glue mixture on the shoe and sprinkle the glitter on - easy peasy!

Next, we worked on name puzzles (name and letter recognition). I have a Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter. I think this is the coolest toy in the world and a necessity. I bought mine for about $149.00 on sale locally, so I am sure they can be found for that price or cheaper. It has so many capabilities, and I only use it for simple stuff - but I still love it. If you don't have this toy, you can do this with MS Word or Publisher. I just typed in the names with an Arial font and printed the outline, and then I cut out the letters with cute paper. I let the kids do this without any help, and I was surprised at how well they did. After they finished, we talked about the letters and the names, and they colored a picture on their papers.

Next, we had to make some magic wands - Bippity Boppity Boo! These are also easy peasy. I cut out stars (with my Silhouette digital craft cutter - but you can cut by hand - I'm lazy). We used some ribbon from our collage stash, popsicle sticks, glue and glitter. I used the hot glue gun to put the ribbon the sticks, and then they picked their color and glued to the stick, spread a glue/water mixture on the front (less water is better - they curl - see!) and sprinkled on the glitter. Then they let their imaginations run wild turning things into whatever they wanted.
Have a MAGICAL day!