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.

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).

FREE POLAR BEAR PUPPET CRAFT FOR KIDS

We are still learning about arctic animals so on to the polar bear! We played our musical iceberg game today to reinforce our color skills . . . FUN FUN! We waddled like penguins and crawled like polar bears from iceberg to iceberg.

Then we made this fun polar bear puppet craft. I didn't draw out the pattern because it's so easy. You will need:

1 styrofoam cup per child

1 piece of white construction paper or cardstock

scrap of black paper

black permanent marker

circle punch (1/2 inch) or scissors

hot glue gun and glue

school glue

Trace the large end of the cup onto your white paper, cut out (that's the head). Next, cut out a smaller oval for the mouth/nose area. Two ears and two arms from the white as well. Then punch out two black circles or use google eyes (my kids are bad about picking them off and putting them in their mouths so I don't use them often.) Have your child(ren) glue (with school glue) the nose/mouth, ears, and eyes onto the large circle. ADULT PART: Use the hot glue gun to attach the head and arms to the cup. Cute little puppet.

They are hard to see on the giant white clothespins, but we always hang our projects for the week up and take them home on Fridays. I have clothespins on each wall and hanging from the ceiling. The kids love to see their artwork hanging up and show their parents as they come in each day.

FREE PENGUIN CRAFT TUTORIAL / PATTERN

Our theme this week is polar animals. We are doing so many fun activities, and I want to share as many of those with you as possible. I work with toddlers (ages 1 and 2 primarily) so I have to change many activities to meet their needs. Feel free to use the ideas for your child(ren) in whatever way would best suit them. My first FREE craft pattern is below. I still do not know how to attach a pdf file, and I am working on it, but in the mean time, just right click and save the file to your computer and print it. The quality isn't great, but it's just a craft pattern . . .

Once you have printed this craft pattern, you can cut it out from the appropriate colored construction paper, or if your child is older, let them work on scissor skills and cut it themselves. This is a fairly easy project. For the eyes, I use circle punches. You can find these at craft and hobby stores, or you can cut them out yourself. Use regular school glue to put your craft together as pictured. I try to let my toddlers have as much freedom as possible when creating. I think they do a great job! Before creating this penguin, we read a book about penguins and looked at pictures. We also pretended to be penguins and waddled around the room looking for fish.

Tomorrow, we are going to read another penguin book and play a musical iceberg game. The icebergs are going to be different colors so we can work on our colors.

I want to share this website with you though. www.Childcareland.com She has WONDERFUL ideas for early childhood educators. I refer to her website often and am part of her email list. I was looking for some extras for our polar animal theme, and I found her Five Little Penguins poem and a penguin write on/wipe off board to add to theme.