The Very Hungry Caterpillar Paper Plate Puppet Craft

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Paper Plate Puppet Craft

Hands down Eric Carle is one of my most admired children's author/illustrator. And lucky for me, my children love him just the same! So in honor of spring this year, we made The Very Hungry Caterpillar Paper Plate Puppets so my children can play along as we read the book happily for the 500,000th time!

Classified: Easy and is great for toddlers to Kindergarten children!


What you need:

• Paper plates (we used dessert-sized plates) 4 or more
• Various shades of green paint and red paint
• Paint brushes
• Hole punch
• Glue
• Green, yellow, brown and blue paper
• Pipe cleaners
• Popsicle sticks (2)
• Paper Fasteners
• 
  
• The Book:  

 What to do:
 1. Read the story: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and discuss the book.

2. Have your child paint the paper plates various shades of green after you decide how many paper plates your will use. Paint on various shades of red for the face and set aside to dry.

3. To make The Very Hungry Caterpillar's facial features:
Toddlers: Have two large ovals cut out of yellow and two medium ones out of green for the eyes; a small rounded brown triangle for the nose; and two blue antenna for your toddler to glue to the head.
Preschooler: provide the above in stencils for your youngster to cut out independently or with help.

Kindergarten and above: Have them observe The Very Hungry Caterpillars facial features and have them create his or her own appropriate pieces to complete the face.

4. Glue a popsicle stick to the bottom of the caterpillars face and one to a green paper plate (this will be the caterpillars toosh!)

5. Cut 6 little pieces out of the pipe cleaners. Glue 4 to one green paper plate and two to the one with the popsicle stick on it. Allow all pieces to dry (preferably over night).

6.  Punch one hole to the right side of the caterpillars head and one to either side of all the green pieces (with the exception of the last one, which should just have a hole on its left side). Slide a brass paper fastener to join one paper plate to another.

7. Have your child hold a popsicle stick in each hand. They can now make the caterpillar move by maneuvering the front and back end!

Easy Milk Carton Bunny Easter Basket Craft

Easy Milk Carton Bunny Easter Basket Craft

Short on time and supplies? Looking to create an easy Easter basket for a class. Using only a few materials, you can make an Easy Milk Carton Bunny Easter Basket Craft within a few minutes!

Classified: Easy and is great for pre-K and up!

What you need:

• A half-gallon milk carton
• Cotton Balls
• Crayons, markers, glitter glue, stickers, etc. to decorate
• Bunny Face Template
• Scissors and glue

What to do:
Prep: Clean the half-gallon milk carton. With a ruler, measure about 6" from the bottom and draw a line going around the entire carton. On one side, place the ruler in the center vertically and trace either side. Repeat for the opposite side and cut around. The "rulered" strips will join together and create the baskets handle.

Two sides will look like this. Cut on the lines.

1. Have your young child glue cotton balls on three sides of the carton.

2. Print out the bunny template. Have your child draw a face, decorate and cut the bunny head out.

3. Glue to the front of the basket (side with no cotton balls).

4. Join the handles in the center and tape or staple together. Decorate handle is desired.

5. Fill with goodies and enjoy!

Puffy Paint Textured Easter Egg Kids Craft

Puffy Paint Textured Easter Egg Kids Craft

What would Easter be without the colorful, decorative eggs? Create a Puffy Paint Easter Egg Kids Craft out of homemade puffy paint and water colors! Makes a really fun and messy craft for preschoolers and up!

Classified: Incredibly EASY

What you need:

• White glue
• Shaving cream
• Watercolor Paint
• Paintbrushes and sponge brushes
• Cardboard (we used cereal boxes)
• SMOCKS!!!!!!!!
• Scissors

What to do:
Prep: Mix 1 part white glue to one part shaving cream (no exact science here) for the puffy paint. Cut some cardboard into egg shapes.

1. "Paint" the cardboard egg with the puffy paint mixture and allow to dry (usually within 24 hours).

2. Decorate the Puffy Paint Easter Egg with water color paint once it is dry. {We added glitter glue as well} The "puffy paint" mixture may become moist again with the water color- but it is very manageable to work with and is easy to paint on top. We experimented both ways. Feel free to add the paint while the puffy paint is wet for a different effect.

3. Dry and hang!

Tea Dyeing Fabric Art with Young Children

Tea Dyeing Fabric Art with Young Children

When I was in college for my art education degree, one of the classes that I fell in love with was Fibers and Design. In this class I learned all about sewing and making clothing; designing and dyeing fabric; the art of silk screening; and the art of batik. I became so fascinated with fabric design that I incorporated a lot of what I learned into my paintings themselves.

What I wanted to teach my children with this lesson is that you do not need synthetic dyes to color fabric. In fact, the art of tea dyeing {and coffee dyeing for that matter} has been around for hundreds of years. Although in college we originally batiked the fabric first with hot wax, it is not very safe with younger children and alternatives must be used. In most cases using glue in place of hot wax would work with synthetic dyes, however, it does not hold for very long with tea dyeing because the fabric needs to be soaked for days in the tea water. We decided to use crayons..........


Classified: Super Easy and teaches children of all ages the concept of basic fabric design and using natural elements as a dye.


What you need:

• Natural Fiber, such as cotton or silk fabric.
• Tea bags- any kind. This is where it is fun to experiment because different teas will yield a different color. We mixed green tea bags with orange mango tea bags.
• Crayons
• Bin large enough to soak the fabric.
• Water
• Optional: Frame and stapler
• Scissors
• Soda Ash

What to do:
Prep: ADULTS- Use precautions with little ones: To help activate the tea bags, make the water in the container hot when placing them in. Have the tea bags sit until the water is cooled- even removing them after you have reached the desired color. The water DOES NOT have to be hot for the fabric to go in and SHOULD NOT be if you are allowing your child to do this step by herself!

1. Have your child design their fabric. When I taught middle school students the art of Batik, I had them sketch out traditional Batik designs. I would encourage younger children to design their fabric with a special visual message. I provided examples for both! I found stretching the fabric with tape to the table made it a lot easier to draw on. You can accomplish a "batik look" with this method having them use a white crayon.

2. Adult Role: Special Note: for the tea "staining" process to hold better, after your child has created their design with crayon on their natural fabric, soak the fabric in soda ash according to the labels directions.

3. Place the designed fabric into the tea mixture and let it sit for 24 hours. Check it and decide if it is as dark as you wish it would be. We soaked ours for 3 days before we were satisfied.

4.  Allow the fabric to completely dry. At this point it is perfectly 100% safe to wash in the washing machine!

5. Optional: Attach to a frame.

Kids Tea Dyeing Fabric "Playing Inside the box." by 3 year old

Kids Tea Dyeing Fabric "Me and My Mommy." by 5 year old.

Weaving Made Kid Easy

Weaving Made Kid Easy

Need a rainy day activity that is fun, creative and a great way to work on those fine motor skills? Teaching your child to weave just may be the thing you need! My daughter (3.5 years of age) and I have spent the last few months working on this awesome activity together. In fact, the last few times that we worked on it, she got so good she needed little help from me!

Classified: Hard. This would be a great mommy and me activity for the preschool- kindergarten child. Older children may be more independent with the weaving.

What you need:

• Yarn- of all sorts and colors.
• A paper bowl.
• Marker 
• Tape
• Scissors

What to do:

Prepping the bowl.

Prep: The paper bowl makes the perfect medium for little hands to weave! To get the bowl "prepped" you will need to measure out an odd number of notches in the bowl. I later numbered our bowl so my daughter would not get confused with our "over" and "unders". String a piece of yarn (doesn't matter what color) into a notch and wrap it around to the opposite notch. Continue until you have created a "spider web" around the entire bowl and tape into place. {My daughter wanted to paint her bowl first.}

Numbering made weaving so much easier for my 3.5 year old

1. Chose a section of the spider web where you would like to begin and tie the first piece of yarn. I started off the this activity by teaching my daughter "the concept" of weaving.

Started by Momma

2. The rest is simple {yet time consuming}. Continue with the "over" and "unders" of weaving the yarn (helping as little as possible). Want to switch colors? Simply tie the yarn you are finished working with and begin a new one color of yarn by tying it where to the next thread you are to weave with.

Weaving together

3. When the weaving is complete, and your circle is made, you can choose to leave it on the paper bowl or to take it off. I found that if you tie the last piece of yarn to each support yarn as you cut it off it holds quite nicely.

My daughter's finished product

Once you and your child have made one- make another one. Each time the weaving should become easier!

Rainbow Hanging "Blown Glass" Sculptures Kids Art Lesson

Rainbow Hanging "Blown Glass" Sculptures Kids Art Lesson

I have to start off this post by stating that I am in love with the art of blown glass. It fascinates me. I only wish that a nearby college or art school would hold such a creative class.

A lesson that I used to do with my students (via DickBlick.com) based on the glass artist,
Dale Chihuly got me as close to the real thing that I could get. Personally, I worked at a school where the materials they requested just didn't fit our budget. Honestly transparency sheets (what's that Mrs. Electronic Whiteboard??) and acrylic paint and markers work just as well as you will see in our "blown glass sculpture" below.

Dale Chihuly  is mainly famous for his macchias and their free organic form. I personal love his hanging chandeliers and wanted to create a lesson that would reflect the beauty and free flowing forms as the artist himself had captured. I also wanted it easy enough for my three year old daughter to do (who LOVES art) with little help from me!


Classified: Hard and is suitable for preschool and up with special help from an adult and slight modifications. Just like cooking in the kitchen- supervision is required and only an adult should touch any heat source!

What you need:

• Transparencies!!!
• Acrylic Paint- the colors of the rainbow
• Scissors
• Paintbrush
• Blow dryer- or pot of hot water- this is where you need the adult part.
• Yarn, thread, fishing line.
• Tape
• Hole puncher
• We used the handle of a rubber mallet- but any thick wooden dowel would suffice. Just make sure it is wood and NOT metal or plastic!

What to do:
1. {Please Note: This is where you can turn this lesson up a notch for older children.} My daughter is three and LOVES to get her hands into her artwork. Literally. Since we have been on the subject of color and rainbows, I asked her how she wanted to paint her rainbow and she replied "with my hands, of course!" {With older children you can have them develop some type of pattern and such- till then!} Allow the paint to dry completely!

2. Using child scissors we cut 6 organic looking strips and painted each one the color of the rainbow and let them dry completely.

3. Using the wooden handle of your choice- have your child (student) wrap the painted organic strips and tape them into place.

Wrapping plastic film around a wooden handle

4. This is where you need to decide your heat source. Transparency sheets will conform to just about any shape using just a little bit of heat. A blow dryer does work, however it takes a lot longer that some hot water. I had my daughter watch as a placed the rubber mallet handle over a pot of hot (near boiling) water. I then gently poured the hot water over the painted plastic that is tightly wrapped around a wooden handle with a laddle.

5. Once the plastic cooled we removed it from the wooden handle and it made a swirl. Repeat with each organic plastic strip until all are formed. Have fun with it- chose different thicknesses and objects to conform!

Our melted "glass"

6. For my daughter's top part of the sculpture, we simply stapled the two opposite ends together and then brought in the third. For my example I rolled it around a rolling pin and melted it. We then punched one hole at the top to loop some yarn to hang and 6 holes along the bottom to hang the organic shapes.

Preparing top part of hanging glass sculpture

7. Punch holes into the organic painted strips and attach the yarn (or thread) to it and tie it to the main part of the structure. This is great for fine motor skills practice for children of any age!

Tie together the hanging sculpture

Final hanging pieces

Wouldn't this be fun with fishing line to look as though the organic shapes are floating in space............

Pin It

St. Patrick's Day Art and Craft Ideas for Kids

St. Patrick's Day Craft for Baby- Create a fun St. Patrick's Day craft with your baby (and older)! My 10 month old had a blast through self-exploration with paints and different textures.

Clover Color Theory Lesson- Teach children the basics of color theory by adding a tint (white) to green and painting multiple clovers!










St. Patrick's Day Pot 'O Gold Rainbow Craft- What's the pot of gold at the end of your rainbow? Have your 5-8 year old create their own rainbow using a stippling technique with paint and a Q-tip (or the end of a paintbrush). Allow them to be creative with their rainbow and what is inside of their pot of gold.

St. Patrick's Day Flag & the Principles of Art- Using the Flag of Ireland, design a St. Patrick's Day Emblem using the traditional icons: clover, snakes, leprechaun, horse shoe, etc. and the traditional colors: orange, green and white. In this lesson, there will be an emphasis on the Principles of Art.

Make a Textured Rainbow Shamrock Craft using colored rice for St. Patrick's Day. We talked about rainbows and color theory using primary colored (red, yellow and blue) transparency film.

Textured Rainbow Shamrock Kids Craft

Made with colored rice

Make a Textured Rainbow Shamrock Craft using colored rice for St. Patrick's Day. We talked about rainbows and color theory using primary colored (red, yellow and blue) transparency film.

Classified: Easy and is great for preschooler and Kindergarten children.

What you need:
Optional:

• Rice 
• Food coloring
• Glue
• Green construction paper
• Marker

What to do:
Prep. To color the rice: we separated 6 cups of rice and stirred food coloring into each one. I found that the gel food coloring works the best (and use them in ALL of my food coloring crafts). Make sure not to add too much food coloring as to where the rice is soaked. Spread out and dry each colored rice onto a sheet of wax paper (one for each color).

Want an easy shamrock template? Draw a heart and tracing it three times is the easiest way to make a one!

1. Talk about color using the optional colored transparency sheets. I used these a lot when talking about color theory with students from preschoolers all the way to 6th grade! Cut them down into squares or make them into "sun" glasses. Talk about each primary color individually and allow  your child to look through each one and see the world as that color. Then discuss secondary colors by "mixing" the two primary sheets together. Have them look through it again as the secondary color (orange, green and purple). Have an open-ended discussion about color!

2. Use the shamrock stencil and have your child trace it onto a green sheet of paper.

3. Using white glue, have your child trace the outline of the shamrock. Sprinkle on the red rice. Repeat this step each time until all the colors of the rainbow have been applied. This is great way to practice fine-motor skills and listening skills {not to mention patience}!

4. Allow to dry overnight and shake off any access rice! That's it!

Please note: we decided to outline ours with colored glue.

But.... we do like to have fun! After our lesson my oldest thought it was so much fun and wanted to freely create a rainbow textured shamrock of his own. Crafts that have ended results are a great learning tool- but you really have to embrace the creative moments that happen along the way!

5 year old textured rainbow rice fun!

3 year old "My Bed" open-ended rice art. (I think she was tired when she created this!)

Pin It

"The Cat in the Hat" Dr. Seuss Kids Craft

"The Cat in the Hat" Dr. Seuss Kids Craft

Who doesn't love that crazy cat created by Dr. Seuss? The Cat in the Hat is a cherished character that is always up to no good- but means well. Create a three-dimensional Cat in the Hat kids craft using a milk jug, tissue paper and your child's imagination.

Classified: Easy and would be best suited for Kindergarten to Second Grade independently. I created this with my 3.5 year old (we worked together).

What you need:

• Gallon milk jug
• Black and white tissue paper
• 2 sheets of white paper 12x18"
• Red paint
• Glue and water mixture (or decoupage glue)
• Sponge brush
• Stapler
• Marker
• Black construction paper (scraps if you have them)
• Cat in the Hat books by Dr. Seuss:

What to do: 

Prep: read to your child/children The Cat in the Hat books by Dr. Seuss. Wash out a gallon milk jug. Tear pieces of black and white tissue paper up.

1.  Pre-draw 4 stripes on one of the large sheets of white paper horizontally to create The Cat's Hat. Have your child/student paint every other space red. Set aside to dry.

To help my preschooler, I marked the three stripes that should be red.

2. Draw an outline on the milk jug as to where the Cat's face should be.

3. Lightly paint the glue-water mixture where you want the black tissue paper to be. Place the torn black tissue paper on top and generously paint over it with the water-glue mixture (or decoupage glue).

4. Repeat the same above for the Cat in the Hat's face, this time using white torn tissue paper.

 5. Dry over night.

6. Using a black marker add details to the cats face.

7. Cut out two ears using black tissue paper and glue onto either side of the Cat's head.

8. Cut a large "doughnut" out of white paper to make the rim of the Cat's hat. Place over the top of the gallon milk jug. Roll the striped paper to form the hat and staple. Take the center of the white "doughnut" and glue to top of the hat.

9. Generously apply glue to the top of the gallon milk jug to hold the hat into place. Center hat and allow to dry.

This was so easy to make and would be an awesome class project!