crafts

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Color Identification Game

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 Preschool Book Club is back again, this time with a craft activity and game based on the book, “I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!”.  We’ve created a body part identification book activity for this book before, and were excited to read an play the book again!  This time our activity addressed colors and body parts, and was it ever fun!

This is a creative art idea that you’ll want to explore. Use more of the creative painting ideas we have here on the website to identify body parts, too.

 

Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"

Body Part Game and Craft

 
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I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!
by Karen Beaumont is a colorful and exciting book.  A creative little boy paints first his house, walls, and ceiling and then when his mama objects to that, decides to paint his body.  My kids LOVE the rhyming nature of this book.  As we read the book (again and again!) they guessed the body parts that the little boy painted.


We decided to paint birdhouses like the boy paints his house.  Out birdhouses became colorful works of art with colors mixing and spinning together.  This was such a fun and engaging craft for the kids. We started with a wooden birdhouse that we received from www.craftprojectideas.com.  Use acrylic paints (also from craftprojectideas!) to paint the birdhouses.

Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Book Activity

Once the paint dried, we created a game based on the book.  We used colored craft sticks to create color identification and body part identification game.  Write the names of body parts on the colored craft sticks.  
Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"
Now play the game!  To start, we had each child choose 5 colored craft sticks.  They closed their eyes and to pick the colors.  We read the book again and as we saw colors in the story or heard body parts, the kids could place their colored craft sticks into the birdhouses.  This was such a fun way to combine art and a learning game.
Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"
 
After we played our I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! game a feeeew times, we gave our colorful birdhouses to the birds!  They are now decorating the trees around our house.  we are waiting to see if any birds decide they want to live in a colorfully painted house!
Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"
Stop by to see how the other bloggers in the Preschool Book Club explored I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!:
Counting Game from Buggy and Buddy
Hand print Keepsake from Mama. Papa. Bubba.
 Painted Doll House from Homegrown Friends
Body Painting from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Lighthouse Cupcake Liner Craft Summer

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Are you planning a vacation or holiday with kids to the beach or shore this summer?  We made this lighthouse craft using cupcake liners to prepare kids for beach itineraries and experiences such as lighthouse visits!  We’ve made a few cupcake liner crafts and this is one of our new favorites!
Cute lighthouse craft using cupcake liners! This is a fun craft to make with the kids before going on vacation this summer.


Lighthouse craft for kids

 
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You’ll need a few materials for this lighthouse craft:


red cupcake liners
card stock
(in various colors)
glue 
 scissors

I drew a long triangle shape for my daughter to cut from yellow card stock.  Use the red cupcake liners to create the lighthouse.  Fold two cupcake liners in half red side our and two cupcake liners white side out.  Line them up and add a bit of glue so they stay put as shown in the picture above.  Use the scissors to cut a slightly slanted line up both sides of the stack of cupcake liners.
Lighthouse cupcake liner craft. This is so cute for a summer craft with kids!
 
Glue all of the pieces to a piece of blue card stock.  We added a black top and brown beach to our lighthouse picture.  
Are you going to the beach with the kids this summer?  Try one of our other beach activities to prepare:
Beach activities for kids and families. Do these fun ideas before going to the shore this summer!
Don’t forget to make a DIY beach souvenir

DIY Beach Seashell Souvenir Idea

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This Beach trip souvenir idea is a post we put together at the end of last summer.  We made these free DIY souvenirs while on our beach vacation and wanted to share the tip but decided to hold off until Spring (for us, many of our readers are heading into fall now!) After we returned from our vacation, we loved using our beach souvenir as a sensory bottle for calm down moments.  This is such an easy idea and uses a recycled bottle to bring home a little bit of beach trip memories. 


Easy beach souvenir idea for kids.


Beach souvenir idea for kids (free!)

While at the beach this summer, grab an empty plastic water bottle.  Fill with sand, but be sure to not fill completely.  Leave a few inches of space at the top.  Next, add little seashells from your beach-combing walks.  You’ll want to find shells that are small enough to fit in the mouth of the water bottle.  


Beach Themed Sensory Bottle

Make a beach themed sensory bottle at the beach!
When you take the bottle souvenir home, use it as a sensory bottle!   What is a sensory bottle?  We use ours for calm down moments, relaxing, and visual perceptual skills.
Enjoy playing and remembering the memories of your beach vacation for long after!

The cutest potato stamp crafts

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We’ve been busy recently making lots of potato print stamp crafts.  (Notice: you’ve been warned.  Be prepared for super cute potato stamp art and crafts coming your way!) So this week on Share It Saturday, we decided to feature the cutest potato stamp crafts out there.  The Polar Bear Print below was the inspiration for this feature post from our link up and we had to go look for more.  We’ve done a Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme print before and are excited to share more potato stamp crafts soon!



Cute potato stamp art crafts for kids!

Cute potato stamp crafts for kids

How adorable are these:
Tulip Prints from Crafty Morning
Watermelon Prints from Inner Child Fun
Monster Prints from Mollymoo
Panda Stamps from I heart arts and crafts
Mice Stamps from Glued to My Crafts
Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme print from Sugar Aunts

Caterpillar Math Craft

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You know we love a great craft made from recycled materials, right?  Recycled items seem to make a reoccurring appearance on our blog.  And, here’s a little secret:  I LOVE crafting and encouraging playful learning with recycled stuff because it’s re-purposing and environmentally cool, but it’s also FREE!  You have the materials already in your home, and are just going to be tossing them away (whether it’s into the garbage or the recycle bin…so why not learn and play first?)  We made this caterpillar craft from a recycled egg carton and added a math twist to add a little adding and 1:1 correspondence number counting to provide a multi-age learning tool for three of my kids, ages 3, 5, and 7.  (The baby just want to to pull the googly eyes off of the caterpillar.  Which is a sort of subtraction…)
Caterpillar craft made from a recycled egg carton. Use this for math concepts for preschool through grade school kids.

Math Caterpillar Craft (from a recycled egg carton!)


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We pulled a recycled egg carton from the recycle bin.  Cut one long section of carton.  Paint the sections to make the caterpillars body and head.  We love these paints for their bright colors.
Grab some yarn and have the kids snip little 2 inch pieces.  This is fabulous scissor practice.  Holding the wiggly yarn while snipping sections encourages bilateral hand coordination that is needed for managing paper and scissors while cutting shapes from paper and worksheets.
Caterpillar craft made from a recycled egg carton. Use this for math concepts for preschool through grade school kids.
Math concept:  Encourage your child to count the sections of yarn into groups of three.  
Tape the yarn legs onto the caterpillar’s body.

Glue on googly eyes and draw on a smile.
Caterpillar craft made from a recycled egg carton. Use this for math concepts for preschool through grade school kids.

Caterpillar math activity:


We played a few math games with the caterpillar.  
  • Count out craft pom poms, encouraging 1:1 correspondence.  Counting items is an important preschool math concept that is used in addition and subtraction in later grades.  My first grader often uses counting manipulates as a technique for adding multiple digit addition/subtraction problems and counting too quickly can lead to errors.  
  • Use the pom poms to feed the caterpillar.  Sort them into piles by color and patterns and make the caterpillar eat the pom poms by pushing them under the head.  Write out the math subtraction problems.  
Caterpillar craft made from a recycled egg carton. Use this for math concepts for preschool through grade school kids.

How cute is this little guy?  Make him and other fun recycled crafts for learning and play.

This post is part of the  natural parenting and earth month series at Allternative Learning.

Yarn Painting Art for Kids

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Did you ever explore different ways to paint with yarn?  Yarn painting is a creative art idea and an overall creative painting activity that you’ll want to try. What better way to create art with the kids, than with a skein of yarn?  Grab the paints and that unused yarn and get ready to paint!

activities for painting with yarn. Art for kids

Painting with yarn: art for kids



Yarn Pom Pom Painting from Crayon Box Chronicles.  Make yarn pom pom drumsticks and paint away!
Yarn Stamp Art from Fantastic Fun and Learning.  Wrap a block in yarn and stamp the paint into art.
Homemade Yarn Paint Brushes from Learn Play Imagine. Make homemade paint brushes using yarn.
Painting with Yarn from Fantastic Fun and Learning.  It doesn’t get much easier than this!

Robot Activities and Crafts for Kids

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This week on Share It Saturday we’re featuring Robot crafts and activities for kids!  We loved the Robot Memory Game linked up from Brain Power Boy last week and had to feature it, so off we went to find more fun ways to build robots, create robots, and make robots with kids!





robot activities and crafts for kids

Build-a-Robot activities and crafts for kids

Super cute robot activities from around the web:
Robot Books from All Done Monkey
Magnetic Robot Art from Fun-A-Day
Recycled Robot Craft from Kids Activities Blog
Balancing Robot from Buggy and Buddy
CD Robot craft from Love and Lollipop
Cupcake Liner Robot craft from Glued to My Crafts
Shrinky Dink Jointed Robot from LalyMom
Build and Stack Robots from Handmade Kids Art
Robot Pencil Holder from Plaid Online

Recycled Seedling Planter Animals Craft

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It’s no secret that we love to create crafts and activities using recycled materials.  Especially during April and right before Earth Day, we wanted to make a recycled material craft.  We pulled out recycled seedling planter containers to create animal crafts.



I always have left over seedling planter containers in the garage from gardening and flower planting.  If you garden, then you know that a pack of flowers or plants usually comes in a seedling container or 4-6 plants.  Once you plant your seedlings, you are left with a plastic container.  You can either toss it into the recycle bin, or save it for another project…like our cute animal crafts!

recycled seedling planter animal craft puppets



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Recycled Seedling Planter Containers crafts

Use recycled seedling containers to make puppets!
To make your seedling animal crafts, you’ll need a few materials:
Seedling Starter Trays that you’ve saved from planting

glue
assorted cardstock
extras like googly eyes, yarn, ribbon (use left over scraps!)

Cut the seedling planters into one sections.  Our planters were black so we decided to create black animal crafts.  Seedling sections became penguins, black cats, and even an orca whale.

Cutest animal puppets made from recycled seedling planters

We also made a spider, skunk, and panda.

Black cat puppet craft made from recycled seedling containers!
So many cute animals!  A black cat…
Panda puppet craft made from recycled seedling containers!

 We made a panda…
Skunk puppet craft made from recycled seedling containers!
…and a skunk.
Spider puppet craft made from recycled seedling containers!
A spider…
Penguin puppet craft made from recycled seedling containers!
Penguin…

Orca (Killer Whale) puppet craft made from recycled seedling containers!
And the cutest orca (Killer Whale) craft!

Our seedling planter animals turned into cute puppets for all sorts of imagination and pretend play scenes.  We added these to a sensory bin for a small world activity, too.

Recycled seedling container animal puppets craft
Recycled seedling container animal puppets craft

This post is part of the 60 day junk play challenge on Best Toys 4 Toddlers.


Looking for more recycled crafts? Try these: 
Spring chick juice box cover~ tip to tip grasp, multi-textural craft for Spring

Rainbow recycled cardboard tube craft~ fine motor skills, imagination, pretend play, language skills

Rainbow binoculars~ imagination, pretend play, fine motor skills

Cardboard tube turkey napkin ring~ fine motor work 


Fine motor color sorting activity with recycled grated cheese container~ tripod grasp, color, pattern, and sorting learning skills. This is a great early math activity!

In-hand manipulation activities ~uses a grated cheese container and a recycled two liter drink container to develop in-hand manipulation and translation skills.

Tractor Footprint Art for Kids

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We LOVE print art at my house. My kids are 2, 3, and 6yr right now. I love making fun keepsakes with their little prints. They love making them just as much as I love keeping them. The transformation from a handprint or footprint into say, a Bunny, is just so much fun to them. With Spring in the air and thoughts of gardening and getting outside, we decided to try making a fun Tractor Footprint Art for the art wall. The kids are just thrilled at how this turned out.

 


Tractor Footprint Art

What we used/ supplies:

  

green paint
white cardstock
sharpies 
glue

green, yellow, and black paper

scissors

 

 

  

 What we did/ how to make:

 

I used my finger and smeared green paint on my sons foot. I pressed it down on the white cardstock. I had wipes and paper towel handy to wipe his foot off. Once he was done we left the footprint to dry overnight.

 

Once I came back to the dry green footprint it was time to turn it into a tractor! I grabbed the yellow, black, and green paper out. Also the glue and scissors. The kids were at school and I had to to do this now or never but the kids can help with all of the next steps. We still have a few footprints on the counter to work on when they get home.

 

I took what was on the counter and traced 2 different sized circles on the yellow paper. You want one to be bigger than the other. Once I had those, I laid them on the black paper and guessed and traced a circle a little large. I took my scrapbook scissors and cut those out. Now I glued the yellow circles to the black circles. Yay, we have tires now.

 

Glue the tires to the footprint. I took a little of the yellow paper and cut out a top for the tractor. I used the black sharpie to draw the lines under the top. And last added a pipe with smoke coming out. The bottom looked empty so I added green paper.

 

 Hi! I am Jaime, mama to three high energy boys. With three boys, life never slows down, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! We love creating, learning, and crafting together and we can turn anything into an adventure.