crafts

Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art

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This pumpkin stamp art craft is perfect for Halloween or your Fall play date with the kid’s friends.  It’s a creative way to use up recycled toilet paper rolls while creating festive harvest-themed art.  You know we love coming up with crafts for kids, especially crafts that use recycled materials and this one is no exception! It’s actually a fun kids’ craft that was on the blog for a long time and we decided to fix up to share again!

 
Pumpkin stamp art with toilet paper rolls to make halloween or fall themed art with kids.

Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art

 
Recently we made these Toilet Paper Roll Apple Stamps. 
 
Thinking about them, we decided to make a similar stamp art project, this time creating pumpkins!


You’ll need these materials for your pumpkin stamp art:

Affiliate links are included in this post.
 
Paper tubes
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
Starting with the paper roll, I pinched it just a little bit to make a heart-ish shape.  Add a little orange paint to a paper plate, and start stamping away onto paper.
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
We took this art project outside to enjoy a nice Fall afternoon.  Right on the driveway worked for us!
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
 
For the stem, I curled a pipe cleaner into a curly-Q shape and poured a little green paint onto a plate.
 
 
It worked pretty well for a green vine stamper to add to our pumpkins!
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
Pumpkin stamp art with toilet paper rolls to make halloween or fall themed art with kids.

MORE Fall Crafts for Kids

  
Fall Leaves Craft | Back To School Morning Routine Story Stones | School Bus Craft | Sunflower Craft  
 
Paper Roll Apple Stamps | Gratitude Leaf Garland | Paper Roll Turkey Stamp Art

Kid Friendly Halloween Party Ideas

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Share It Saturday link up and features
If you’ve read our blog before, you know we love a fun kid’s party.  We love the themes, the party details, and the excitement that our kids have when they see all of the special parts of a fun party.  It’s not hard to make and create parts of these special parties.  It doesn’t take tons of time or money.  Most of these creations can be done on the cheap…or free!  This week’s features for Share It Saturday are all about creating a fun kid-friendly Halloween party.  The snacks, games, activities, crafts, and even décor are fun and easy.  Most involve the kiddos in the prep.  So, if you are thinking about that pre-school party details, a fun play date, or birthday party this month, look no further for everything you need to create a…



 

Invites:

Crafts for the kids to do during the party:

Scratch Art Pumpkins by Sow Sprout Play
Handprint Spider On a String by Handprint and Footprint Art

Activities for Party Day:
Halloween Toss Game by We Made That
Silly Pumpkin Game   by What I Live For
Fall Sensory Bin by Wildflower Ramblings

Party Food and Snack Ideas:

Spooky Orange Faces by Danya Banya
Mini Candied Apple Bites by Juggling Food, Family, and Chaos
Party Decorations:
Easy Kid Made Bunting by Picklebums
Party favors:

Re-Usable Fabric Gift Bag by Crafty Journal
More Ideas:
Halloween Party Ideas by Homegrown Friends

B is for Beads! Sorting, Line awareness, Fine Motor

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We are SO excited to participate in the ABCs of learning series hosted by All Done Monkey.    Each day for 31 days, a blogger will provide a craft or activity based on a letter of the alphabet.  And each blogger will have a linky at the end of their post inviting others to share activities based on that letter.  Link up your “B is for…” or “B-themed” crafts and activities below!  Be sure to follow the 31 days of ABC’s Pinterest Board for loads of inspiration and educational play…all dedicated to the ABC’s!

We are joining so many talented and creative bloggers in this series and are excited to see all of the ideas shared.  What a HUGE resource this will be! 

When we were choosing the letter that we wanted to provide an activity for, we knew we had to go with “B”.  Immediately, this Bountiful Bin of BEADS popped into our heads!

Don’t you just want to swirl your hands around in there and play??

We were gifted with this huge assortment of hand-me-down beads in every shape, color, size imaginable.  We decided to create an art project using beads where we could also work on a little sorting, line awareness, and tip-to-tip grasp!

We started by drawing some pictures on paper plates.  A sturdy background was necessary to hold all of the beads on our collages!  Mom took orders of what the kiddos wanted to create.  We had a request for a house, rainbow, and flower.

Fine Motor with Beads

A {ton} of glue later, we had a pretty good start on our collages.  Picking out the correct colors of beads from the bin was a great sensory experience.  Baby Girl definitely enjoyed the playing in the beads part of the project!  Grasping the bead that was wanted from the bin required fine motor dexterity and a tip-to-tip grasp to pick out an individual bead. (Tip-to-tip grasp uses the tips of the index finger and thumb when picking up very small items…like a single piece of paper, a needle, a bead!)

Sorting Beads

Sorting the colors is a good early math concept for the preschool and early Kindergarten age range.  The kids would decide what color they wanted to make a certain part of their picture and go on a search for all blue beads…or all yellow beads. 

Line Awareness with Beads

Keeping the glue (and the beads) inside of the lines is perfect for line awareness and pre-writing skills.  We used a sharpie marker to make nice bold lines for our pictures.

This little blue house turned out very sweet!
And this house may be more representative of the way our house looks on a daily basis 🙂

Paper Roll Apple Stamps

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These apple paper roll stamps are a fun fine motor activity for Fall occupational therapy sessions. It’s one our our apple themed activities that support development of several skill areas. This fine motor apple activity would go really well with our apple sensory bin and our Apple Therapy Kit.

 
We made this apple stamping art last week with one of our favorite things to recycle…Paper rolls! (we used a toilet paper roll but a paper towel roll would work too.)
 

Toilet Paper Stamps

Children may enjoy making toilet paper stamps because it is a fun and creative activity that allows them to explore their artistic side. Additionally, using toilet paper rolls to create stamps is a low-cost and easily accessible way for children to make art, as these materials are often readily available in most households.

Using toilet paper rolls as stamps can also provide a tactile sensory experience for children, as they get to touch and manipulate the materials while creating their artwork. The process of pressing the roll onto the paper and seeing the unique patterns and shapes that are created can be a source of fascination and excitement for children.

The act of stamping can help children develop important fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, as they need to use their hands and fingers to hold and control the stamp.

Toilet paper stamping can be a fun and engaging activity that provides children with a variety of benefits, both artistic and developmental.

 
 
Mom bent the cardboard tube just a little into a heart-ish shape.
 
Big Sister got busy stamping!  She covered her page with little red apples.
 
She painted little green leaves on the apples…
 
…and then drew stems on each apple with a brown marker.
 
This was such an easy and fun little project to do.  Let us know if you make apple stamps!
 
 

Grab a copy of our apple play dough cards for more fine motor skill building!

Simple Stamp Art 4 Ideas

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The kids asked if we could play with stamps one afternoon.  So, I pulled out our bin of stamps and a few extra things plus our ink pads and we made some stampy art!

Stamp Art For Kids

We used clothes pins to stamp little pieces of sponges to make squares and rectangle shapes.  This was a great way to combine fine motor strengthening into our creative project.
We used some slices of pool noodle to make some pretty circle art.  We liked seeing the texture of the pool noodle pressed onto the paper.
We used foam letters to stamp letters on paper.  Little Guy thought this was hilarious!
And we used our regular stamps on coffee filters.  Then we dipped a paint brush into water and brushed the stamps with water.  It was pretty neat to watch the stamp shape spread on the coffee filter.
This was such an easy and simple way to play and create art!

Creative Art Projects for Kids

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We love painting and creating art with the kids.  And they LOVE to get messy!  These features are fun, creative, and FANTASTIC ways to make ART! These creative art projects challenge the senses and encourage fine motor skill development. Kids can use messy texture paint, tear, and use their hands in painting activities.

Creative Art for Kids

Fabulous Fall Collage by Happy Hooligans
Painting Without a Brush by He Cares For You
Bouncy Ball Art by Crayon Box Chronicles
Fall Craft Collages by EduArt 4 Kids
Water Color Leaves by Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds
Painting With Bubble Wrap by Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds
Easy Butterfly Art by Munchkin and Bean
Ocean Stamp Art by Gift of Curiosity

More Creative Art Ideas

Use these creative painting ideas to explore tactile sensory experiences and as a tactile sensory challenge. The sensory painting ideas listed here can be made as DIY paint ideas that kids will have fun mixing up and then using to paint and create!

Honey Bee Games and Activities Inspired by The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh

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We used our honey bees in a fine motor game where we matched the number of bees to the number on a honey pot.  The pinching motion to open the clothes pin is great for strengthening the muscles in little hands.  It really develops the arches of the hands and allows the child to improve his or her tripod grasp and handwriting.  This was a great activity for Little Guy (age 4), who is learning one-to-one correspondence in counting and number awareness. 

When we were given the opportunity to work on a Winnie The Pooh post, the three of us Aunts were SO excited!  We (and our kids) are huge fans of Pooh Bear and all of his friends. 
 
Did you watch this video as a child like we did?  You might remember the catchy songs and the cute and cuddly friends.  Now you can experience again (and with your own children), the friendships, imagination, and adventure of the Hundred Acre Woods when all of your favorite characters come alive in this timeless motion picture.
My kids were delighted with the bee scene in the movie, when Winnie The Pooh is trying his hardest to stop the “rumbly in his tumbly” with a little honey.  Little Guy has been singing this tune over and over again.  We decided to make some honey bee games and activities to go along with this scene.  We love to encourage fine motor, gross motor, and sensory development with our kid’s activities and crafts, and had to include those skills here, too!
I created honey bee pinch pins that were perfect for our little screening party and could be used in so many ways.
Materials: clothes pins, yellow and black pipe cleaners, googly eyes, wax paper, hot glue gun and glue.
Directions: 1. Pinch together one black and one yellow pipe cleaner.  Wrap these around the end of a clothes pin.  We used about half of each color pipe cleaner and cut the excess off.

2. Cut wings from wax paper.  Use the hot glue gun to glue the wings to the backs of the bees. 

3.  Hot glue the googly eyes to the front of the bee.  Your bee is now ready for play!

Honey Bee Fine Motor Game

We used our honey bees in a fine motor game where we matched the number of bees to the number on a honey pot.  The pinching motion to open the clothes pin is great for strengthening the muscles in little hands.  It really develops the arches of the hands and allows the child to improve his or her tripod grasp and handwriting.  This was a great activity for Little Guy (age 4), who is learning one-to-one correspondence in counting and number awareness. 

Honey Bee Gross Motor Activity

The honey pots were used again when we played a faster paced gross motor game, encouraging the kids to use their large muscle groups.  This time, I spread the honey pots out all over our living room floor.  I called out a number and the kids would have to race off to find the honey pot with that number.  Once they found their honey pot, they then had to run over to a large bee hive that we created from a recycled snack container and crepe paper.  I asked them to count out the number of bees to match the number on their honey pot, and drop them into the large bee hive.  To make it harder for my preschooler and kindergartener, I had them close their eyes.  This gross motor activity was just what they needed to get some energy out on a rainy afternoon!  As a bonus, they were developing their eye-hand coordination, and visual scanning skills as they scanned for numbers and counted out the bees.  They have already asked to play this game again!  This would be such a fun game for a Winnie The Pooh themed birthday party…and I have two little ones to attest for it being fun!

Honey Bee Sensory Play

Our honey bees were really loved when they were added into a themed sensory bin.  I poured in a bag of dried split peas, a few fake flower petals, and a handful of plastic flower beads for fun sensory exploration.  A sensory bin is such a great way to explore different textures, manipulate small objects, and develop language with little ones.  My kids loved using the honey bees to pinch the flower petals and buzzzzz around, only to drop the petal back into the bin.  This sensory bin stayed out in our dining room for a few days and was played with quite often!

Honey Bee Treat

We had such a great time watching The Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and then playing all of our honey bee games and activities, that we worked up an appetite.  I threw together a quick bee hive snack made from a marshmallow and melted butterscotch chips.  This was the perfect ending to a fun day.  If you are planning a Winnie The Pooh party or movie play date, I hope you will use some of our ideas!

Fairy Small World

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Wooden birdhouse decorated with flowers, glitter, and beads, in a sandbox with small steps made from pebbles. Text reads fairy small world

This fairy small world activity is an old one on our blog, but do you believe we still have the small world fairy house that we made many moons ago? I love that the small world fairy garden was a sensory bin activity using materials we had around the home, including our sand box! This is a great small world play idea for occupational therapy, because you can foster the skills needed by each child: fine motor, sensory, self-regulation, etc.

Using your sandbox as a space for a fairy small world is such an easy sensory bin idea. The dramatic play benefits that happens in a miniature fairy world is unlimited, especially when you use small things like sticks to create paths, or rocks to make fairy furniture.

How to make a Fairy Small World

While we used our sandbox for the sensory space, you could recreate a fairy world of your own in any sensory bin, around the base of a tree, or even in a potted plant. Here are sensory bin base ideas to get you started, if you go that route.

Once you have your place space in mind, you can gather other items to create a fairy small world:

  • Miniature house (this can be anything from a DIY fairy house made of leaves, bark, and seashells, to a store-bought fairy house)
  • Small items: feathers, leaves, gems, pebbles, sticks, acorns, etc.
  • Nature items: plants, pieces of bark, twigs, rocks, etc.

Create your fairy small world!

Set up your space and start playing. The possibilities are endless, and depending on your play space, you can make the fairy small world as elaborate or as simple as you like. We went simple and fun with our sandbox fairy neighborhood.

 
 
We made these sweet little fairy houses at Big Sister’s Tinkerbell Fairy Birthday party.  You can read the post and all of the party details here.  The fairy houses have been decorating our porch table since the party and involved in lots of pretend play activities.

 

 
 
Big Sister had the fairy houses in the sandbox one afternoon while the younger kids napped. 
 
She had her La La Loopsy dolls all set up with a neighborhood and all kinds of fun going on.
 

 

I added a few stones for sidewalks and Big Sister thought we needed more decorations added. 
We pulled a few potted plants from the porch and made our little fairy neighborhood quite pretty!
 
 
 

Tinkerbell Fairy Birthday Party details

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Check out the party details below, and watch for a Ninja Turtle post to come, soon 🙂
We made coffee filter butterflies here (using a straw to pipet watercolors onto coffee filters!), and strung them in the light fixture using fishing line.  Raiding dad’s tackle box was a fun adventure one afternoon 😉
Chocolate covered Oreos with Key Lime Pie melts from Joanne’s.  This combo was really good!  They may not be the prettiest chocolate, but with those Joanne coupons, you can’t beat it! 
Finger food even a fairy would love!

Another Joanne’s coupon deal: Little fairy houses for each party go-er to decorate.  We had a goopy, glittery, sticky house for lots of little fairies! (Or birdhouses for a certain little nephew…) 🙂
I LOVE the concentration going on here!
We painted a big sheet of cardboard and hung it to our outdoor play house.  This was a fun afternoon in the week leading up to party day!  Big Sister really got into this one.
We had a great celebration of Big Sister’s birthday with family and friends.
Happy Birthday to my sweet, smart, kind, sensitive, silly girl.