indoor play

Bow Stamp Art Flower Craft

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Our recent Painting with Pinwheel art was such a hit that we had to try another stamp art activity.  We made this gift bow flower stamp art craft in honor of a special little one in our house who is celebrating her first birthday.  Using the gift bows as a stamp made the cutest flower art.  This craft is perfect for preschoolers (and kids of all ages) when making flower art!  I think it would make a pretty special DIY birthday paper wrapping too!
This is one of our favorite hand eye coordination activities for toddlers because there is no right or wrong way to make this toddler painting art!

Make flower art using a gift bow to stamp! Cute idea for a flower craft or DIY wrapping paper.


To make your Gift Bow Flower Art:

 
Pick up just a few materials.  We’re including affiliate links for your convience here.  You’ll need 

paint (LOVE this brand!) poured onto a plate or into bowls.  Grab a handful of gift bows and start stamping!

Preschoolers love this craft for it’s easy art creation and it’s such a fun and easy process art activity.  There is no right or wrong way to make the flowers.  When you’re satisfied with the flowers, take a swipe of green paint and make a few stems.  Our flower art decorated the dining room for a few days.   Maybe we’ll make a roll of DIY wrapping paper the next time around!
 
Let us know if you make this creative art project.  You’ll find lots more creative art painting ideas on our Creative Painting Pinterest board.  Be sure to follow us there! 
 
More creative stamp art you might enjoy:

DIY Tambourine Craft

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Want to make a recycled tambourine? We’ve got you covered with our plate tambourine craft from years ago. We used recycled clear plates for a colorful tambourine that the kids loved!

We made these clear DIY tambourines as a baby sensory toy that was a big hit with all of the kids. The clear plastic plates made sensory play fun with a visual and auditory aspect.  Using recycled materials in craft and play is one of our favorite ways to create! We also recommend making a bottle xylophone for more colorful and beautiful music!


Clear tambourines for music and baby sensory play
 

Recycled Tambourine Craft

 
How to make DIY recycled tambourines for music and toddler sensory play…
 
You’ll need just a few items to make a plate tambourine:
  1. Clear recycled plates 
  2. Hot glue
  3. Items to add inside the tambourines. Ideas include dry beans, dry corn, dry split peas, dry rice, or cut up pieces of straws.
 
 
This is an easy DIY project that kids of all ages will love.  Use recycled clear plastic plates, a hot glue gun, and filler.  We used red beans and cut straws to fill our tambourines.  
 
I wanted bright and bold colors for our clear tambourines.  Other fillers might include: dried split peas, chick peas, black beans, or beads.

 

 
Fill one of the plates with the beans.  Little Sister loved helping with this part.

 

 
She helped me by cutting colorful straws into small pieces.  She loved watching the bits of straws shoot across the table as she snipped each one.  What a great scissor activity for preschoolers!

 

 
These brightly colored straws make great tambourine filler.

 

 
 
Use the hot glue gun to spread glue along the whole edge of the lip of one plate.  Be sure to put the hot glue on the plate that is filled with filler.  Then place the empty plate on top of the hot glue.  Don’t try to flip the full plate onto the empty plate.  You’ll end up with spilled beans and hot glue burns.  Don’t ask how I know this 😉
 
Firmly press the whole outside edges together until the glue hardens.

 

 
Baby loves these clear tambourines for shaking sensory play!
 
 

Other DIY instruments that we loved include:

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.

Ducklings Sensory Play Kids Book

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Books and activities are one of our favorite ways to play and explore books.  We recently read Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.  This is a book written in 1941 that was totally new to us.  It quickly became a new favorite in our house!  As we read the book about Mr and Mrs. Mallard’s search for their new home, we became very excited to explore the story through sensory play.  We decided to create a sensory table based on Make Way for Ducklings and did we ever have fun!

Make Way for Ducklings book sensory play for kids
This post contains affiliate links.
 


Make Way for Ducklings Book and Sensory Play

 
We read Make Way for Ducklings a few times before we made this sensory table activity.  It is such a fun book with a sweet story about a pair of mallards that are looking for a new home for their growing family.  When the ducklings are born, the mama duck needs to get her large family through the busy streets of Boston to a beautiful and safe park.  We decided to make a sensory play activity right on our Train Table.  We use our train table almost everyday for creative play of some kind.  This sensory play was perfect on the train table as we acted out the story.  Three kids could reach, move, explore, and play as we re-told the story.
We used a few items for our sensory story play:

rubber ducks 
wooden train tracks to enclose our sensory play area and use as roads for the busy streets of Boston.
blue waterbeads (Have you played with these yet? SO cool!)
cars 
policeman figures 
green shredded paper 
clear glass gems 
Boat

We pulled out the book and started reading, playing, and re-telling the story.
Mr. and Mrs. Mallard love the pond in Boston Public Gardens.  It would be the perfect place to make a new home for their family!  There is even a boat in the pond full of people who feed the ducks peanuts.
The mallards travel a little ways to make a nice, safe nest.  Mrs. Mallard sits on her eggs until they hatch.  The glass gems made perfect “eggs” and we were able to count them just like Mrs. Mallard does.
Then the eggs hatched and seven ducklings were born.
Mrs. Mallard taught the ducklings to swim and waddle in a line.
The ducklings followed Mrs. mallard back to the pond along the busy streets.
The policemen stopped traffic to allow the ducklings to cross.
And the Mallard family lived at the pond!  
 
Exploring this book with sensory play was such a fun way to extend one of our newest (old)favorite books!
Make Way for Ducklings book sensory play activity. This is a fun way to re-tell a story through sensory play.
This post is part of a new series we’re joining all about Book Themed Play Dates!  If you’ve ever thought of planning a play date based on a book, this is the series to follow to get great snacks, games, crafts, activities and more based on a great book each month.  
Check out the bloggers below for fun activities for Make Way for Ducklings:
 
Duck Snack from Still Playing School
Preschool Math Game from Fun-A-Day
Ducklings Busy Bag from Craftulate
hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?  

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.

Cardboard Tube Zebra Craft

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 Today we bring you a Recycled Cardboard Tube Zebra Craft.  We love to make and create play ideas and crafts using recycled materials.  Its a wonderful way to upcycle and save crafting supplies and use recycled materials in a greener and more sustainable manner.  This cardboard tube zebra craft hits the mark!


Cardboard tube toilet paper tube zebra craft

Toilet Paper Tube Zebra Craft

We pulled out a cardboard tube to make this zebra, along with a few other items that we’ve used in other play activities.  This post contains affiliate links for a few reusable items you may need.
Use a hole punch to make four holes in the cardboard tube as shown in the picture above.
Use yarn draped in black paint to make stripes on the cardboard tube.
This is a messy painting activity, but oh, so fun!
Once the cardboard tube has dried, use black and white paper straws to make legs on the zebra.  Push the straws into the holes in the cardboard tube to support the zebra.
Add a small section of straw and a smaller section of cardboard tube to make a zebra head.  Snip two triangles from the tube to create zebra ears.  Glue on or draw on eyes for the zebra.  Have fun with your recycled zebra craft!
This post is part of the Natural Parenting and Earth Month series hosted by Allternative Learning.

Ish Book Activity Block Sculptures

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This week, the Preschool Book Club brings you activities and crafts based on the book, Ish by Peter H. Reynolds.  What a great message this book has!  We loved reading Ish (again and again!) and came up with our take on the book and it’s encouragement of creative flow to build Ish-inspired block structures.  Our block creations were full of creativity and tons of expression as the kids built and created stories and play.
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

Block Structures and Creative Play inspired by the book, Ish:

 
This post contains affiliate links. 
When we read Ish , by Peter H. Reynolds, we loved the feeling of being encouraged to TRY and to use our imagination.  When Ramon creates “-ish” drawings, we loved his fun ideas!  We decided to use something that we play with almost every day to create and imagine just like Ramon did.  We pulled out our wooden blocks and started building “block-ish” sculptures!
Little Guy started with a trio of “airplane-ish” shapes that took off and flew around the dining room.
We used our imaginations to create creatures, steps, and more and started telling stories about our structures.  I love to hear the stories my kids tell and it was fun to hear the way they created once I started adding “-ish” to the structures.  They kept up with the -ish terms as they told their stories: The “dog-ish” guy went up the “steps-ish” area so he could be “taller-ish”.
 
We had SO much fun with this simple imagination building activity!
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
There were “ice cream-ish” treats…
…”Butterfly-ish” creatures…
…”present-ish” gifts…
…and a little block-ish tasting from the baby!
We ended up with a “tent-ish” neighborhood.
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
And a “truck-ish” vehicle…
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
 
…which lead us to a dining room full of “road-ish” streets.  This became a whole afternoon of pretend play and creative thinking.
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
What can you create with a basket full of blocks and inspiration from Ish?
 
Be sure to stop by the other Preschool Book Club bloggers to see their crafts and activities based on Ish:
 
 Artwork Candles from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
Emotions Charades from Homegrown Friends
Crumbled Paper Art from Buggy and Buddy
Math Estimation Jars from Mama. Papa. Bubba. blog
hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?  

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.

Learning Rainbow Order Stacking Cups

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Today we’re sharing rainbow stacking cups, possibly one of the simplest learning activities that we’ve put together.  These DIY stacking cups are a wonderful way for teaching rainbow order, and so much fun to play with over and over again. Kids can benefit from the motor planning benefits of this activity too, working on gross motor skills and fine motor skills. 
 
DIY Rainbow Stacking Cups for color identification, color order, and learning rainbows with this stacking and building nesting toy.
 
 
 

Learning Rainbow Order

 
This post contains affiliate links.
 
These rainbow stacking cups are really so easy to put together.  I used 

styrofoam cups 
 tape 
and cardstock
in a rainbow of colors.

 
Cut the cardstock into strips lengthwise. 
DIY Rainbow Stacking Cups for color identification, color order, and learning rainbows with this stacking and building nesting toy.
 
 
 
Tape the cardstock onto the rims of the cups.  The activity is set for learning and play!
 
DIY Rainbow Stacking Cups for color identification, color order, and learning rainbows with this stacking and building nesting toy.
 
We had SO much fun with these rainbow cups!  We stacked them up in random and rainbow orders.  As we stacked, we said the colors of the rainbow.  Little Guy (age 5) considers himself an expert in knowing the colors of the rainbow in correct order and was sure to correct Little Sister (age 3) in the accurate stacking of the rainbow.
 
DIY Rainbow Stacking Cups for color identification, color order, and learning rainbows with this stacking and building nesting toy.
 
 
 
We used the cups to build towers and buildings over and over again.
DIY Rainbow Stacking Cups for color identification, color order, and learning rainbows with this stacking and building nesting toy.
 
These cups make a great collection cup for a rainbow scavenger hunt.  Go around the house looking for matching colored items to fill the cups.  We found crayons, ribbons, scrap paper, toys, Legos…This is a fun way to work on color identification with preschoolers.
 
DIY Rainbow Stacking Cups for color identification, color order, and learning rainbows with this stacking and building nesting toy.
 
 
 
These rainbow stacking cups were a DIY hit in our house!
 
 
 

The Day The Crayons Quit Crayon Shaving Art

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Have you read the book, “The Day the Crayons Quit”?  This is SUCH a cute book from the crayons’ point of view.  They are TIRED of coloring the same old pictures the same old colors.  Why does the Yellow crayon have to color the sun?  And why can’t the Black crayon color a beach ball?   We loved reading this book over and over again and coming up with our own take on mixing up the colors in a sensory art project using crayon shavings!
And, while your in the crayon theme, be sure to check out our resource on crayons for toddlers and preschoolers to support development of coloring as well as underlying skills using age-appropriate crayons.

 
We are super duper excited to be back at the Preschool Book Club series where we’ll join a few of our favorite kids activity bloggers and explore a fun children’s book every two weeks!
 


The Day the Crayons Quit sensory art

Crayon shaving art craft for sensory play based on the book, The Day the Crayons Quit

This post contains affiliate links.  
 
We loved reading The Day the Crayons Quit
by Drew Daywalt so this sensory crayon shaving art was completely a hit in our house!
 
This sensory activity requires just a few items:
 

plastic sandwich bags
clear shampoo
crayons
permanent marker
 and a small pencil sharpener

 



Use the pencil sharpener to make crayon shavings in the colors you want.  This is a fantastic fine motor activity for little fingers.  Twisting the crayons in the small pencil sharpener really works the intrinsic muscles of the hands.  Not only are kids building the hand strength and endurance for writing and coloring tasks, they are using a tripod grasp to manage the pencil sharpener/crayon.  It’s a resistive task that might cause hand fatigue for little ones, but not much crayon shavings are needed for this sensory activity.

Use the permanent marker to draw a picture on one of the sandwich bags.  Fill the baggie with the shampoo and you are ready to get started!  
Have the kids pinch the crayon shavings into the plastic bag.  We tried to get the colors we wanted into the general area of the picture.  So, instead of a yellow sun, we made ours purple and tried to get the purple crayon shavings near the sun in the picture.  If they don’t land exactly near the part of the picture that you want them, it’s not a big problem, and actually a good sensory and fine motor activity to move the shavings around in the shampoo.
Crayon shaving art craft for sensory play based on the book, The Day the Crayons Quit
Press and push the colors into the part of the picture to make mixed up colors just like in “The Day the Crayons Quit” 
Crayon shaving art craft for sensory play based on the book, The Day the Crayons Quit

Be sure to see all of the amazing activities based on The Day the Crayons Quit: 

Writing Activity from Homegrown Friends
Crayon Box Craft from Buggy and Buddy
Follow Up Story from Mama. Papa. Bubba.
Paper Doll Crayons from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
 
 
Did you miss some of our other Preschool Book Club activities based on popular children’s books?  Check them out and see all of our Preschool books and activities: 
hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?  

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.

Turtle Thumbprint Art

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fingerprint turtle craft

Make a fingerprint turtle and work on fine motor skills! This turtle craft is a huge hit with kids.

We have a love for print crafts.  From creating with handprints to pipe cleaners, stamping art is fun for kids and a creative way to explore shapes, colors, and textures.  
 
 

Fingerprint Turtle

 
 
We made this turtle thumbprint art one day while playing with green paint.  They are so cute that you’ll want to make a whole turtle family!

 
Turtle thumbprint craft for kids
 

 

 
This post contains affiliate links.   
To make Turtle Thumbprint Art, you’ll need a few supplies: 
 
  1. our favorite green paint
  2. white paper
  3. orange paint
  4. Sharpie Permanent Marker
 
 

How to make fingerprint turtle art

This turtle fingerprint art is a simple craft that develops fine motor skills. Here are the instructions to make a fingerprint turtle, but you can modify the activity as meets the needs of the individual. 
 
  1. Paint your child’s thumb pad green with green paint. 
  2. Press the thumbprint onto paper.
  3. Add four legs and a head by pressing fingertips into the green paint.
  4. Lightly tap the fingertips onto the green turtle back on the paper.
  5. Once dry, use the Sharpie Permanent Marker to make smiling faces.
  6. You can also add details to the turtle’s shell by adding orange fingerprints onto the green shell. The orange paint on a fingertip can add details to the shells. 
 
 
 I loved that this craft was a collaboration between my kids, with Big Sister making the shells, Little Brother making the heads and feet, and Little Sister adding orange dots. Everyone had to get in on the fun.  They are just too cute to resist!
 
Try more thumbprint and fingerprint art:
 
 
I love Ewe handprint art | Olive You fingerprint art.