Book Huts

When I ran across blog http://redhenhome.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-birdhouses.html last year in November, it reminded me of the book "The Village of Round and Square Houses".  I don't mean to toot childrens' books, but we did a lot of reading that year (and still do presently).  The huts on the cover of the book reminded me of the one of the birdhouses found on the Red Hen Home blog. A geometry lesson on rounds and squares can be the inspiration for the book.

Doesn't this book jacket have lovely pencil sketchings?

Our class did the first example of birdhouses.

The kids were so focused on folding these pages. I think the crispness of folding pages was lost because they were too interested to see who was on what page.  Nonetheless, the idea was captured.

Some were slowing down because they were reading when they should have been folding.

Can you tell if the pages are crisply folded from these pictures?

One of the first to be done!

Styrofoam Rodents

Have you seen the movie "Ratatouille"?  It's one of my favorite kid flicks. Did it change your mind about the rodents, especially the extra facts at the end?  Whether you're a rodent fan or not, you can't find fault with these cute creations. So, get rid of those leftover styrofoam eggs from last spring. On the blog http://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/kid/styrofoam-kids-crafts/?rb=Y#page=5, make a hit with the kids. Have them make up their own short stories related to their mice.  You can use another love of mine, a book called "Hooway for Wodney Wat" for inspiration.

This was relatively an easy project, but the glue gun who is our friend and enemy (enemy because too often we burned ourselves on the small details) had a lot of use that day.

I know. You're getting tired of my out of focus pictures. Please forgive me. These were done with my

infamously old cell phone, which got upgraded in April this year. Yeah!

We didn't add any whiskers.  Do you know why?

Supplies:
1. oval styrofoam shapes
2. paint
3. felt
4. small beads
5. small pearls (we had no pom-poms)
6. knife
7. scissors
8. pencil

Directions:
1. cut styrofoam oval in half
2. paint your choice of color; let dry
3. cut small circles from felt for ears; cut in half
4. with pencil push straight edge of felt into styrofoam (ears)
5. cut long tail from felt (ours were long and thick); you can make them shorter and skinnier

Duration:
This took one day

Minion

Isn't great that one can use simple materials to make favorite characters?  How about that movie Despicable Me?  Really, I don't know why the movie industry comes by these titles, but they do know how to draw kids. As I did not see the movie, I wondered if there was some type of satire, because the word "minion" didn't have a positive light to me.  But as a cartoon perhaps I was being a bit much. I found http://mollymoocrafts.com/toilet-roll-craft-make-a-minion/ the perfect recipe for using the excess toilet rolls a parent brought to class.

Sorry you don't get to see the kids doing the minions in action.

Can you tell this is a female minion below? I do apologize for pictures 2 and 4. They are a bit blurry.

Supplies:

1. toilet rolls

2. blue and yellow construction paper

3. newspaper

4. yellow paint

5. googly eyes

6. yarn

7. cardboard

8. masking tape

9. paper mache paste

10. hot glue gun

11. glue

12. black markers

Directions:

1. stuff newspaper inside toilet roll pushing until a dome appears at other end of tube (top)

2. cover top of dome with masking tape to hold in place

3. encase outside of toilet roll with paper mache

4. let dry

5. paint tube yellow

6. cut cardboard in small circles for eyes, hot glue on toilet roll

7. hot glue googly eye(s) on cardboard

8. let child draw headband for goggles for eyeball to eyeball

9. construct blue clothing for minion gluing it in place

10. construct arms from yellow paper, hot gluing in place (optional)

11. add yarn for hair (optional)

Duration:

Takes two days 

Feathered Fowls

Well, what can I say?  This project certainly did not have the finesse we had anticipated. But anyway, we did the best that we could with what we had done.  Sometimes you are a success, and sometimes you fail. Who knows why we couldn't mold this lump of paper mache into smooth objects. The paper mache dried so hard, we couldn't even sand it. That means I must not have followed a step correctly. So we produced what you see here...

 ANGRY BIRDS

Please forgive the my blurry picture above.  Where do people get these concepts that they sell kids on. We had Angry Bird pajamas, Angry Bird lunch boxes, Angry Bird games.  Why are the birds angry? By the way, doesn't that bird to the far left look like Yoda, from Star Wars?

   

We tried to follow the bird pattern from blog http://www.ultimatepapermache.com/bluebird-ornaments only to a certain extent because the directions were very long (but needful if you were making the entire body of a bird).  As you can see, we cheated.  Instead of making the entire head of the bird out of paper mache, we added colored clay and molded it to form the expressions for the Angry Birds.  What do you think of it, are they angry enough?

These birds definitely look like the type not to mess with.

As with so many of us when we're angry, we go out on a shopping spree and buy things for ourselves to feel better.  Did you catch that feather fedora on the right? 

Supplies:

1. newspaper

2. masking tape

3. paper mache paste (make this)

4. paint brushes

5. paint

6. colored clay

Directions:

1. make a ball about the size of your fist with newspaper

2. wrap masking tape around ball until fully covered

3. cover ball with newsprint and paper mache paste

4. let dry

5. paint

6. let dry

7. add clay for eyes and facial expressions

Duration:

This took one week.

Magazine Trees

Looking for another item to place on your mantel for the holidays?  Have you seen the magazines trees on http://www.thehousethatlarsbuilt.com/2011/12/1st-day-of-christmas-crafts-diy-glitter.html? I did not think that my kindergartners would want to do this craft at that time in 2013, so I asked my partner if I could work with the older kids.  The boys didn't give me flack for doing this project with them, and I was very appreciative of that.  I "bribed" them to think of making something for the family instead of thinking only for themselves.  I think they were sold on the idea.

These are pictures of the folded pages. It is pretty repetitious work; but folding the pages neatly makes for a very nicely "tree".

These are the beginning stages of the process.

The boys got step one of the folding down.  Step two required more folding and tucking of pages which resulted in the standing trees below.  You can see something of this process below in the background on the picture on the right.

 

A few of the boys sprayed painted their trees.  We didn't use glitter (is that a boy thing not to use it)?  

Slatted Candle Holder

The blog post from http://sacrafters.blogspot.ca/2013/01/altered-tin-can-with-cloth-pins.html was so beautiful.  Definitely, this can be a craft replicated for special occasions, such as weddings or birthdays.  Though this craft had more detail in it, I wanted the children to experience more intricacy this project to add more depth of perception and patience in character.

Our class had our hand at doing this craft November 2013. Instructions called for a small tin can, but there was no way that we could eat 20 cans of tuna.  I saw these paper clip holders at the Dollar Store so I bought those instead. (If you do use actual clip holders, make sure your candle is encased in a glass jar, or you will have to deal with melted on floor, table, etc.).

Again, I have to apologize for a lack of photos for various reasons.  The top one is never knew that one day I would do a blog. And the other, well, I'm not a good photographer and most of my pictures were to blurry to present to the public. But never mind the excuses, don't you think this is doable for any art class?

The most tedious for me was cutting out all those strips from different patterned scrapbook papers.  Yep, the kids out to choose which papers they want and I had to get cuttin'.

Our class did not go the extra distance to add flowers and lettering on our holders because I didn't want the project to be too long for the kids. That would have been the icing on the cake.

Supplies:
1. clothespins
2. scrapbook papers
3. cutting board
4. tin can, or paper clip holder
5. water colors
6. sponge brushes
7. glue (Mod Podge)
8. scissors
9. candles
10. hot glue gun

Directions:
1. paint clothespins (sacrafters.com painted their tin can, we left out this step); let dry
2. cut strips of paper the width and length of clothespins
3. glue strips onto clothespins
4. hot glue clothespins around tin can

Duration:
Our class took four days to complete this project. The kids had to adjust the length of the strips themselves.

Pipe Cleaner Tree

Our storage drawer was stocked with pipe cleaners of all sorts of colors that had never been used, including a pack that had glittery colors.  So I hopped onto my favorite go-to site and saw such a clever way to make a tree on http://www.thecraftycrow.net/tutorials/.  The shimmery trees looked so pretty.  The kids had made snowflakes the previous week and now, they got to configure trees to go with the winter theme.

I didn't have my partner that day, and I tell you, that tying the "branches" around the stalk was a challenging feat for these kindergartners.  Directions with demonstration must have been given at least four times. Regardless, they did their best and stuck with it.

One of the kids is not convinced that is tree looks like a tree.  Notice the hand on the cheek.  That's really a call for help.  Actually, once the branches were placed on trunk, the kids could manipulate the branches by bending them up or out depending on how they wanted tree to look.

As you can see, they had a measure of success and were eager to add the pony beads to their branches.

Our last step was to figure out how to make the trees stand.  So we opted to use the shapes from the plastic bin.  We just hot-glued the trees onto the shapes.

Supplies:
1. pipe cleaners
2. pony beads
3. hot glue gun
4. base for tree
5. scissors

Directions:
1. with three pipe cleaners, twist them around each other (we cut the length in half for kids to share);   this is the trunk
2. cut graduated pairs of pipe cleaner lengths (to help kids, the shortest length was for top of tree)
3. starting at top of trunk, twist round shortest pipe cleaner length once (one side of branch for right   side of tree, one side of branch for left side of tree)
4. continue twisting graduated lengths down length of "trunk"
5. hot glue tree onto a base to stand

Duration:
Project takes one day

Clothespin Flake

It must be that time of year and everyone has the same idea to make snowflakes from the same material; or wooden clothespins have a seasonal life.  I went to four different stores and there were no clothespins to be found. Perhaps held for summer months where we can hang clothes outdoors on the line.

The most gorgeous snowflakes not cut out of paper that had an old world charm was on this site: http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2013/11/easy-holiday-ornament-ideas.html.  Who knew that snowflakes could not so-o-o beautiful!

In preparation for this craft, we read about Snowflake Bentley, a farmer/scientist who had had an interest in snow storms and snowflakes all his life.  After the reading, we began to construct our snowflakes.

Children love taking things apart, so this was actually fun!  We bagged those metal pieces because I found out that one can make jewelry from them.

        

This young man is putting his name on his snowflake.

What a beautiful collection just as is!  They could have been stained for an old-fashion flare.

Since we learned how to mix colors a month or so back, the children wanted to paint their snowflakes a cool color.

The last item was to sprinkle the snowflake with glitter.  And there you go--glitter goes with everything!

Supplies:
1. wooden clothespins
2. wood glue
3. hot glue gun
4. paint
5. glitter
6. sealer

Directions:
1.  take clothespins apart separating them from metal connector (use 8 clothespins for one snowflake)
2.  glue the backs of the clothespins together (equals eight pairs)
3.  hot glue angled heads of clothespins together forming a cross, or north, south, east, west design
4.  insert the other four pairs in between the formed angles
5. sprinkle glitter
6. spray on sealer (regardless, glitter gets on EVERYTHING!!)