An Easy Preschool Toddler Octopus Craft

Hello, hello, hello :)

After a looooong time of absence :/ due to many things that happens in life, I have decided to continue blogging and helping teachers, stay at home moms, grandparents, babysitters and all of you out there who would like to benefit from what I share here in my blog.

What I'll post here is mostly things that I do with my kids in my preschool classroom.

I hope you enjoy my blog and if you have any question please don't hesitate to ask, I love to help as much as I can :)

Well... today I am going to start with an easy octopus craft that I posted on my Instagram today, but with the difference that I'll walk you through the steps on how to make the craft and benefits for the child while working on that craft.

 

To make this octopus you only need an octopus outline that you can print from the net 

any color paint you like, I used purple

a piece of bubble wrap and

a paintbrush

 

 

I let the child apply paint on the bubble wrap

even if you are working with toddlers (like me)

you can show them how to spread the paint with the paintbrush

then teach them how to hold the bubble wrap

between their fingers and flip it upside down

to put it on top of the octopus

show them to apply a little pressure

so they can make a print of the bubble wrap

and remove.

It is very important to go through this steps patiently with the child

since you are helping them be independant

use their fine motor skills

and increase their vocabulary.

After it dries, I cut it out, and paste it on a construction paper

usually, I use the color of their choice

so the work is completely theirs.

Here is how the final project looks :)

 

 

I hope you enjoyed it.

Please let me know if you have any questions

or if you would like to add anything to it :)

I love to have ideas and input from everybody :)

Have fun,

Clemencia

 

Do you like to Crochet?

For those moms or teachers that have other hobbies or would like to try other hobbies like crochet, I just wanted to invite you over to Arts Crafts and Scraps to see how I made my latest crochet creation, a Tablet Cover :)

 

Thanks for visiting :)

 

 

 

Getting Crafty and Organized

Lately, We have been trying to get organized here at home.

But of course that's very boring for kids.

So instead of telling my daughter that we were going to organized her headbands,

I told her that we were going to do a craft

So I took an oatmeal container and some scrapbooking paper

measure the length of the container and cut the paper to that length.

For the big oatmeal container you'll need 2 scrapbooking papers

because they don't go all the way around the container.

Then we drew the lid on the container, cut it and glue it.

By the way the glue we used for this project was a spray glue.

You don't want to get your paper wet with the liquid white glue.

That's it!

Viola!

For some reason in this 2 first pictures

the top paper looks pink but it's blue

I let my daughter (now 6 years old)

choose her own papers, her own colors.

It makes it more unique, more herself.

When we were done.

We put all her headbands there and... 

no more mess :)

Thanks for reading my blog :)

Homemade Puppet Theater

This weekend we decided to make a Puppet Theater

a 100% recycled

First we took a cardbox

and made a whole in the middle for the window,

then Jessica decided to decorated on one of the sides

with her beautiful drawings

then to put courtains on it,

we pocked two holes on each side

on the top of the window

then we used the tie wraps from the bread loaf

to hold a piece of wood dowell

After looking at it

Jessica decided to paint it

but she was a little dissapointed that she didn't have

pink anymore,

I took advantage of this and showed her

that red and white mixed together

makes pink

here is her painted puppet theater

of course she didn't want to cover

her beautiful drawing :)

we made courtains out of an old blouse

that I had and put it all together,

here is the finished project :)

Thanks for reading :)

More Flowers for Mother's Day

This time we worked on flowers

made out of egg carton

First I cut the egg carton into two rows

(as you can see my daughter got a little

creative there with her child safety scissors

and the paint :)

after they were dry we cut them individually

with some decorative scissors

that we have for scrapbooking

and as a final step we pocked a hole with a pen

and put a pipecleaner through the flower

making a little loop on the other end of the pipecleaner

to make the center of the flower

Happy Mother's Day

Flowers for Mother's Day

Today we finished this paper flowers

how pretty they came out

ready for Mommy or Grandma

for Mother's Day :)

First we took a coffee filter

folded 3 times

then we used food coloring

just a few drops of different colors here and there

teaching my daughter at the same time

that this little bottles don't need to be squeezed :)

After she finished putting all the color drops

we wet it with a brush

then we got a towell ready

and opened it slowly do it doesn't break

we let it dry overnight

colors become bright the next day


once is dry
we take it in our hands and wrinkle
the middle of the coffee filter to form the flower
and to hold it together we used pipecleaners
just wrap it around a few times
and that becomes the stem of the flower




here is the final result :)

We'll be also trying to color the coffee filters
with watercolor pencils and
markers and water to blend the colors

Flores para el Dia de las Madres

Flower = Flor
flowers = flores
Mother = Madre
Mom = Mama

Enjoy!

Stained glass easter eggs

We made this easter eggs

from plain cardboard

we started by tracing a egg shape foam

then manually I traced the inside

and cut it leaving a hole

then put glue all around the cut egg

then put paper on top of the glue
we used different types
crepe paper
gift wrapping tissue paper
and even a plastic treat bag
but I don't have a picture of this one
since Jessica put so much glue on it
that got stuck all over the paper where we left it to dry :)

Anyways, here is the final result,
decorating part of my computer desk :)

The Golden Egg Book

Last night we started reading

"the Golden Egg"

and for a craft

we took some glue mixed with a little bit of water

yellow yarn

and a water balloon

We dipped the yarn in the glue

(careful... really messy) lol

and covered the water balloon with the yarn

we used lots of strings to be able to cover

the balloon as much as possible

leaving some empty spaces just for the art of it :)

once done, we let it dry

and our finished result...

after we popped the balloon
we have a golden egg

Thanks to MoreMomTime who I got the idea from here

C for Caterpillar "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

As we start with the letter C

we chose "the very hungry caterpillar" book

we took an egg carton and splitted in two

to make there colorful caterpillars

I gave Jessica a couple of different brushes to paint with

an old toothbrush

a flat foam brush

and her regular paintbrush

after the painting we used a black pipe cleaner for the antena

and some mini pom poms for the eyes

Lacing The Mitten

A little bit of sewing as an addition to the story.

Sewing and lacing help children learn fine motor skills,

which are essential for writing skills


you can find this mitten here

Polar Bear artic scene

This was very fun to work on

while coloring, cutting and gluing

we were talking about where Polar Bears live

To make this scene you need

this Polar Bear cut out

waxed paper
glue and
cotton balls

On a piece of white cardboard, make your child color blue for the sky, then
tear out iceberg shapes from waxed paper.

Crumple them, then flatten them out again.
Arrange and glue the bear and icebergs onto construction paper.

Add cotton balls for clouds.

You can find this idea is from highlightskids

Enjoy!

The Stocking

Is the craft we decided to make after reading

A Visit from St. Nicholas and Santa Mouse Too!

We got the template and the idea from

Childcareland

Jessica loved cutting the construction paper in little squares,

as well as gluing them on the stocking.