Hand print pictures are adorable and make lovely little keepsakes. We made some bubble print backgrounds and stamped some little hand print fishes,
Bubble Printing
Bubble printing is a really fun technique using materials you will probably have around the house.
Using a small container we filled 1/3 of the tub with water and added a blob of paint and washing up liquid. We then blew through a straw to create lots of bubbles/
Next we placed a sheet of paper over the top to create our bubble piece of art.
My daughter like any little princess loves clip clopping about in her play shoes and was mortified to find that her beloved shoe collection were getting too tight. To turn her frown upside down we grabbed the craft box and set about making her some new shoes.
First of all I drew round her feet on a bit of cardboard and cut them out slightly larger.
She then mixed some paint colours and painted them.
Once the base colour was dry she added polka dots :)
We then cut out some straps by placing a strip of card over her feet and cutting it so there was a cm extra at either side to tape underneath.
She then decorated them with foam shapes and feathers.
I was cutting potatoes for tea last night and clicked that a potato chopped in half would make a perfect Easter egg stamper. Today we put it to the test :)
Once the paint has dried you could decorate with pens and glitter :)
We made some lovely little homemade gifts for my children to give to their grandparents. They painted jigsaw pieces red and we stuck them on a canvas we had painted blue with the phrases 'I love you to pieces' :)
After carving our Jack O Lanterns face we carved two stars at the back.
We then used the star shapes left over as paint stamps. (make sure the back of the star is level)
I managed to get a quick picture before they got stamp happy and covered the sheet with that many stars they start to resemble a giant blob of mixed colours ;)
We had a fab autumn themed after school arts and crafts session. I find the gap between coming home from school and making tea a great time to get the paints out and a great way to keep the kids occupied while I am cooking lunch. On our way home from school we collected lots of leaves to paint and print.
I sat down with the children for 20 minutes and we talked about autumn and autumn colours while we mixed colours and made some lovely leaf prints.
It is really easy to get wrapped up in a busy lifestyle there are always a million things that need to be done and we forget to get involved with small activities like this. We tend to set the paints up and let the children get on with it but spending ten minutes getting involved in an activity each day is something we can all fit into our schedule and is more beneficial than we realise. Let the child lead the activity, don't give demands or ask too many questions. It is important to be attentive and give lots of praise. It makes children feel like your interested in what they are doing and builds their confidence and self esteem.
Macey found a pine cone in the crafts box and wanted to find out what print it would make.
My daughter keeps asking for bead bracelet making sets but after last years trip to A&E because she got a bead stuck up her nose I have been even more reluctant to buy them.
However it is a pretty awesome activity and is great for fine motor skills so as an alternative we painted some penne pasta and threaded them on to some wool. This is fab for preschool children because the holes are large enough for them to be able to join in. My 2 year old boy was over the moon and brimming with pride with his bracelet he made.
Drews bracelet :)
I used Tesco's Value penne pasta which is 30p for a 500g bag. Bargain!
We mixed some colours on a plate and painted the pasta. We made bright and pastel colour palettes
Macey put out the bright colours
mixing pastel colours
Drew painting his pasta
Our pasta beads :)
I tied the wool around a piece of pasta to stop them dropping off and I used a plastic needle (optional) to make threading a little easier for my youngest.
pasta and needle tied to each end
threading the pasta.
I tied the wool about a cm away from the starting pasta we tied the wool to at the start and chopped the starting pasta and needle off.
My children were really eager to get the paints out so I thought we could do a little activity related to the Olympics.
Pierre de Coubertin set up modern day Olympics. He had travelled the world and decided it would be a good idea to bring all the countries together to compete in sports based on the Olympic festival held in ancient Greece. He made the Olympic symbol after seeing a similar symbol on a artifact from ancient Greece.
I put blobs of paint the colours of the Olympic rings on some newspaper and explained to them that each colour represents a different part of the world. The colours of all the nations flags.
We dipped kitchen paper rolls into the paint and stamped rings all over our paper. I explained that the interlocking rings in the Olympic symbol represent the friendship between all the countries.
I thought it would be interesting to teach my children about history by finding out what happened this day in history and thinking of some activities we can do to relate to what we find.
Our first instalment takes us to 1901. On the 24th June Pablo Picasso had his first exhibition in Paris at the age of 19.
Self Portrait 1901
The Blue Period 1901 - 1904
As the blue period started in 1901 I thought it was apt to concentrate on this era of Picasso's life. I explained to my children that Picasso was a famous painter from Spain who spent most of his grown up life in France. I let my children find these places on the globe.
Picasso was born in Spain
Picasso spent most of his life in France
We searched Google images for paintings and watched a youtube video showing paintings from this period and explained to them that Picasso was very sad because his friend Carlos Casagemas died. I explained to them that Picasso used mainly blue and green to paint and we talked about the expressions on the peoples faces and how it made them feel.
" Mammy it makes me feel sad, like when I get hurt. That makes me sad " - Macey age 4
Blue Collage
We dug around in our arts and crafts box to find blue materials to make our very own blue artwork.
My daughter drew a picture of Picasso and used blue and green crayons, paint, glitter, tissue and magazine cuttings. My son is too young to understand but he had lots of fun making a blue collage :)
