Hand print fish

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.

Exploring track marks

My children love exploring track marks, it really appeals to there inquisitive minds. I was hoping to do this outdoors today so we could get a bit messier but the weather was a bit of a let down. Instead we taped brown paper to the top of the dining room table.

We then rolled the cars through the paint and pushed them across the paper to discover what kind of track they left.

When we do this outdoors we usually sent up a car wash using a tray of shaving foam, a ramp, a bucket of water, and a few plastic cups and funnels. Next time we get to do this outdoors I will share pics.

Sometimes we play detectives. I tell them a little story about a robbery or crime  that took place and the only clue is this track mark I found outside. I show them a picture of the track mark and their job is to find out who committed the crime by finding out which car has a track that matches the one from the scene of the crime.

Easter Potato Stamps

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 :)

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Field of Poppies finger painting

'A poppy is to remember

Pumpkin Star Prints

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 ;)

Autumn is here

Little man painting leaves 

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. 

"Oh it looks like rain" 

The Olympic Rings

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.