Easter

We made  tissue paper "stained glass" crosses

First cut many different colors of tissue paper into small squares - any colors will do

lay a template for an outline of a cross on brown paper, trace and cut outside and inside the cross so have an "outline" in brown paper.

Lay the outline of the cross onto a piece of sticky clear contact paper.  You want the sticky side to be under the cross facing up at the child.

The child can then lay down the different colored tissue squares onto the sticky paper.

When they have filled up the paper, lay another piece of clear contact paper (sticky side down) on top of the tissue the put down, this will "seal" it.  Then cut around the cross and hang on a window. It makes a pretty Easter decoration.

Another fun craft for Easter is...

SHAVING CREAM EASTER EGGS:

First I layered a bunch of shaving cream on top of newspaper (you could also put on a pan, or piece of cardboard, but newspaper works fine).  Then I dropped different colors of food coloring all around the shaving cream.

The child uses a tip of a paint brush to swirl around the food coloring drops until they get a design they like.

Then they press down a piece of white construction paper onto the colored shaving cream gently and smooth their hands all over it to make sure each area of the paper is touching the shaving cream.

Then they carefully pull the paper off the shaving cream.  It comes out as alot of shaving cream stuck to the paper and doesn't look great, but then I take a popsicle stick and start at one end of the paper and scrape off all the shaving cream.  Underneath the shaving cream the colors have fused into the paper in a really neat way!

It was a great time for my preschoolers to practice their scissor skills and cut out egg shapes from the paper.  Some did it on their own, some needed me to draw the oval shape for them to cut on, and the younger ones needed some teacher help with the scissors.

Then they glued their "eggs" onto a paper with some fun easter grass below.

Letters

In my class we have a "letter of the week".  By spring we have gone through every letter of the alphabet.  During the week we do one craft that is centered around that letter.  I always print out my letter templates from dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies.  Then I try to figure out a creative way for the kids to fill up the letter outline with something that starts with that letter's sound.   Here are some crafts that I made for letters for my preschoolers.  Sorry I don't have all of them posted yet. I will add more as I have time. I figured better to put up some of the ideas at some point, rather than worry about getting them all up at once :)


LETTER A:

I took the Aa template and the children stamped red apples onto it.  Then they used their finger prints in black ink to make ants climbing up the side of the letter A.  We glued it to a big piece of red construction paper in the shape of an apple.

LETTER H:

For H I was having a hard time figuring out what to do, but finally came up with... H for horse.  I took a plastic horse I have and the kids got to put the "Hooves" in a bowl of paint, then have the "Horse" stomp around the letters Hh.  The kids had fun and when their parents ask what starts with H they'll show them the Horse's Hooves!  I also wanted to put something around the outside of the Hh template so we used stamps of a house and another horse.

LETTER J:

I cut the template of Jj into pieces like a Jigsaw puzzle.  Then the kids glued it back together
and colored it in with markers last.

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LETTER Q:

I cut up pieces of different fabrics.  The children choose their fabric pieces and glued them onto the Qq template making a Quilted Q!

LETTER R:  
Take Red paper and have the children Rip it.  It is a great exercise for their small finger muscles that they are needing to build for writing. After ripping the red paper they glue it onto the Rr template.  Easy and they have fun.

LETTER X:

I traced the children's hands/arms with white crayon on black paper.  Then they glued down q-tips to look like the bones. It was a fun craft and we also read a book about x-rays before doing the craft so they really knew what the bones would look like.  I could have broken the q-tips into smaller pieces to really depict the small bones in the fingers, but for our purposes the full q-tip worked best and we talked about how really there are more smaller bones in your fingers and moved our fingers to see.

Valentine Craft - the Heart Hug

Today we made a fun craft that the kids could take home to give lots of loving hugs out to their families for valentine's day!

Here is the final product:

                                     
Start with pans of red and pink (red mixed with white since I didn't have pink) paint.  I use washable so easy to clean off the kids. I threw a heart shaped sponge in each pan.

Then I cut out a heart shape on construction paper and used that to trace all the hearts on white poster board.

Let the kids sponge paint the white heart as much as they want to with whatever color they choose.  Then add two googly eyes to the top.

Once the hearts are dry, I sat the kids down and gave them strips of red paper. They folded them back and forth accordion style and glued a precut red heart on the end of each so it looked like they were arms with a heart hand.  Then we used glue sticks to glue the "arms" on to the big heart they had made.  They used my purple sharpie to draw a mouth.  I wish I had pictures of them folding the paper strips but I forgot to take them.  So hopefully you can see the arms well enough in the finished product picture here:

                                       

HAVE FUN!!!

Easy Valentine's Day Craft and Gift

This week my preschoolers will be making a Valentine's Day gift for their family.  It is fairly quick and super easy, but best of all it is a craft that shows each child own creativity.
Heart Magnet:

I love to keep the kids using their natural creativity.  The more they can do on their own the better. So I supplied the foam heart and let the kids come up with how to decorate it.

 First, cut out a heart shape on paper or cardboard.  Use that as the template to trace onto the pink foam (or red, purple, whatever color you like).  I am going to have my preschoolers write I (heart) U on the front of their heart.  It will look sweet in their young handwriting, and it's also good practice for their writing.  But before I give the hearts to the kids I glued a magnet onto the back. I use a hot glue gun so that the magnet doesn't fall off.

Next comes a supply of all kinds of fun things.  Red sequins, little puff balls, different shapes and colors of shiny "jewels".  And small foam heart stickers (I forgot to get those in the photo, sorry)

 

Let the kids be creative and glue the different items any way they want. It is a simple craft that comes from their heart and it will become a great keepsake on their parents refrigerators for many years to come. 

WINTER - Mittens, Frozen Paint, Snow and Puffy Snowmen

This winter we did some new fun crafts.  Although we had frozen paint last year, this year we used the FROZEN PAINT TO DECORATE MITTENS:

I poured ordinary washable tempera paint into ice cube trays, I put foil over it and pushed through popsicle sticks.  I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture of the frozen paint, but if you look in my archives you'll see how it is done.
We used the paint to decorate one mitten, then folded the mittens together so that they matched!

 I punched a hole and tied a piece of yarn through the holes to keep the mittens together.

SNOW!!
I found a great recipe for play snow at www.1stgradefantabulous.blogspot.com.  Super simple, mixing white hair conditioner and baking soda.  The kids had a great time playing in the snow with small animals and even making snowballs!

  

PUFFY SNOWMEN:

First I read the story, Snowmen At Night - It is a fun story that shows what snowmen do at night and by the end of the book the snowmen are a little moved about.  The snowmen we make will look like that.

I mix shaving cream and glue.  No exact measurements just stir it until seems thick.  The glue will keep the shaving cream from evaporating.

 It is easiest for the kids to put the "snow" on the paper with a craft stick.  They put 3 circles (or however they want) and then they stick on the eyes, nose, hat, arms, etc.  Because there is glue in the shaving cream the paper items will stick easily.

The end result is great.  There is a "puffiness" to the snowman almost like real snow.  After a week or so it will get a little less puffy, but still very cool. 

Thanksgiving Crafts for Preschoolers

Since Thanksgiving is during Autumn and we have been talking about fall leaves, etc.  I like the kids to make a GRATITUDE TREE:

I have the child lie their arm down on a brown piece of paper and I trace around their arm and hand.  This becomes the "tree".  Then to keep it a simple craft I give them pre-made fall themed foam stickers.  They can decorate the tree however they would like.  

 Then they dictate to me what they are thankful for and I write each item on each branch.  It can be family members, a certain food, a certain toy, etc.  These are a great keepsake to look back on in the future.

TURKEY CENTERPIECES:

Simple materials - pinecone, feathers, paper, googly eyes.  The children glue together the precut pieces to make the face, then glue on feathers to the pine cone.  A cute thankgsiving turkey to put on the table for the big feast!