Terri Thompson

Simple Valentine Card Making Station for Kids

February 4, 2015 By Terri Thompson

No matter how many creative Valentine’s craft ideas I come up with, a basic Valentine card making station has always been the most popular with my girls.

It’s better than any art project I, or anyone else, can come up with.

Luckily, this is probably the simplest Valentine idea around. Any parent can put together a Valentine card making station. It really is easy.

It’s nothing more than a simple invitation to create with a selection of craft supplies that allows your child to make as many open-ended projects they want. The kids will love it and you will too.

Explore open-ended creativity when you set up a simple Valentine card making station for kids. Grab a few simple supplies and get started crafting. #ValentinesDay #kidscrafts #CreativeFamilyFun

Keep reading to find out all the basics for setting up your own Valentine Card Making Station.

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The Basic Supplies

Construction paper cut to size (I like to cut a piece of paper in half and then fold each of these pieces in half.)
Markers
Crayons
Glue
Scrap paper
Scissors

You really don’t need any more supplies than the basics that I’ve listed. Just leave them out with an invitation to make Valentines. Your kids will take it from there.

Extra Supplies

If you want to mix it up, add any or all of these extra supplies to your card making station.

Decorative scissors
Glitter
Glitter glue
Heart stamps and stamp pads
Heart doilies
Valentine stickers

(Not Pictured)

Paper punches
Heart stencils or heart cookie cutters to trace
Fabric scraps
Buttons
Or anything else you may find among your craft supplies

Create with your Valentine Card Making Station

When I first pulled all the supplies out, my girls were so excited.

I purposely don’t leave any examples out because I wanted them to create whatever they wanted.

They spent an entire afternoon cutting, glitter gluing, and writing.

My oldest (2nd grader) even worked hard trying to come up with clever Valentine puns for her cards. My favorite was, “I flutter by to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day,” surrounded by butterfly stickers.

This open-ended Valentine station is always popular at our house.

We’ve got plans to pull it out several more times before Valentine’s Day.

Since I don’t have a space where we can leave the supplies out all the time, I found a basket that easily holds everything. It takes very little effort to pack up the supplies and the girls can easily get them out the next time they create.

If you’re looking for a fun Valentine’s activity for kids, set up a simple Valentine card making station. It’s a fun, creative activity to do together with the kids.

Valentine Negative Space Art

February 2, 2015 By Terri Thompson

I don’t think we’ve ever let Valentine’s Day pass without doing a ton of craft projects. And, this year is no exception. For this project, we played around with the concept of negative space, which is the space around and between an object, to make these pretty Valentine’s paintings.

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Supplies Needed:

Thin cardboard

Drawing paper

Pink and red paint

Cotton swabs

Before we began the project, I cut several heart shapes from a recycled cereal box. I cut a few different sizes, so we had many to choose from.

Next, I told the girls we were going to make heart shapes by painting around our stencils. And, to add a fun twist to the project, we used our cotton swabs to paint dots.

The process was easy and they didn’t need much explanation afterwards. We did find that the heart shape was much more apparent if we did a row of dots that overlapped the edge of the cardboard. After that, we used our own creativity to create our heart pictures.

It was so much fun to lift up the stencils and see the heart shapes left behind!

If you’re looking for a fun and easy Valentine’s project, this would be perfect. The supplies are minimal and the possibilities are endless.

Reading Around the World: Books About Afghanistan

January 28, 2015 By Terri Thompson

As part of Project Around the World, we’re trying to read books about each of the countries we virtually visit. I’m learning, though, that this may be easier said than done. Ideally, I’d love to find a combination of both fiction and nonfiction books for all ages for each country. Realistically, we’ll do the best we can and with some countries we may have to depend entirely on the Internet.

Here are my recommendations for books about Afghanistan.

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For Elementary-Aged Kids

Count Your Way Through Afghanistan by Jim Haskins & Kathleen Benson – This book will give your kids a good intro about Afghan culture and many of Afghanistan’s unique features. It was simple and kept both of my kid’s attention. We also loved learning to count to 10 in Pashto, one of the major languages of Afghanistan. This is a great introductory book.

I See the Sun in Afghanistan by Dodie King – I wish I would have know about this book when we did our project. It’s a perfect choice because it tells about the culture through the eyes of a child. I may now have read this book, but my friend Becky at Kid World Citizen recently reviewed it. Find her review here.

A True Book: Afghanistan by Ann Heinrichs – I love this series of books for the basic, age-appropriate introduction it gives about each country of the world. It may be a bit long for a younger child, but it’s easy to summarize and it has a lot of great photos.

Tweens and Teens

Extra Credit by Andrew Clements (appropriate for grades 3 through 7) – Sixth grader, Abby Carson, hates doing homework. But, when she finds out she’s in danger of being held back, she agrees to do an extra credit project, writing to a pen pal in another country. The letters flow back and forth between Abby and her pen pal, Sadeed and his sister Amira, from Afghanistan. This is a fantastic book that shows that despite cultural differences, we’re all the same. Read this one together if you’re looking for a book that will spark a lot of great conversations.

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis (appropriate for grades 5 and up) – This book was good friends, really good. It’s the story of 11-year-old Parvana, who is living under the Taliban regime in Kabul, Afghanistan. After her father is arrested, Parvana is the only person in the family that is able to work and provide money. She’s only able to do this because she can disguise herself as a boy. The story is engaging and eye-opening. It’s a must read. Note: This is the first book in a trilogy. I have not yet read the other two, Parvana’s Journey and Mud City, but they are on my must-read list.

You can find our Afghanistan art project, watercolor tiles, here.

Click here to check out all of our Project Around the World posts.

Watercolor Tiles: Exploring Afghanistan Through Art

January 26, 2015 By Terri Thompson

Our first stop on our alphabetical tour of the world was Afghanistan. In a way, it was a complicated place to start, since Afghanistan has such a complicated history. And, how do you talk about things in an age-appropriate way without ignoring current events? In the end, I took my cues from the books we had and kept things simple. (I’ll have a separate post this week with my book recommendations.) Then, we dug down and concentrated on our focus. Our focus for this project is cultural and our focus is on the average citizen – those people that are just like you and me. We discovered the rich and beautiful cultural heritage in Afghanistan. We were in awe at all the beauty. For our project, we took our inspiration from the Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif and created watercolor tiles inspired by its beautiful mosaic tiles.

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We started with a routine that we will do for every country. We got out the world atlas and located Afghanistan on a world map and looked at a map of Afghanistan to see its geographical make-up. We located mountains, rivers, deserts, and major cities. (We are using the Oxford Atlas of the World.) We read a few books and looked at other pictures I had found on line. When we were ready to start our project, we looked at several close-up pictures of the Blue Mosque. (The articles here and here were very helpful.)

Supplies Needed:

Watercolor paper

Ruler

Pencil

Blue watercolor (We used liquid watercolor for this project.)

To prep this project, cut a piece of watercolor paper into a square. Our squares were 8 inches by 8 inches. Then, using the ruler, divide the square into 4 quarters.

We used our pencils to draw designs on the tile. You can draw a design that crosses all four tiles or do individual designs in each tile. If you have a reluctant artist, they may want to try their hand at copying some of the designs in the pictures of the Blue Mosque. I encouraged my girls to come up with their own designs. Simple designs or complicated designs are both perfect for this project.

Once we were satisfied with our designs, we painted them with our watercolors. We used liquid watercolor because we love the vibrant look, but any watercolor you have on hand will work. After our paint was dry, we cut along the pencil lines to make 4 individual tiles.

You can display your tiles by attaching them to blue paper, or you can leave them cut apart and have simple tile puzzles. No matter how you display them, they are beautiful!

Thanks for coming along on our trip around the world through art.

If you want more information about Project Around the World, you can read my intro post here. You can follow all the posts here. Or, you can follow along on Instagram using the hashtag #projectaroundtheworld. I’d love to see your own projects with that hashtag!

Project: Around the World ~ Exploring the World Through Art

January 22, 2015 By Terri Thompson

I tend to get big ideas… very big ideas. It makes me nervous just putting this out there, because this is one of those ideas that seems impossible. And, maybe it is. Then again, maybe it’s not. But, nonetheless, here it is. We’re going to be working our way through all the countries of the world through books and art projects. Wow!

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I get very comfortable sitting in my corner of the world. Here in the US, it can be very hard to experience the world by travelling. Because of that, I’ve so often seen people block it out and dismiss it as unimportant. Even our schools often do a poor job educating our kids about the world. Luckily, I was always fascinated by world cultures. I was the kid who checked out all those countries of the world books at my local library. I loved them. And, that interest has never gone away.

I hope to encourage my girls to learn about world cultures too. We’ve tried foods, read books, and made crafts. We’ve done the things outlined in this post: 10 Ways to Explore the World Without Leaving Home. And so far so good. Their interest has been sparked. They know there is a whole big world outside of our small town and they want to learn about it.

I’ve been thinking about this idea for several months now. I’m a loyal reader of Global Table Adventures where they cooked their way through every country in the world alphabetically. It is such an amazing adventure and I’m sure we’ll be cooking up some of their recipes to supplement our own personal adventure. As much as I love and admire this concept, I wanted to do something different, something that was more “us”.

I’ll be borrowing the alphabetical concept, but instead of food, we’ll be making art. I want to do at least one art project for each country and I’ll share them here at Creative Family Fun. The projects will be geared towards elementary-aged kids, since that is the age my girls are now. Sometimes we’ll take our inspiration from folk art and sometimes from historical places. Other times, we’ll be inspired by unique architecture or a famous sculpture. No matter what, it will be something that connects us to that part of the world.

I also plan on sharing book recommendations for most, but not all, of the countries. I already know that there will be some countries that we won’t be able to find books about, though goodness knows I’ve tried. (Have you ever tried looking for a book about Andorra?) And for others, there will be many books to choose from. I’ll be sharing books for all ages, even adults, since I plan on stretching my own comfort zone in my book choices. Our cornerstone book for the project is our Oxford Atlas of the World, which is an amazing resource.

When I asked the girls if they were interested in this project, they got so excited. I was so happy to see their enthusiasm and hope it sticks around. We don’t have a set timeline as I have no desire to make this project stressful. What I do hope by doing this is to mold a couple of global citizens, help them discover the amazing diversity of the world, and to increase my own knowledge of the world. I also hope to inspire you and your kids to explore the world through art & books.

In addition to sharing here on the blog, I’ll also be sharing on Instagram with the hashtag #projectaroundtheworld. You can follow my account here. Whenever you want to join in, feel free to share your projects with #projectaroundtheworld. I’d love to see them.

Thank you for joining us on this jouney!

Click here to check out all the posts in this series.

Terri Thompson