Crafts

Preschool Jack Be Nimble Craft

January 3, 2012 By Terri Thompson

Jack be nimble
Jack be quick
Jack jump over the candlestick

In order to get us back into the swing of things after the holidays, I decided it would be fun for us to do a nursery rhyme theme this week.

The goal is to do 4 to 5 craft projects based around nursery rhymes.

Today we tackled Jack Be Nimble and made our own candlesticks to jump over.

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Supplies Needed:

Cardboard tube
Orange construction paper
Markers or crayons
Scissors

How to make your preschool Jack Be Nimble craft

I drew a flame shape on the orange construction paper for the girls to cut out.

After cutting, it was time to decorate the cardboard tubes.

I got out the markers because the girls love coloring with markers. I also wanted something that would show up well on the cardboard.

If you don’t want to use markers, you could use crayons or paint to decorate your tubes.

When they were done decorating, I cut two small slits in the top of each tube.

We then inserted the flames into the slits.

This was a simple craft, which was exactly what we needed to ease into this post-holiday week.

But, the craft itself wasn’t our favorite part.

Nope, the most eagerly awaited step was jumping over the candlestick! We jumped and we jumped and we jumped and got all our energy out.

It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon!

What is your favorite nursery rhyme? Maybe we’ll tackle it next!

A Snowman in the Snow

November 29, 2011 By Terri Thompson

Since we were talking about snowy days with our snow sensory bin, I though it would be fun to do a snowman craft.

Supplies Needed:
Blue construction paper
White construction paper
White paint
Cotton swabs
Markers
Glue sticks

The first thing we needed to do was cut our necessary parts out of the white construction paper.

I cut out three circles of varying sizes for each girl.

We also tore a strip of white paper to use as the ground.

The girls started gluing.

We glued down the torn strip first, then constructed the snowman from the circles.

Next, they took the markers and drew faces, buttons, hats, arms, etc.

I had to help AJ draw her face, since she is 2, but Lizzie decorated her snowman herself.

Finally, it was time for the snow.

I poured a bit of the white paint in a container and gave the girls the cotton swabs.

They dabbed (or glooped) the paint on the cotton swabs and started making dots on the paper for the snow.

They dotted and dotted and smeared just a little until we had a couple of pretty snowy scenes.

It’s not the same as a real snowman, but it was still a lot of fun!

Collage Owls

November 9, 2011 By Terri Thompson

After gathering a lot of inspiration for owl crafts, I combined bits of all the ideas and came up with an owl craft of my own.

I had a pile of old magazines that needed to head to the recycling bin, and they became the inspiration behind our magazine collage owls.

Before we recycled the magazines, the girls and I spent an evening around the dining room table cutting out scrap pieces from the pages.

We talked about owls and what colors they were, so decided to look for brown, black, white, and grey in the magazines.

It didn’t take long for use to have quite a big pile of paper. Once we had our magazine scraps, it was time to craft.

Supplies Needed:

Old magazines
Glue
Paintbrushes
Brown construction paper
Black construction paper
Yellow and white paper scraps

To prepare the project, I drew a large oval on the brown construction paper for the body of the owl.

I then took the glue and thinned it out a bit with the water to make it easier to spread. I used a ratio of about 3 parts glue to 1 part water.

The girls started painting on the glue and covering every bit of the oval with magazine pieces. They used a lot of glue!

Finally, after a bit of encouragement on my part to actually stick the magazine pieces on the paper instead of playing with the glue, we had completed collages.

Drying time took awhile, since we had used so much glue.

In the end, the collages turned out well and all the glue dried clear.

Once the collages were dry, I took out my scissors and cut out the ovals. I used the scrap brown paper to cut out a branch shape.

We glued down the branch to the black paper and added our collage ovals.

I had cut out yellow triangles for the beaks and white ovals for the eyes out of scrap paper.

Lizzie, who’s 4, put together the first owl without any assistance on my part. The second owl was done by AJ, who’s 2, with a lot of mommy assistance.

I love how they turned out!

The Little House Book & Craft

November 4, 2011 By Terri Thompson

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton has always been a favorite of mine.

It’s the story of a house, built well and with a lot of love. The little house watches the days go by and then the years go by until eventually a city has grown up around her. Eventually the great-granddaughter of the couple who built the house see her and decides to move the little house back out to the country.

The whimsical illustration have always drawn me in, even at a young age. So, I wanted to do a art project with the girls inspired by the book.

I started the girls (and myself) out with a simple drawing of the house made with black crayon. After reading the book, we set down to make our own illustrations.

We decided to draw the countryside around the house.

We drew hills, trees, flowers and even a path leading up to the house all with the black crayon.

After the drawings were completed, we grabbed our paintbrushes and some liquid watercolors.

The girls started painting and I joined in as well.

I just couldn’t resist a project based on The Little House.

When we were done, we had some bright, colorful illustrations that mimicked the illustrations in the book.

We made a few observations about art during the process as well. Most notably, Lizzie learned that the biggest paint brush is not always the most desirable.

Sometimes you need a smaller brush to get the job done. She also told me that she wants to learn to make pretty pictures. I guess I’ve got some art lessons in my future! (Don’t worry, I’m kind of excited about it.)

Here are our finished pictures! Lizzie’s is first, then AJ’s, then mine. I was glad I joined in this time, instead of just observing and assisting. I plan on doing this many, many more times!