Showing posts with label preschool crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preschool crafts. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

DIY Paper Heart Garland (Valentine's Day Decoration and Preschool Activity in One!)

Lately, if you tell my 4 1/2 year old you are going to do something (and it is something he wants to do) he will just keep asking you about it until it actually happens. So we made this paper heart garland a bit earlier than I had intended. That's OK, we'll just enjoy it a little longer.

Our version looks quite a bit different than the picture perfect Real Simple version that I got the inspiration from, but in the end I definitely like ours better, because my boys did all of the cutting, tracing, and stringing themselves. My 4 1/2 year old did all of the cutting, and my 3 year old did most of the stringing.

Also, my 4 1/2 year old was the one who decided we should write on all of these hearts. I wrote the words and he traced over them. We started just writing love and then added ἀγάπη (agape, love in Greek) and 爱 (Ài, love in Mandarin). Then we wrote a bunch of people we love (our family names, grandparents and extended family, friends, etc.). You could also write about what love really is, but I think we're going to do other projects later doing that.

Homemade Paper Heart Garland

  • Paper
  • Yarn or string
  • Tape and/or plastic straws for "sewing" (optional, but makes it a lot easier)
  • Scissors
  • Hole punch
  • Pencil
  • Markers (optional)
  • Other embellishments like stickers if desired
  1. Trace half hearts onto folded paper and let a preschooler who can be trusted with scissors cut them out.
  2. If desired write and/or trace words on the hearts.
  3. If desired put on stickers or other extra embellishments.
  4. Punch a hole on each side of the heart.
  5. String hearts onto yarn or string to make a garland. (I threaded the yarn through part of a small plastic straw that I cut at an angle for a "needle." This made "sewing" the hearts together much easier. You can also tape around the end to just make it a little stiffer, like the end of a shoelace.)
  6. Tie off and hang up the garland to enjoy.
You can see pictures of the steps below.














Saturday, December 8, 2012

Christmas Holiday Preschool Craft: Cutting Paper Snowflakes

This simple idea is so fun there is a reason so many people do it every year. This is the first year I attempted to cut paper snowflakes with my oldest, who is now four years old. It was great cutting practice for him. I didn't have him fold his paper very many times and I drew really big shapes and easy lines, but he really surprised me at how well he did. Before this activity cutting on lines seemed hard and frustrating for him, but he loves the idea of snow, and making snow flakes was really motivating for him. I really like his big snow flake.

Here is a really good tutorial for how to fold and cut really pretty 6 pointed snow flakes (good for older kids) and in this post is an idea for making snow flakes out of coffee filters.

You should definitely spend a little time cutting out at least a snowflake or two with your preschooler. And then you should put them up by some family Christmas pictures from your youth, or not, that is just what I did with mine.

But if you have a picture where your husband looks like the cutest baby elf you have ever seen, you should definitely put that picture up every Christmas to admire the cuteness, and put a paper snowflake by it just for good measure. :)






Friday, December 7, 2012

Christmas Holiday Preschool Craft: Potato Stamp Wrapping Paper

Another not very original idea, but one that is frugal and fun, is to make wrapping paper using stamps cut out from potatoes.

First I gave both boys large sheets of paper from a fun art pad that my mom brought for them on her visit and all kinds of red markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc. and let them color. You can skip that step of course (or just let them color on it  and skip the paint stamping for a different kind of wrapping paper). But I let them color all over the paper to keep them busy while I cut out the tree stamps from potatoes and got the paint ready. Then them stamped green trees over whatever amount of red they had colored.

If you don't want to use new paper reuse paper bags or even newspapers. We've done both before and they look quite nice as well.




This project is has the added benefit of being useful. Use the wrapping paper to wrap up gifts that stand out from the rest.

Christmas Holiday Preschool Crafts: Painting Pine Cone Christmas Trees

We having been having lots of holiday fun at our house, so much that I haven't had much time to write about it. But I'm going to try to write about a few of the simple things I've been doing with my 4 and almost 3 year old.

Our first holiday project this year was painting pine cone "Christmas trees." This idea isn't new and is pretty self explanatory, but it is cheap and the boys had a lot of fun. They just painted the pine cones they had gathered with washable paint and then sprinkled on a little glitter. You don't have to use glitter of course if you are afraid it is going to make a big mess, or you could even add sequins or buttons to add even more decorations to the little "Christmas trees."





Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Train Themed Preschool Craft: Shape Train

Similar to our shape dinosaurs, we made shape trains for our train unit last month. I used a Walmart ad instead of construction paper, to save paper. This time I also let Aaron cut out some of his own shapes free form with preschool scissors. He did surprisingly well, and it was additional fine motor skill practice.

Train Themed Preschool (or Tot School) Craft: Shape Train

  • Paper or coloring sheets 
  • Shapes cut out of construction paper (or already colored on paper or ads)
  • Glue sticks or glue (homemade glue works great!)
  • Preschool scissors for an older child to cut (optional)
You can choose how much freedom or direction your child has with this activity. A coloring page and shapes to match is the most directed way; whereas blank paper and a vast choice of shapes (or even letting them cut their own) is much more opened ended. Both have benefits. Whatever method of doing this activity, the goal is to help the child recognize the shapes and colors they see and how they fit together to form pictures.

You can do this shape craft with just about any theme. You can see more details of shape crafts and more ways to do them in this post about our Shape-a-saurus crafts.

    Tuesday, October 11, 2011

    Train Themed Preschool Craft: Train Whistle

    This is a simple train themed craft that can be made out of recycled household items. These train whistles sound more like kazoos, but the boys still like them a lot.

    Preschool (or Tot School) Craft: Train Whistle/Kazoo

    • cardboard tube (TP tube, paper towel tube, tube from plastic wrap, etc)
    • wax paper or celephane
    • rubber band
    • markers
    • hole punch
    1. Let the kids color the outside of the cardboard tube to decorate them.
    2. Punch a hole near the top of the tube.
    3. Put the wax paper or celephane over the top of the tube, and secure it in place with the rubber band.
    4. Make funny noises by blowing and humming in the hole!

      Saturday, October 8, 2011

      Train Themed Preschool Craft: Dough Trains

      Here are a couple more train themed crafts. The boys love drawing pictures and coloring pictures of trains, but sometimes, it is fun to do something more 3D. These two sets of dough trains were a lot of fun to make.

      Train Themed Preschool Craft: Salt Dough Trains



      Let the child create whatever kind of train they can imagine. You can also show them how to make trains out of shapes stuck together. Or if you want more uniform trains, roll out the dough and cut it with train cookie cutters. Bake or let dry to harden the dough. Paint if desired.

      Train Themed Preschool Craft: Playdough Train

      • Playdough

      Aaron and Daddy made up this fun project on the spur of the moment. We don't usually open a bunch of colors of playdough at once, but daddy helped Aaron create the details for Thomas and carefully arrange them without smashing it all together. I think the train they made is super cute!

        Thursday, October 6, 2011

        Train Themed Preschool Craft: Train Buttons

        This is another fun train activity we did. A friend of ours gave us a couple of these create you own buttons. This makes a quick easy craft, and the buttons are reusable. I am thinking we might try to change out the button design to go with each month's unit.

        Train Themed Preschool (or Tot School) Craft: Train Buttons

        • Create your own button
        • Small train coloring pages (or plain paper to draw trains on)
        • crayons or markers
        • scissors (for a parent or older preschooler to use)
        1. Have the children draw or decorate their trains.
        2. Open up the button.
        3. Show the child how to trace around the circle and cut it out, or do this step for a younger child.
        4. Put the button back together, and you're done!


        My boys think the train buttons that they made themselves are really neat, but they do prefer to have the buttons on their backpacks instead of their shirts, so they can see them more easily.

          Sunday, September 11, 2011

          Preschool Dinosaur Free Printables

          We had a great time studying dinosaurs in August and doing a lot of dinosaur related activities. So much fun that it has taken me a while to write about all of it. And I am very excited to finally be able to share some free dinosaur printables for some of the fun activities that we did. Thanks to my wonderfully patient hubby for helping me learn how to turn drawings into vector graphics (did you know there was such a thing?) and then into simple pdf files to share with everyone. You can access all 10 coloring, tracing and craft pages here.

          Now you can do all of these fun dinosaur activities, or you can just have fun coloring or painting these very simple pictures. Make some watercolors and some glue, and you'll be all set!

          If you use these and like them or come up with new ways to use these pages, I'd love to hear about it. Feel free to leave a comment or a link to your blog post below.

          Friday, September 2, 2011

          Dinosaur Themed Preschool Craft Idea: Dinosaur Fossils

          In August, we learned about dinosaurs. We did so many fun things that I still haven't written about them all. For this project we used a simple salt dough recipe and some plastic dinosaurs to make our own "dinosaur fossils."

          Preschool (or Tot-school) Craft Idea: Dinosaur Fossils

          • 1 batch of salt dough
          • plastic dinosaurs
          • cookie sheets or other baking pans
          • oven (optional)
          • paints (optional)

          1. Mix up a batch of salt dough, and let it rest for 20 minutes. Use this time to hunt for all of the plastic dinosaurs that have suddenly gone missing in your house. No, I didn't plan this part of the activity, but it worked out to be fun though.
          2. Divide the dough into balls. We have big plastic dinosaurs so we just made 6, but if you had smaller dinosaurs you could make a lot more.
          3. Flatten into a roughly oval shape and press a different type of dinosaur into each piece of salt dough.
          4. Bake, or let dry.
          5. Have fun with the dinosaur fossils by painting them, naming the different dinosaurs found in each one, putting them in a sensory bin, or going on an archeological dig for dinosaur fossils.

          DIY Salt Dough

          Salt dough can be used to make all kinds of things like decorations, ornaments, and even dinosaur fossils like we just used it for.

          Salt Dough Recipe

          • 2 cups flour
          • 1 cup water
          • 1 cup table salt
          1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and knead until smooth.
          2. Let sit for 20 minutes.
          3. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters, shape into desired design, smash a dinosaur in it, or make whatever you want.
          4. Bake at 200 F for about 4 hours or let air dry in a dry environment for up to 48 hours.
          5. After the objects are completely dry and/or cool, they can be painted or sealed with varnish if you desire.

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