Handprint Carrots

We are talking about vegetable gardens this week, and today we made carrots with our handprints!

We dipped the sides of our hands in orange paint to make the carrots,

and dipped our fingertips in green paint to make the tops of the carrots.

It was a very simple project!

If they wanted to, when the paint was dry the kids could make a brown line across the carrots to show that the orange part grows in the dirt and the green park sticks out above the dirt.

And one more quick thing I wanted to show you, completely unrelated. Here is the Mother's Day project I made for my mom with my daughter's help.

It says "The only thing better than having you for a mom is my daughter having you for a grandma." It's a quote I've seen all over Pinterest. I used Elise's footprints to make the flowers and just quickly drew in stems and grass with a marker, although I wish I had used paint. It turned out very cute!

Mother's Day/Teacher Appreciation

Just wanted to show you what we made for Mother's Day this year. I had the kids draw a picture of their moms.

Then I "framed" them by taping them to a slightly bigger piece of colored construction paper. I also asked each child to finish the sentence, "My mom is..." and I wrote their answer on the frame.

Didn't they do a great job? We also made cards. I let the kids paint their own hand any way they wanted.

Then they made the print on the front of a card. I printed out a poem on colored paper. This is the one I used:

Sticky fingers and big wet kisses
Dirty toes and stars with wishes
Splashing through puddles and hugs too tight
Afternoon naps and sleepless nights
I’m getting so big and I’ll soon be grown
So I’ve made this handprint for your very own
Tuck it away and keep it, please
So years from now I can see
How much I’ve changed as time went by
And you can always remember my…

Sticky fingers and big wet kisses
Dirty toes and stars with wishes…

The kids glued the first part of the poem on the front of the card and the last two lines on the inside of the card. Then they decorated it.

I'm not sure what that's a picture of, but it cracked me up when I saw it!

And I wanted to share what I made for my daughter's teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. It was her first week in day care, but I couldn't resist putting something together. It was very simple. I bought some baby food jars and cleaned them out. Then I filled them with M&Ms (plain and pretzel). I made a label that said, "You are a Marvelous and Magnificent teacher! Thanks for being my M&M!"

I got that idea from Mommy's Kitchen. She had a whole poem, but I just used the last part. I also covered the tops with some scrapbook paper.

You could also use mason jars, but I thought the baby food jars were cute, since they are infant teachers.
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, and Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all the teachers out there!!

Arm Cuff Bugs

What?! Yep, that's what they are. Arm cuff bugs.

Or you could call them bracelets since my kids just wore them on their wrists. I got the idea to use toilet paper rolls for the insect legs from Homemade Mamma. First you cut it the long way to open it up, then cut it in half the other way. Then cut 3 slits in each side for the legs.

I put out construction paper and the kids were able to cut their own bug parts. Then they glued them to the legs.

So creative, these kids, I tell ya!

 

 

Egg Carton Critters

Here is a cute bug craft my kids made last week. I asked parents to donate egg cartons and I cut them up into 2- and 3-cup pieces. We learned that all insects have three body parts, but I didn't have enough cartons to give all the kids a 3-cupper. I put out markers and cut-up pipe cleaners and the kids designed their own bugs!

For the pulp cartons, the kids used regular Crayola markers. I used a scissors to make holes for the pipe cleaners because it was too hard for the kids to do. The Styrofoam cartons were much easier. The kids were able to stick the pipe cleaners in without any help. However, regular markers didn't work on those, so we used Sharpies.

They all had a blast making their own bugs!

And they turned out pretty darn cute!

Clothespin Grasshoppers

We learned about grasshoppers today. There are so many cute clothespin grasshopper crafts out there, but this is how we made ours. We used green paint and the clothespins I received from CraftProjectIdeas.com.

The kids painted the clothespins, which was kind of a messy job because to get all sides, they needed to hold on to it. But they didn't mind getting full of paint!

We used tempera paint, which did chip off a bit when dry, but it wasn't too bad. The next step I did myself because it involved a glue gun. I got the idea to use floral wire for the back legs from Farm Fresh Adventures. I glued the wire inside the "mouth" of the clothespin.

Then the kids shaped the wire into hind legs.

Finally, they added little wiggle eyes using glue dots.

That was all we did!

You could do more by using the wire to make antennae and using construction paper or craft foam to make the wings. But we were keeping it simple today because it was BEAUTIFUL outside and we just wanted to get out and play!

Fun Fact: Grasshoppers have 5 eyes. Two big ones on each side, and 3 smaller ones in the middle.

Push-Paint Bugs

We are learning about bugs this week!

This was a two-part project because we had to wait for the paint to dry. After folding a piece of paper in half and then opening it up again, the kids put 3 globs of paint on the paper (near the center). Then they folded the paper in half again and squished the paint all around.

Next they opened their paper back up and were amazed at what they saw!

All the kids were pretty excited about what they created and couldn't wait to turn it into a bug. When it was dry, they used markers to add legs, and anything else they wanted their bug to have, like wings or stingers or stripes.

Then they added two wiggle eyes.

They turned out so cute. It's amazing what kinds of creations you can make with this push-paint method!