Montessori Art: Cookie Cutter Tree Art

When I do art projects with the kids, I like to set up art stations.  I put out all that is needed for the project and then demonstrate how to do it.

For this project, they received a piece of watercolor paper, a tree stump, paint, glue, and cookie cutters.

The idea was to glue down the tree stump.

Then use the cookie cutters to dip in the paint and make leaves for the trees.

Here was my example.  It was a little harder then I thought, but it did seem to work.

Mustang was first up.  She did it 'my' way first. 

Then moved on to her own ideas.

Mini Cooper had a lot of fun gluing on the stump.

Then did her best to make leaves.  Looked a lot like a cannon.

Charger scrapped my idea altogether.

He decided it should be a volcano.  To be fair, the stumps DO look like volcanos.

Finished products-Mini Cooper's, Mustang's,

Charger's, and Mini Cooper's again.

This was a fun one!  

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

Coffee Filter Fish

This week the kids and I made some adorable little fish out of coffee filters.  I'd like to say it was my idea, but we were just following the suggestion of our curriculum.  They came out so cute, however, I thought I'd share with you.

Day one, use markers to color a coffee filter.

Or if you are Mini Cooper, color your lips.  She has the worst habit of doing this when I am not looking.  Not sure how I caught this on camera.

Spray down the filters and leave them to dry-in our case overnight.

When dry, cut out a fish.  We were provided a template with our Bob Jones Curriculum, but it was actually too big for the filter.  So we improvised.

We added googly eyes.

Tons of glue (kids like glue).

And even more glitter-we sparkled all day!

Mini added 3 eyes-we are working on learning body parts lol.

We created a whole school of fish!  

Yes, we-it looked so fun I made the one at the beginning of the post.  It was, indeed, fun!

Mustang's

and Charger's.

When you are done...destroy the template with scissors.  

I love how focused Charger is in this photo!

We will be hanging our fish for display tomorrow.  It was a great little craft!

God Bless!

We are linked up at:

F is for Flower Craft

Materials needed:

1 piece of each green, yellow and pink construction paper
1 5x7 card or cardstock
Scissors
Glue

Instructions:

Using this lowercase F template from Preschool Express cut a stem. Any lowercase F could be used, but the curves to this one looked the most like a flower stem to me.

Cut 4 petals from the pink construction paper.

Cut a circle from the yellow paper.

Cut a ric-rac grass from the green paper, I used precut scrap book ric-rac.



Arrange on a 5x7 card and glue down.




I added the letters lower to the f, and would not recommend it. I dont like the way it looked. I chose to use a card so that we could give Mustang's art work away instead of always having it here, accumulating, at the house.

The Mitten Craft

Materials you will need:

2 pieces of construction paper
Scissors
Glue

Cut a large mitten out of one piece of paper. Fold the mitten in half and cut three lines.

Cut 4 strips of paper from the second piece of paper.



Weave the strips through the slits in the mitten.



Glue down each strip on the edges. Trim off the strips.



We did this craft after reading 'The Mitten' by Jan Brett.

M is for Mouse Craft

To make our little mouse you will need:

-An empty cereal box
-Pink construction paper
-Black construction paper
-A pink pom pom
-2 beady eyes
-1/2 of a pipe cleaner
-glue
-tape



First, cut an M out of the cereal box. Next, cut 2 small ovals from the pink construction paper and 6 wiskers from the black construction paper.

Glue the ovals inside the curve of the points on the M. Glue the wiskers on the middle point of the M and glue the pom pom in the center of the wiskers. Glue the eyes just above the nose and wiskers. Tape the pipe cleaner to the back of the M and curl it any way you like.

Display your cute new friend for all to see :)

Homemade Lacing Cards

I wanted to get Mustang lacing cards for Christmas, but with a small budget and not knowing for sure if she would like them, I didnt want to spend much on them. I did a google search for ideas on how to make my own, but nothing quite stuck out as a great idea. So, off to the dollar store I went. And this is what I came up with:

I found these great 'wallies.' You can stick them on your wall for non permanent decoration.



I stuck them to bright colored pieces of thin foam:



And then cut them out. I used a hole punch to make the sewing holes.



I added a package of mens shoe laces (last package in the dollar store-score!), and stuck them in Mustang's stocking. They were a hit!!