Art

Picture This…

A friend of mine is about to start mapping out plans for her new house they are going to have built.   When she was telling me about it, her five year old ran to the next room to grab his precious simple sketch of his master plan for their new house with his big ideas in mind.

I loved everything about this moment….

I loved that he wanted to share his thoughts with me.

I loved that he had an idea of his dream house.

I loved that he wanted to be a part of the process.

I loved that I could picture a little architect in the making.

I couldn’t help but text his mom the other day and tell her that if she wanted to extend on this interest… one idea I use with my little ones in the classroom is simply:

1) To give the kiddos a basket of shapes (cut out on cardstock paper for sturdy-ness).

Cut Out Shapes

2.  Have them trace their shapes on a big sheet of paper or poster.

Tracing Shapes

3)  Label their ideas for the items that could make up the room.

How adorable is the "roob" or "door" in the corner?
How adorable is the “roob” or “door” in the corner?

This idea can be used if you and your little one want to re-arrange the furniture in their room then they can be a part of the process for coming up with why a dresser might work best under the window, rather than by the door.

Or, this might be a great idea if you want to help them make a map of your neighborhood to display and they can label their friend’s house.

This could even be a great idea if you want to map out what equipment is in your backyard, and they can include new things that might fit, or include something to save for in the next year.

If you have another idea for this, geared to your child’s interest, then please COMMENT and share with us!

Graffiti

A precious First Grade Teacher that was a co-worker of mine used to have bulletin board paper taped to her desk and it was a writing center that she called her “Graffiti Space” for her student’s personal artistic signatures.

The idea stuck with me….especially as a mommy of a little one who thinks that every wall should be his personal masterpiece.   I have really drilled it in Sean Patrick’s head that we only write on paper because of all the times I have found his hidden messages on the walls, his body, my couch, the tables, etc.

Tonight, I encouraged him to do just that… to write on paper, but on a LARGE area that I designated as his Graffiti Space for the night.

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It was as simple as this…

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He helped me tape the paper to the windowsill and the baseboards…. this was a great spot for him because it is in his playroom and mr. clean magic erasers agree with my windowsills and baseboards 🙂

I laid out crayons, markers, and colored pencils and let him pick and choose whatever writing tools he wanted to explore with.

We had so much fun!  He would scribble different images and tell me what it was afterwards.

We made rainbows, a special message for daddy, the sun, people, and a lot of other free-writing squiggles just to talk about different ways to form lines (up, down, back and forth, around and around, side to side, etc).   IMG_6264 This kind of activity makes writing fun for Sean Patrick, and that is honestly my main learning goal for him.   I just want him to know how fun writing can be!

Gotta love his fashion sense… IMG_6254

We left if up on the wall so that he could continue to “fill the space” and add any new ideas when he was ready.

 

Plate ART

I threw out the uppercase  A-R-T  in the title of this post because even though my friend and I had a blast decorating plates with our kids, the following images do  NOT show plates that you can eat from or really even wash.  They will be on a plate stand in the kitchen most likely 😉

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My friend Allie and I are both 24 weeks pregnant, we both have a two year and a half year old, and we both have a one year old (this was not planned by the way).  So, we have had a sleepover this weekend to let our crazy worlds come together for a few days.  It has been so sweet, and funny, and crazy of course.  We decided it would be fun to let the little ones do an art activity together.

We found some pefect small, white melamine plates at Target and purchased some colorful sharpies, we headed back home to let our little ones decorate away. (PS – we learned the hard way that the bamboo melamine plates we found at Big Lots were a NO GO!  Just trust me on this one.)

My friend Allie can write really cutesie and I can NOT write cutesie at all so she personalized all of the plates for us.  Thanks Allie ! 🙂

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We threw aprons on the little ones and let them color on their plates….

Decorating Around Names

Then, we threw aprons on the one year olds and let them color on their plates (without their names on them), and we found out that this actually worked better to write the name AFTER coloring.

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This next low-quality shot is just showing that I traced my little ones’ hands on the back and wrote the date.

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I had originally intended to make dinner plates, but it didn’t quite workout that way.  And after researching melamine and the process of making dinner plates, I was even more happy with the final product as a keepsake.  We wanted a fast and funky activity to do so this was perfect for the weekend.   But I found this if this is your kind of thing….. http://www.ehow.com/how_6913770_paint-melamine-dinner-plates.html  –  I’m sure I’ll make this happen in the future too 😉

Once again…here are my two kiddos plates…..up close and personal:

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I am happy with the way they turned out!

Bubble Letters

I stay up late sometimes….it is 10:30.  But it feels much later so maybe I am being a little dramatic.  Being dramatic reminds me of my jr. high days of writing bubbly at all times.

And  tonight, I got the itch to download a free bubble letter font….it happens.  I went to fontspace.com, searched for a bubble letter font, and I downloaded one called “Janda Manatee” because I liked it the best.

I opened the file, clicked “Install”

And then I opened a Word document, changed the page orientation to Landscape, and typed Sean Patrick’s name using the new cute font.

I then clicked “Insert Shape” and filled his name with circles (I copied the circle size I liked and pasted it a lot of times first to make this go by fast!)…

I had to blow it up a little in the “Paint” Program to make it the size I wanted, but tomorrow I plan to do one of three things (if not all three) with this simple activity:

1) Encourage SP to cover each circle with little “poms poms.”

2) Encourage Sean Patrick to stamp the circles with his dot paint markers.

3) Encourage SP to stamp his finger print (ink pad style) on each circle.

This is a great pre-writing skill that develops his fine motor skills while emphasizing letter formation of the letters that are most meaningful to him, with a concentration on lower-case letters at this time.  Do you have any other ideas??!?  Cover each circle with a sticker maybe?  Please share your thoughts!

Update: HOw the lesson went down>

I used two print outs; one to show him ideas and the second to let him explore on his own.  I talked to him about the letters.  “Look Sean Patrick…mommy made your name with circles in the letters.  Can you still read the letters?  What letter is this? ” etc.

   We explored covering the letters with pom poms but that didn’t last long.  Sean Patrick had more fun stamping the letters with his fingers and decorating his name with star stickers.

In the St. Nick of time!

Bah humbug! I definitely bit off more than I could chew!  I planned to share my “schedule” in the making for my little one and even more Christmas activities this week, but the dash to get things done in time for Christmas has completely consumed my time and energy!

I have been MAKING most of my gifts because I am in the house a lot with my little ones, and so all of my nap time minutes have gone to use.

Here is part of daddy’s gift that I have spent a lot of time on:

16 x 20 canvas with three vertical 5x7 pictures and two 4x6 horizontal pictures

Sean Patrick knows a lot of letters but the letters “D” and “A” must be ENGRAVED on his mind after an hour’s worth of pictures trying to get a good “D” and “A” shot of all the different possibilities to assemble for the D-A-D Christmas shot.  I am still not sure that it turned out the way I pictured it, but it is the thought that counts.

I will share my niece’s gifts tonight or tomorrow….they have turned out so cute.

 

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