Category:

Salt Dough Christmas Tree Decorations

12/16/2013

As you might already know Cakes and I like doing handprint crafts as gifts. I figure there are only so many years that her hands will remain small enough to be super cute as craft. Over the past few years we have done lots of painting prints with her hands however last year we branched out and created salt dough Santas. These were a hit with the family and friends who received them. Cakes being the creative little person she is suggested we make Christmas trees this year. With a little bit of research in the archives of our blog we found the Christmas tree handprints we made last year and decided that it was worth a shot.

At school we were making salt dough ornaments also, so in an attempt to not mass produce 23 identical ornaments the students looked at an example of Cakes' Santa from last year, her suggestion for a Christmas tree and my bright idea for a reindeer (blog post still to come) and choose one design to make.

Using the same recipe we used last year for the salt dough worked great with a little addition of some green dye. This was my bright idea to skip the painting step and to create a different look. This may have been successful if I hadn't forgotten we were still baking the hand prints when I cranked the temperature of the oven for our Sunday evening potato bake, opps. We had a little swelling in the palms of a few and a few burnt fingers. This was easily fixed by turning them over and painting them. If you do colour the dough you may wish to glaze them as it is a very matt finish.

Once the dough is made, cut, cooked and painted the fun really starts. Cakes squeezed out small blobs of PVA glue, sprinkled the glitter and tapped it back off. I attempted this at school with hot glue and the outcome was less than desirable. I think PVA glue is by far the best glue to use as it creates a perfectly circular blob and holds an even spread of glitter. Unfortunately the glue does flatten as it dries however it still leaves a shiny circle just like a perfect glittery bauble. Cakes (unlike the kids at school) does make things on mass, we have a successful production line set up. This is due to her beautiful giving nature (where she needs to give everyone the same thing so noone feels left out).

Learning

measurement
language development
hand-eye coordination
small muscle development
understanding tradition (Christmas)

What you need

salt
flour
water
food dye
bowl
spoon

measuring cup
rolling pin

knife
paper
scissors
oven
PVA glue
glitter
wax paper
straw
paper star

Kinetic Sand

12/2/2013

6 Comments

Cakes and I recently won a competition run by A Little Bird and Freestyle Kids. The prize was a 5kg box of the most fabulous stuff I have ever seen, KINETIC SAND. What is Kinetic sand you ask? It is something that no child or adult can walk past without touching (kind of like Goop or Oobleck for those of you across the ocean, but made of sand).

It moves just like goop but without the mess. When you press and push it, the kinetic sand stays together. When you hang it, drip it or squish it, it flows. Cakes and I had fun building sand castles and knocking them down. It was much more fun than ordinary sand as the sand particles moved with a mind of their own. It reminded me of little metal shards being moved around by a magnet.

It feels just like wet sand but without the sticky mess. Even though Cakes' favourite place at school is the sandpit she tends to stick to the dry sand. Her sensory aversions tend to keep Cakes on the cleaner side of play. This sand is perfect for her as she gets to experience the tactile play without getting messy. For parents concerned about mess this product is amazing. I am a bit cheap and hate to waste anything and our house is far from clean. So we tend to protect the play resource from the floor rather than the other way around. I was so pleased to find the sand was as easy to pick up as bits of playdough. With the cat walking around I was so worried about getting cat hair in it, but none got in, yay! At school I have carpet on the floor and I was able to salvage every piece of sand dropped, no dust, dirt or carpet was attached to the sand, double yay!

The box said that the Kinetic sand never dries out. We decided to test it out (with a very small amount, just in case) and after an entire weekend out, it was just as good as it was when we started. It also says it repels water so when we have a little more time we are going to add a moat to our next castle.

Loving some clean play

This is how Cakes looked at tidy up time.

Cakes was so busy experiencing a medium she usually avoids, she didn't really see how cool this sand really is. The kids at school however thought it was amazing. They couldn't believe how it moved all by itself, how it stuck together and how it separated.

I would recommend Kinetic Sand to all parents, teachers and children. I see specific benefits for students with special needs (with sensory processing disorders, poor small muscle development, etc). This is a product that will be seen in my classroom to cater for students who are tactile and kinesthetic learners. If you are a visual learner you might be interested in the video below, it will have you ohhing and ahhing.
You can follow Freestyle Kids on Facebook for updates on the Kinetic Sand (and other products)

Learning
Small muscle development
attention span
language development
creativity
cause and effect

What you need

Kinetic Sand

6 Comments

Colouring pasta

5/6/2013

0 Comments

Cakes has been in birthday party preparation mode for a few months now. Late last year she decided she was going to have an art party. With one of her new interests being bead threading, she suggested we do some at her party. With most beads being tiny, threading can be very difficult for young toddlers. With that in mind we decided to use pasta for threading. The best thing about this is it meant we had an extra activity to do in preparation. With yellow being Cakes favourite colour it was inevitable we would do primary colours. We set out following a simple procedure.

0 Comments

Potato printing

4/10/2013

3 Comments

When I was little I remember doing potato printing at Kindy (and loved it). As an adult I have never done this at school or at home with Cakes as I had been guilted into believing this would be wasteful with perfectly good food. (I am still undecided where I stand on using food for art, I use pasta for threading so I should know where I stand). We recently had a potato go rotten in the cupboard and threw it into the worm farm, instead of breaking down and feeding them, it grew into 3 new potatoes. Potatoes I wasn't willing to eat so we used them for painting.

A quick wash, cut in half and carefully cut shapes (while Cakes was busy in another room). And there we had it another fabulous painting tool. Cakes and Princess S did potato stamper printing for a long time making different patterns, talking about the colour, the shapes and counting. The large printed pieces of paper were great sheets of wrapping paper for gifts. I think Cakes was more excited about giving the paper than the presents.

Learning

shape recognition
colour recognition
counting
patterning
small muscle development
hand eye coordination

What you need

trays
sponges
paint
potatoes
knife

3 Comments

Paper tube Didgeridoo

1/22/2013

1 Comment

Cakes has seen the Didgeridoo used in many community and theme park performances, though her favourite place to see the Didgeridoo in action is in a ZingZillas video on her CBeebies app on my phone. So before making a paper tube Didgeridoo she did a little research and watched an Indigenous Australian playing the Didgeridoo for the ZingZillas. She requested colours to paint her paper tube with and said "I need these colours 'cause the man had them colours". We then discussed why that the colours he used were made with dirt and plants found in the environment. She then asked "why doesn't he use paint?", this lead to a discussion about the history of Indigenous Australians (and paint).

Cakes then used all her colours to make marks on the paper tubes. She did straight lines, wiggly lines, dots and some marks she described as Australian animals "a turtle in green, a pattypus (platypus) and an Emu".

At first Cakes put her mouth around the outside of her tube and she appeared very distressed by the sound it was making. I demonstrated putting my mouth inside the tube and she tried that. Still not luck. Together we practised blowing rasberries and then placing the tube to our mouths. This was perfect and Cakes played it for the entire morning. We had a mini corroboree though it wasn't as much fun without clacking sticks and some dancing. We might try again when Daddy comes home.

Learning

Indigenous Australian culture
small muscle development
hand eye coordination
aesthetic appreciation
music making techniques

What you will need:

paper tubes
paint (colours naturally found and made by Indigenous Australian's or Ochres)
cotton buds (or fingers)

1 Comment

Crazy croc

1/21/2013

3 Comments

Making a crazy Croc was a simple as an egg carton (well half to be exact) a bit of paint,a stapler and a few staples. Cakes has seen many crocodiles at various zoos, themeparks and digitally. This proved useful when asking her what colour paints she wanted. She request green for his "scaly rough skin", white for his "sharp teeth" and black for his "beedy eyes". We broke the egg carton into smaller pieces first and then painted all the green and all the white. Once this was dry we stapled it together and painted the black onto his eyes. Her egg carton crocodile has been played with several times since he was finished and everyone that walks in the door gets to meet him (right after they check out her Emu's hanging in her room).

Learning

hand eye coordination
small muscle development
creativity
role play

What you need:

egg carton
paint (green, white, black, red)
stapler
staples

3 Comments

Egg Carton Redback Spiders

1/18/2013

5 Comments

With my belief that a redback spider would kill Cakes if bitten, it was important for her to know what they look like so she could avoid them (even though she has been told not to touch any spider). When Cakes and I did research on these little arachnids we found that even though they are venomous that no one has died from a redback spider bite since anti-venom was introduced in 1956.

After looking at their picture we discussed their body parts, 2 body parts and 6 legs unlike an insect with 3 body parts and 6 legs. We collected some egg cartons and broke them into groups of 2 for the head and body. They were painted black with 4 holes on either side (note our legs ave come our of the back part of the body however it should be the front half), threaded 4 pipe cleaners through the holes then out the other sides and painted a red strip on the back.

When asked what Cakes enjoyed doing the most when making her redback spider she said "putting in the cleaners as legs, it was really hard". She then reiterated I was not to touch her spiders as they are very "emonous", when asked what emonous means she said that "you might die or get sick". SO her spiders are sitting in the middle of a room and not touched, hopefully she will let me pick them up before someone trips on them.

Learning

small muscle development
hand eye coordination
attention span
concentration
aesthetic appreciation
safety
understanding of arachnids (opposed to insects)

What you need:

egg cartons
black paint
red paint
paint brushes
hole punch
pipe cleaners
googly eyes (or paper drawn/printed)
glue

Paper Emus

1/16/2013

6 Comments

Cakes has been taking herself on bush walks (through our house) several times a day recently. I have been on the walk a few times and one thing we consistently see is Emus. It has been a few weeks since we saw an Emu at Alma Park Zoo, with Cakes getting close to try feed him (she even explained to him that the packet said he would like the food and he should eat it) though I do not think this is what has sparked her interest in them. We have been looking at various Australian animals in non-fiction books and on the internet in the lead up to Australia day though again she has not seemed particularly taken by any one animal. Yesterday she asked at least 15 times to make an Emu, I explained I had no paper plates or feathers (as that is how I envisioned a 'made Emu' would look. Today I located alternatives to these items as I did not want to continue to disappoint her with my explanation of lack of resources.

While making our Emus today, Cakes busted into song (something she often does, with her most recent being "We're going on a bush walk, we're going on a bush walk, it is quite a nice day to go on a bush walk"). She started singing the Wiggles song, Do the Emu. This may be the explanation I have been needing to understand her obsession.

As an alternative to paper plates for the body we traced around a large plate on some cardboard (from the inside of Christmas wrapping paper) and cut it in half. For the feathers we picked out a few pieces of scrap booking paper (from that 5 minutes 3 years ago that I thought I would have time to scrap book) and cut it. Cakes is still a two hand cutter and tends to feather the paper rather than cut it in pieces (you might say perfect for this project). We used a hole punch to cut holes to tie the legs and neck on. Cakes picked out a few pieces of scrap wool (thanks Nanny) for the legs and pipe cleaners for the necks. Wrapping the pipe cleaners around a pom pom was much easier than gluing as I had originally thought of doing it. A few googly eyes and a piece of cardboard for a mouth and two Emus were complete.

Learning

small muscle development
hand eye coordination
language development
step by step process
aesthetic appreciation
understanding of animals
understanding of body parts

What you need:

Scissors
card board
plate
pen
paper
glue
pom pom
googly eyes (or draw/printed eyes on paper)
pipe cleaners
wool
hole punch or stapler

Christmas wreath

12/6/2012

2 Comments

For Cakes's first Christmas she was 6 months old. I wanted to create some sort of decoration for the house that could be used year after year. As my husband and I had only decorated our house a few times before we had Cakes we didn't own an excessive amount of decorations and had no wreath for the door. This was the perfect thing for Cakes to make as at this age children love sensory experiences and hand prints are something that as a parent you will enjoy even when your child is 18 years old and moving out.

As you can see in the picture some of the hand prints are a bit smudged, I worked hard with Cakes to get as many prints as I could. We made enough to make three wreaths, one for our house and one for each of her Grandmothers. I learnt a trick to getting hand prints from Cakes's Aunty Teen (she has been a nursery teacher for the last decade) right after we completed this piece of art. She suggests after you paint the baby's hand to give it a tickle in the middle and then print, this helps them open it wide to get a better print.

Once all the prints are complete and you get a spare minute (I know hard with a baby around), cut out all the hand prints (if you can laminate them it will preserve them for years to come). Cut the inside out of a paper or plastic plate and staple the little hand prints all the way around with a little overlap. Add a bow and hang on the door. Perfect!!

Learning

sensory experience
aesthetic appriciation
understanding of tradition (Christmas)
counting
colour recognition
pride for years to come

What you need:

paper
paint
laminator (optional though makes it long lasting)
paper or plastic plate
scissors
staples and stapler
a small person's hands

Linking up with A Sorta Fairytale for Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for the memory of small fingers as they grow bigger each day.

2 Comments

Paddle pop stick Christmas trees

12/4/2012

29 Comments

One of our favourites this year has been making Christmas trees to hang on the Christmas tree. Cakes (with lots of support) glued three paddle pop sticks together to make a tree (or as Cakes advised me a triangle). We were lazy and used green paddle pop sticks rather than paint them (though this would have been fun, I did not think Cakes had the patience to wait for the paint to dry). She stuck on lots of foam stickers, glued on a few matchsticks and some pom poms.