Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Scary Monsters


Around the time my kids turned 3, they developed some new fears, including a fear of monsters.  One strategy we came up with to help them was to make up a little story about a monster coming to our house and being scared away by our ferocious kitty cats.  They still tell each other that story, six months later.  We also read some books about monsters.  Our hands down favorite was Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley.  Months ago, I cut out the pieces needed for this project.  But as soon as I was ready, their interest in the book waned a bit, and so I put it aside.  We've recently had a revival of interest in the book - they've been reading it to their cars.  I thought the time might be right to do this project.  I chose to match the description of the monster in Ed Emberly's book, but of course, you can use any color, shape for the monster face features that you like.

Difficulty: Easy

Age of Youngest Crafter: 3.5

Adult Prep/Finishing: Minimal

Materials:
  • construction paper
  • thin cardboard to attach face pieces to
  • craft stick for handle
  • glue stick
  • masking tape

Advance Prep:
Cut out monster features: face, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc from construction paper.  Cut out a circle large enough for your monster face from thin cardboard.  I used the back of a pad of paper that we were done with.
Making the Craft:
I got out the glue sticks, face pieces, and cardboard background and we got to it.  My kids enjoyed picking the feature to do next and also enjoyed the tie-in to the story.

I used glue sticks and masking tape to attach the craft stick handle.  Probably just masking tape would be enough.

Finishing:
None!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

As Seen on TV

We love to watch Kipper at our house.  We were inspired by the 'Dinosaur' episode to do some handpainting and really want to paint with our feet too, just like Kipper and Tiger.  We're waiting to do footpainting until we can do it outside, but in the meantime, we did make some handprints.








So I'm looking for ideas for our outside footpainting experience for Spring/Summer.  I'm thinking we'll use some kind of big paper/sheet/canvas in the driveway.  Please share any ideas you have!