Classroom Craft - St. Patrick's Day, a Four-Leaf Clover

In the boys' kindergarten class this last week we made fun Good Luck cards for St. Patrick's Day.  The idea is from one of my favourite blogs - Zakka Life. She uses an ink pad for hers and they are much neater, but the kids in the class loved getting their hands in the paint even though there was an ink pad too.  We used folded over green paper for the card, glued a white square on it and painted away and wrote a few words too. They loved embellishing the cards.  Whoever the recipients of these cards will be they are definitely LUCKY!

Supplies: White and green paper, green paint, and thumbs (scissors and glue sticks are optional)

Potato Stamps - tutorial

This could be a great gift tag making activity depending on how you cut your stamps...

Cut your potatoes in half, lengthwise or crosswise depending on the finished shape you want. If you cut the potato with a large knife in one chop it will keep the flat surface more flat. If the surface is uneven the print may have problems. I also thought it was helpful to cut a little handle into the rounded side of the potato to make it easier to control the stamping and pull it off the paper.

Cut an outline into your potato. I used a paring knife. This is not for young children and is slightly dangerous for adults as well, although somehow I managed not to draw blood this time. It doesn't have to be perfect, you can polish it up later. My kids helped by coming up with the shapes we wanted, they drew them on paper as I cut the potato.

Then using the knife parallel to the flat side of the potato, about an 1/8" below the flat surface, cut away the edge of the potato. Now you can even up any rough lines on your shape outline as well as carve out any details (leaf lines, a smiley face, a word...no limits)

HINTS: Dry the potatoes well. Ready to paint and stamp. We found brushing/sponging the paint on thinly with a foam brush worked well (and you can apply several colours), rather than dipping into a huge glob of paint, but that was also an interesting effect so play around. Each potato may have different densities within it. We did an entire sheet of "practice" stamping. Potatoes are a little spongy so pressing down well helps print the entire shape, you can also rock it a little to achieve desired print. We had a little chant "press. press. rock, rock. lift!" when we first started to get the hang of it.

Rinse well after and send to the compost bin...

Autumn Tree with a hand print...

Humour me with one more autumn craft, it is still November after all...

A painted arm and hand makes the perfect tree...leaf styles are optional and we though about attaching real leaves, but since all the paints were out we choose potato stamping...

Paper Mache part 2

Now that our creations are dry - usually overnight, unless the paper mache is really thick, these are about 3 layers of newspaper over the balloon. Oh and what did we make? Dinosaur eggs. You could also actually stuff the balloon with a toy dinosaur if you'd like it to "hatch" at some point.

A great paint tray is the plastic bubbles the apples come in at Costco, it washes out easily and can be reused over and over, plus has plenty of spots for colour mixing.

We also made volcanoes again, because you can never have enough volcanoes, right? They are easy - use a funnel underneath the paper mache as the volcano mold, a plastic one will be easy to pop out of the bottom. Make it as bumpy or smooth as you like, lava in the form of dripping paint looks great either way.

Mixing oil and water = art?

I had been wanting to do this painting craft since I saw this post but was waiting for a sunny day so we could take the dye on the porch. We used old syringe-style dispensers and I think we should have used more food colouring for more intense colours, but the boys had fun and it was science-y as promised with the oil v. water lesson.

Big I little i

For the letter I, we learned some science:

(Note fancy science words are bold and italicized, please ooh and ahh)

Rock salt + near boiling water

Stir to dissolve = Concentrated salt water. It goes on clear with a paint brush. Check back as water evaporates and salt crystallizes on the art work.

Perfect for all things icy and snowy, our favourites were igloos, icebergs, and a snow storm (paint splatters).

Tip - a wax crayon works great to draw the outlines as it repels the water.

The best part? the "paint" is easy to clean up and does not stain.

Stars and Stripes

Gather for round 2 of t-shirt painting, equal time for 2 countries of course. Stars and stripes with white t-shirt paint. we had some friends join us this time, the more the merrier! Check back tomorrow for the finished results.

O Canada!! My Native Land.

I love Canada day, as a child it was one of my favourite holidays. It meant summer had officially arrived. I love my county, I'm grateful to have grown up with such freedom and quality of life. My favourite Canada Days were the one spent in my parents' home-town of HillSpring, Alberta, with Grandma and Grandpas, Cousins and family. I remember dancing with my Grandpa Wynder (who was really quite the dancer) at the town dance at the school, cheering for the family softball teams, Driving all the cousins in a trailer behind our crazy decorated John Deere Mowing tractor (I promise it is the only time in my life I will drive a riding mower down a main street), sometimes having fireworks, hanging out at Grandma's and always experiencing a pride in my country and the love of family.

So...even though we are not living in Canada currently we celebrate. I want my kids to know their heritage and dual-citizenship means something to me. So yesterday the boys painted shirts to wear, I happened to have a maple-leaf rubber stamp and bought some red fabric paint.

Tonight my darling mother-in-law Carolyn threw me (and Canada) a little b-day party with a BBQ and sparklers. Cheers to the true North strong and free!!!

Reading: ABC of Canada - Per-Henrik Gurth, Kim Bellefontaine