Jake's Valentines for Preschool

He made Salt Dough Valentines

To make salt dough, you’ll need:
    •    2 cups of flour
    •    1 cup of salt
    •    1 cup of water

Jake helped mixed the ingredients and he used cookie cutters to cut out of the dough. We baked them at 350°F and watched them until they were hard and not burning. After they cooled, Jake used markers to decorate. I then used glitter varnish to seal them while Jake decorated paper hearts we would later put ribbon and salt dough together to make these fabulous valentines <3.

Clay with Young Explorers Class

This weekend our Young Explorers, ages 4 1/2 to 7 got to experiment with hand-building clay! We started out with simple pinch pots then made an "open mouth pinch pot character." Then, we made lots of worms to build a coil pot with a lid and finished up with a rolled slab tray plate.

Happy Valentine's Day Craft!

Mommy and Me Valentines

Today we read "Owl Babies" by Martin Waddel, a sweet story about three baby owls who are looking for their mother to return to the nest. Our craft was a dress up on an old concept of handprints crossed to make a heart.  I do love my handprints!! We used paint to cover our background that we spread with recycled hotel access cards. We then decorated the background with cookie cutters as stamps and the end of romaine lettuce stalks for flowery looking stamp. For this stamp area we used glittered gold paint! For the handprint part, we had a separate station with 2 plates with pink and red paint for dipping and stamping our prints onto heart shaped paper. As usual, we are now all stained with paint and much messier than we arrived to class:)

 

 

Printmaking with 4 and 5 year olds

Today I visited my son's preschool class to do some valentine printmaking with them. We recycled meat trays and etched into them our designs using dull pencils. After they were complete we rolled ink on them and put them in a hand press. Most important is to show them how to write words in the mirror image and to make sure they press hard enough into foam without breaking through. Here are their wonderful wonderful works of art from today. I may have had more fun then they did:)

Owls and Hearts Mommy and Me Project

Today we read "The Owl Who Became the Moon" by Jonathan London and recycled magazines to make these spectacular owls. Whoo whooo. Children painted the background with tempera while mommies helped cut out the pieces of the owl. Much fun was had with glue! It's always a winner project when we come out messier than we arrived:) Here are some our little friends works and our special volunteer Miss Betty...

Looking for Valentine Crafts?

I know I am:) I'm between doing heart shaped salt dough ornaments and a printmaking project using hearts. Here are some that I've collected from my own classes and others I found on other teachers blogspots.

Printmaking Hearts

This year I'm going to recycle Styrofoam meat trays or egg cartons and have the kiddos draw/press hearts and patterns onto them. REMEMBER: If they write anything, it will need to be the mirror image. After they are finished we will print them using water based printblock ink onto a background they have prepared using a handpress or the old fashioned way.... wooden spoon. I'm envisioning heart sponge stamps and maybe heart shaped cookie cutters to stamp a background together. Here is a photo of other printmaking project using this process. I'll be sure to post photos of this idea next week:)
REVISION: added heart prints photo. See Printmaking post for more information

(plate is shown on right and print is shown on left)

Heart Strings

This is a toilet paper roll painted and then cut in 3 pieces and folded to look like hearts. We then strung them on plastic coated wire with large beads.

Heart Mask

First I made a template using an old cereal box and once completed, traced onto cheap paper plates. Hole punch eyes (to cut out later) and sides for ribbon. [Make you life easier and fold 3 plates in half and only trace half the mask and that way you can cut out 3 at a time and way way faster]. Kids decorate and loved wearing these fun masks home.

Lion Heart

Using different sized and colored hearts we made a lion. Inspired by the book Heart Zoo. Kids can color background and then cut around the edges of the paper plate to make it look more like hair. Then we assembled the hearts on plate with whiskers.

Handprint Heart
Simple and easy for the little ones. From Crafty Crow

Painted Hearts

Cut out heart shapes and have children experiment with patterns and colors. From Deep Space Sparkle

Coffee Filter Hearts

Couple ways to do this one. You could have them use markers and then wet them to make them look tie dyed or you could use watercolors. From Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

Winter Trees

Today we celebrated winter by making winter tree art after we read "Winter Trees" by Carole Gerber. The book was a great way to explain different shaped trees as well as offered an opportunity to talk about our recent snowfall in our area. We painted our backgrounds and then collaged strips and/or triangles of paper on top. The strips/triangles were decorated with scraps of wrapping paper, marker, and crayon to add color.
A special thank you to our volunteer, Miss Betty. We appreciate everything you do:)