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One of the staples of our daily activities is PLAYDOUGH! What kid doesn't love to play with Playdough?? I have fond memories of my childhood at home with my mom, playing with her ever so special homemade playdough. So, of course, that's the first thing I would like to share. There are many variations to homemade playdough recipes that can be found online, but the one I use is what I got from my mom.
"Mom's Homemade Playdough"
Materials
- Bowl
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 cup salt
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- food coloring
- 3 cups flour
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- if you feel like getting really crazy with your playdough, you can even go as far as to add glitter, confetti or other fun additions to it!
- In bowl, mix water, salt, oil, and enough food coloring to make a bright color.
- Gradually add flour and cornstarch until the mixture reaches the consistency of bread dough.
- Store covered. (I reuse clean plastic peanut butter jars to store it in...but a ziploc bag would work too)
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The next thing I would like to share is a great thing if you have a little explorer like I do who loves the outdoors and all of the creepy crawlies that come with it! I've found that with just a few simple items, we could make a fun "bug jar" to put all of the little insects and bugs into that he finds out and around the yard.
Materials
- clean jar with lid (I reused an old baby food jar, but any jar would work...peanut butter jars, mason jars, spaghetti sauce jars, etc.)
- colorful bug stickers (I had foam bug stickers on hand, so that's what I used)
- ice pick or screwdriver (for punching holes in the jar lid)
- Let your child place stickers onto the jar.
- Poke holes with ice pick/screwdriver into jar lid as breathe holes for bugs. (I don't recommend letting your child help with this step for obvious reasons...ice picks are dangerous in little hands!!)
And that's it! It's a fun, inexpensive item to give to your child for a day of outdoor exploring and bug catching! (I even made up a little "buggy quote" and put it on a piece of paper and glued it to the front for a little bit more fun!)
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The next thing is a favorite of my little guy! He has a fascination with animals of all kinds and loves to look through books with pictures of animals. After searching for and buying numerous animal books for him, I decided to take it upon myself to come up with a way to make a book of his most favorite animals. So, after just a few easy steps, I managed to make up a fun little book for him that he adores.
Animal Book
Materials
- small picture album book with plastic insertable pages
- pictures of animals printed from computer
Directions
- Print pictures of your child's favorite animals from your computer's clip art or from pictures online
- Cut pictures down to size of pages of the photo album
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The next thing is a fun craft that I shared just recently with the children at our church, after trying it out here at home with my son. Being a devout Christian family, we instill Christian values in our son's life. Among these things is saying at blessing at our mealtime. With my son being such a young age, it's hard for him to say too many blessings, but we have found one that he loves. In our church, we have taught the children to sing the Johnny Appleseed song before snacks, so that's the song we chose to teach our son for his mealtime blessing. In an attempt to remind him of his blessing as he grows older and learns to read, but in the meantime, just give him a friendly reminder of singing his blessing, I decided to come up with a craft we could make that included his blessing. Below is a picture of what he and I made.
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Next, we made a very fun craft at Easter time that was a huge hit with grandmas! Easter lillies are a favorite flower during Easter and spring, so we came up with a cute way to make them from some simple materials and my son's handprints!
Handprint Easter Lillies
Materials
- white constuction paper
- green and yellow pipe cleaners (I uses a thicker pipecleaner for the yellow to give it more of a "lilly" effect)
- scissors
- ribbons
- pencil or pen
- clear Scotch tape
- Trace child's hand on white construction paper and cut out.
- take pencil or pen and curl fingers of the hand outward.
- Connect one yellow and one grean pipe cleaner together at ends
- wrap handprint cut-out around the pipecleaners and the connection point and secure with tape
- Repeat steps 1 through 4 to make multiple flowers
- tie a few lillies together with ribbon to make a bouquet
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Another fun craft we did for summer was a paper plate turtle. It's a fun way to make a turtle out of things you have around the house!
Paper Plate Turtles
Materials
- white paper plate
- green construction paper
- glue
- crayons/colored pencils
- googly eyes (these aren't required...you can just as easily draw eyes on the turtle, but I had them from another craft, so we used them)
- Cut green construction paper into shape of turtle head and also 5 small pointed pieces for legs and tail.
- Color any pattern for a turtle shell on the bottom side of the paper plate. (I chose a flower pattern since my son just made scribble lines for his "coloring")
- Glue head, legs and tail to the top side of the paper plate (the side you would eat off of).
- Glue googly eyes to the turtle's head (or color them on).
This was one of Jackson's favorite crafts...he plays with the turtle quite often!
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*Note- Be sure to check back in the future, as I plan on updating my blog with lots more fun, inexpensive craft ideas!
