Digital Cameras to the Rescue!

A couple months ago, your fearless dilly do-ers found themselves with a NEED to visit a very large and magical thrift store. As our schedules filled and the need grew we found that the only time we could do it would be in the good old summertime during a school break which would mean the kidlets would have to come with us! How were we to entertain the tots so that we could mosey about vintage linens and mismatched pyrex? The a-ha moment came when the happy, colorful, child-proof digital cameras were unearthed. We would assign them a photo scavenger hunt and buy us maybe, hopefully, at least twenty (more like fifteen) minutes to browse.**

We took a moment to pause before entertain the enormous wonderland and created a list of easy and not-so-easy objects the wee ones could photograph. We instructed NO RUNNING, TAKE YOUR TIME and STICK TOGETHER as we handed off the list to the boy wonder. Hand in hand off they went and we made a mad dash for the linens. Here's what was on the list:

*something shiny
*something cowboy
*polkadots
*Elvis
*something Hawaiian
*the letter A (x2)
*5 clocks (one must be a grandfather clock)
*a heart
*two Elmos
*suitcase, preferably blue
**bonus white shoesAnother fun thing to do with a digital camera and a bored kid involves a somewhat fancier camera that allows for color accenting. Prep the camera to a bright and happy color like yellow and ask your kidlet to snap photos of only yellow things. We did this with the wonder boy as well and he snapped some wonderful shots all from the backseat of the car on the drive home from another shopping day.


For a nifty review of digital cameras for kids, check out Chris's post on alpha mom

**some stores may not allow photography so make sure it's okay to snap away and of course, this is not recommended for an unattended child under the age of seven nor is it intended for a space so large you cannot see where your child is at all times. And of course you could always do this with a disposable camera. It will just take a while longer for the results!

This is a great activity for home, in the car or on a walk. You can come up with a list together, make it an ongoing game for the year; say pictures of things that are red or you can use it as a party game. It lends itself to oodles of ideas, have fun!

marble painting in action

marble painting
Originally uploaded by jek in the box

Here's another way to paint with marbles...dip and roll!

School Supplies For One And All!

For as long as I can remember, September meant going back to school and going back to school meant school supplies! There was nothing I loved more than picking out new notebooks, pens, pencils and markers. I may not have gotten a new school wardrobe every year but I always managed to score a set of markers. My family did not have much by way of extra spending cash but lucky for us there were discount stores that carried oodles of school supplies on sale even! Once I was even lucky enough to get a Trapper Keeper! Go me!

This year, if you are lucky and fortunate enough to stock up at home, why not pick up a little something extra and donate the goods to a wee tot in need of new supplies? Sales may be over, but office supply stores always have deals. Check out this list of nifty organizations or check with your local schools, churches, hospitals and shelters. Crayons are such simple things but they sure can pack a smile. Get to googling, you may find someone right under your nose. The Starbucks near my school is collecting books for a local classroom. When and if you do put together a kit or two, make sure to involve your kidlets in the process. You're never too young to start giving.

*Operation Iraqi Children
*I Love Schools
*Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation
*Give a Kid a Backpack
*Adopt a Classroom

Salt Dough Science

 Call it what you will but play dough, salt dough, play clay...it never gets old. Approach a batch of salt dough with your wee ones as a science experiment and you'll witness some great fun, dialogue and happy kidlets!

What you need:

*salt

*flour

*water

*large bowl

*mess friendly zone

*wooden spoons

*1/2 cup measuring cup

*damp dishcloth

scrumdilly-do it!

Set out your ingredients. Doing this outside would be the best bet but indoors will work as well. A typical batch of salt dough calls for one cup of flour, a half cup of salt and a half cup of water. By using a half cup measure you can introduce fractions to your wee ones. You can have your kidlets follow the recipe exactly so that they can learn the math part of following a recipe....order and measuring, or you can have them measure out the flour and salt and then add water as they will.

Into the bowl, have your wee on measure one cup of flour. Have them then, or a different kidlet, measure out a half cup of salt. Use the wooden spoons to sift together.

Add a little bit of water either by pouring it into the salt and flour or ask your wee ones to measure a tablespoonful at a time. While you do this, talk about play dough and clay and texture and feeling. What kind of dough does you wee one prefer? Explain that the more water that is added, the gooier the dough will be. The more flour, the more dry it will be and the more salt, the more gritty it will be.

After enough water has been added to make the dough stick a bit, toss those wooden spoon and go for it with your hands. Allow your children to mix and match, add as much water as they wish, salt...flour. Talk about what is happening with their mixtures. If you wish, you may want to create a graph of sorts to see which measures make which kind of dough. Also let your kidlets know that the more they manipulate the dough, the more moisture they can work off.

 

 Once they have the consistency they like, they can create sculptures to leave out in the sun to harden. Once dry, you can paint the pieces with paint or permanent markers. We had more fun mixing and creating than even thinking about an end product. Have fun!

While away the days of summer....

...with an air tent! This is something my brother used to do in the summer with me. We would build it in the yard and then sleep in it...those were the days! It is easy to do, though you need to really make sure everything is secure as you don't want any tent catastrophes, and it is so refreshing you just may want to nap in it as well!

What you need:
*an electric fan, a box fan works best
*an extension cord (if you are building it outside
*two layers for the tent, worn vintage sheets work, the lighter the better
*rocks, bricks, books and/or other objects to anchor the tent
*masking tape or painters tape instead of the objects (might not hold as well)
*space to "build"

scrumdilly-do it!We set up our tent out doors and discovered that the small wonky fan we had was not the most stable of fans so I had to anchor the fan down do it wouldn't tip over. The first things you do is lay out the floor layer. We used a tablecloth that was a good deal smaller than the top of our tent. This size difference truly works best for a tent that has lift.

Next, we layered the top sheet over the tablecloth and anchored down three sides with any object we could hunt down.The fan was set up at the open end, smack dab in the middle. We plugged it into the extension cord and turned the fan on, holding our breaths! It worked! Sort of...some adjustments needed to be done.If you can fully seal the three sides of the tent, air from the fan will escape creating less of a lift for the tent ceiling. We moved the edges of the top sheet so that they matched the bottom layer and then we tucked the sheet under the tablecloth to create a seal of sorts. Next, we re-anchored the three sides and turned the fan on once again. We had "lift off!"Crawl into the tent and enjoy your summer day. The colors on our ceiling made for a pretty garden tent. A parachute would probably be the best bet. If you can do this near a wall where you can "build" a tent stabilizer, a piece of rope or twine that is anchored up high on the wall and then anchored to the grass at an angle it would create more support for the roof of your tent. Never leave young children in the tent unattended. Fans are super enticing to small fingers. If the fan tips or falls, it won't hurt anyone (unless it falls on them) but it may startle and that wouldn't be fun.

So there ya go, take a vacation in your backyard, front yard or living room with a nifty hideaway made from two sheets and an electric fan. We used our tent time to create doodle monsters. What are you going to do with yours?

Cauliflower Projects 5 & 6

Another one? I'm telling you, this veggie is more than just tasty! Project Five:
Set out new paper, new brushes and that nifty, nifty core of cauliflower. For this project you are going to have your kidlets paint directly onto the bottom of the core. If you look closely you can see that the top of the core allows for a good grip so that the painted part becomes a stamp of sorts. They can paint it with one color or multiple colors or paint and wash and paint again. Really, just have them paint it.
Have your wee ones paint and then stamp onto their paper. They may want to make a picture, that is fine. If you want to do project six you can have them stamp their blobs a wedge away from each other with no overlapping. Set aside to dry and get ready for the final project!
Project Six:
Cut out each blob your kidlet painted and adhere to dark cardstock.Have your wee ones turn their blobs into monsters, space creatures and animals using the markers. Cut out of dark cardstock so that you have a border around the creatures.Glue to a craft stick or other stick and you now have cauliflower monster puppets! See? I told you this would be nutty. Who knew you could do so much with a cauliflower?

Cauliflower Projects Two, Three & Four

This one involves the leaves of the plant. You can of course do this with any type of non-poisonous leaf. Have fun!

Same set up as before, only hand your wee ones a paintbrush. Get out those leaves and have your wee ones arrange the leaves onto their paper. You may want to tack the leaves down a smidge with a loop of tape or a dot of glue stick.Once the leaves are arranged, have your wee ones paint over the paper so that the leaves act as a stencil. When they are done, remove the leaves and set aside, don't throw them away! If you use a large enough sheet of paper, you have some nifty gift wrap!
Project Three:
Paint with the painted leaves! Huh? Remove the painted leaves from the stenciled picture and flip them over so that the paint side is facing down.Lay on top of a new sheet of paper and press firmly so that an imprint is left behind. Do this until there is no more paint on the leaves and set the leaves aside for project four. Try to use the leaf imprints to create an object, shape or person. Have fun with it!

Project Four:
Make a collage with the painted leaves. I know, nutty, right? Pass out some cardboard cut from cereal boxes or maybe a paper plate, or heavy cardstock and have your wee ones make a painted leaf collage.

You may want to use regular school glue for this one. You can also use pre-cut cardstock folded in half and have them make thank you cards are "just because" cards.

Next up, stamping with the cauliflower core!

Play with your food!

Well, only some of it. The other day I was in the kitchen chopping away at a head of cauliflower when I looked into the scrap bowl and saw all these possibilities. I now bring to you an assortment of projects come to life by this underrated vegetable. Who knows? Maybe your wee ones will actually eat it after all is said and done and painted with, on and around!First up, paint with cauliflower! When you trim all those bits and pieces of for your food making adventures, you end up with a lovely core, smaller bits of stem and some nifty green leaves and such. I've got five projects for you using your scraps so stay tuned! Let's have some fun!

Materials:

*cauliflower scraps

*paper of your choice; recycled, cardboard or paper bags

*paint such as a washable tempera or an acrylic if you're brave

*paintbrushes

*tray or plate or palette for paint

scrumdilly-do it!

Project One:

Set up the workspace with paper and add your paints to the tray or plate. Set out a bowlful of cauliflower scraps and challenge your kidlets to paint a picture using only the scraps.

The best option for this project is the dip and paint.Limit your color palette to a few colors that mix well and you can avoid a glob of brown goo. Set aside to dry and you have a lovely abstract painting.This will also work with other veggie scraps. If you're planning on making veggie scrap soup by all means make the soup instead! See ya tomorrow for more cauliflower fun!

With a tweak, tweak, here...

(photo property of Lydia at Litttle Blue School)

You have got to love this vast, vast world also known as the internet. Check out how blogger Lydia of Little Blue School approached our art in parts project, she added words! Yay Lydia! Read more about it here. Thank you Lydia for sharing this with the 'do. We love sharing so don't forget to share with us what your interpretations of our projects look like. We can't wait!

Spoil Them Rotten!

For fun or for no reason at all! I did this with the traditional sugar overload of ice-cream and candy, but you can do this with yogurt, graham crackers & cool whip, bread & butter, cupcakes or giant cookies.

 

 You do not by any means have to use all the sugar I did, use happy cereal, nuts, dried fruit and fresh fruit instead. Always, always, always remember the age of your kidlets and what they can and can not eat. I know YOU know this but just in case your wee ones have a friend who is younger make sure to think age appropriate sweets. it's a no brainer I know but we all forget sometimes.

 I had wanted to do this in pretty, happy bowls or cups but forgot to bring my own and was at the work house so I decided to use a happy fun plastic tray and cupcake liners. Oh how I love me a cupcake liner! So have fun, get creative and as always, take pictures!

Paint with dots! Lotsa lotsa dots!

Here are some pics from a recent class I taught. We did all of our "painting" and printmaking using items that would produce a dot. We first talked about Pissaro and Seraut and pointillism and then started with index cards and toothpicks.We worked our way up to larger cards and q-tips, paintbrush tips and crayon tips.
Then we got bigger and used the rims of cups and glasses and I passed out the parts of a chopped up swim noodle.

Things got a little wacky when we tried dotting our papers with marbles. The marbles took on a life of their own and produced some nifty experimentation! Have fun and don't limit yourself. Have your wee ones go on a circle hunt in the house to look for household items that would produce a circle. Start with a reading of the dot and have fun!

(corn) Pop Art!

Last week I taught an art class for kidlets that focused on Andy Warhol. We looked at a book of his art work and talked about the art behind everyday packaging. I explained that everything we purchase that comes in a package, comes in a package that was designed by an artist. We talked about the soup can and how Warhol took something simple and mundane and turned it into something extraordinary. I wanted to put it into their heads that art is all around us and sometimes all it takes is another person's vision to show us.

After we talked and looked and talked some more, I set out some large sheets of paper. I intended to use large sheets of canvas paper but that got left at the casa so we had to use what we had on hand. Next up, each kidlet picked out an empty wee cereal carton. You can do this project with any type of packaging you like. I adore the small cereal boxes!

We sat for a few moments and discussed our boxes. We talked about the colors used, the words and the design. I gave each kidlet a piece of matte board to use as a palette and asked them what color they wanted to use as their background. I also gave them some white and some black and we talked about mixing different shades of the same color. Most couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of mixing black with another color. I did my best to encourage them but didn't push.

 

 Rollers were past out along with paint brushes and the background work began.

Next up, we coated the back of the cereal box with tacky glue and the kidlets placed them on their papers. Then we headed out to play for awhile to let the paint dry.

Once the paint was dry, another color was chosen and a word was picked out from the cereal box. Each kidlet painted their word wherever they chose onto their paper and we ended up with a nifty assortment of cereal pop, Pop Art!


I can't wait to see what you and yours come up with!