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!

Index Cards Part two

Because there is always room for more index cards projects...this one goes back to my early college art days. I took a two dimensional design course back in the 80's and we did this project first on index cards then on large sheets of paper. Ours were done in black, white and gray but your kidlets may want to use all of their crayons and/or markers. If you do this with crayons or oil pastels and then have them fill in the shapes with water color you will get a nifty collection of textures and colors and it will be that much easier for your wee one to keep the color in the tiny shapes. Remember, this project is best done with your kidlets six and older. You may enjoy it also as it is very soothing to focus on.

What you need:
*index cards any size
*markers or crayons and/or watercolor

scrumdilly-do it:

Set out an index card for your wee one to doodle on. The idea for this is to doodle first one large swirl like line with a loop or two in it. More lines may be added to break up the first and to create more pockets to color in.Next up, start filling in the "pockets" with color. We decided to try using only one color scheme or maybe just five colors. Pick your first color and randomly color in a few of the shapes.Select your next color and do some more.Repeat until you are finished and viola! A nifty colorful stained glass looking piece of tiny art! You can of course do this on larger sheets of paper, the insides of brown bags, back of gift wrap, etc. The larger your paper the more you may want to use paint instead of markers to color in the shapes. Drawing large circular lines in great for those motor skills. Filling in small pockets with color is perfect to perfect those fine motor skills and helps strengthen hand to eye coordination. Have fun!