Kids Fun | Art | Crafts | Outdoor | Activities

Kids Fun, Art and Healthy Wellbeing

Tree Rubbings

By Julia Gorham

Tree rubbings are a great way to explore the garden or a park with your child, allowing them to experience the patterns of different textures from trees. The Fields Montessori children loved this nature activity.

 

You will need:

  • Pieces of white paper
  • Different coloured, long thick crayons, with crayon paper removed
  • Large trees

To do:

  • Take your child into your garden or for a special outing to the park
  • Place a piece of paper over the bark of the tree
  • Ask your child to rub the crayons vertically onto the paper, with long movements, left to right and up and down, until the paper is covered with a beautiful tee bark rubbings.
  • Your child can turn the paper at a different angles and use another colour to make it more interesting.
  • Continue with the next tree.
  • These special bark rubbings can be made into a special book as well as teaching your child the names of the different trees.
  • Your child can also make leaf rubbings from the trees as well.

What a fun, creative way to explore nature, hands on and learning the names of the trees too!

Fresh Flower Crowns

What a great way to celebrate spring with your children with fresh spring flowers !

 

 

                You will need:

  • 1 A4 white cardboard
  • – Crayons, or pastels
  • Fresh spring flowers
  • Stapler

To do:

  • Fold the A4 Cardboard and cut in half
  • Decorate the cardboard with bright crayons or pastels
  • Staple the 2 pieces of cardboard together
  • Measure the crown on your child’s head and staple together
  • Staple the fresh flowers with short stems around the top of the crown

 

Sewing card crafts

 

Threading is a great activity to strengthen your child’s fine motor skills!

You will need:

  • A picture printed on A4 cardboard
  • Scissors
  • Wool
  • A punch
  • Crayons, pencil crayons etc.

To do:

  • Print a template of your choice e.g. car, flowers, animal on A4 Carboard.
  • Cut out the template.
  • Punch holes evenly around the template.
  • Colour in the template.
  • Tie a knot at one end of the template with wool long enough for the template.
  • Thread the wool into each punched hole around the template and tie a knot at the end.

Paper cup Spring Flowers

By Julia Gorham

Get going with the freshness and bounce of Spring with great Spring Kids Crafts! (More to follow)

Spring has sprung!

Here is a simple spring flower activity to do with your children using paper cups and plastic spoons.

 

To get:

  • White paper or polystyrene cups
  • Plastic spoons
  • Template of flowers
  • Scissors
  • Small knife ( For use by adult only)
  • Wax crayons/ paints/ chalk
  • Paint brush
  • Liquid glue
  • (Optional )Small jewel stickers, small pom poms or couscous etc. to glue in the middle of the flower, sand / cut out leaves

To do:

  • Place the cup upside down, slice a thin sliver in the middle of the cup ( Adult to do only)
  • Insert a plastic spoon in the middle of the cup
  • Colour and decorate cardboard, coloured paper template of a flower using different bright, coloured crayons, chalks or paints
  • Paint or chalk colour the cup green
  • Colour the top of the cup brown with added extra’s of sand and glue on top of the cup
  • Glue the decorated flower onto the spoon with liquid glue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is here! (Tune of Farmer in the Dell)
The days of Spring are here,
Warm, sunny days are near,
Flowers and bees, and birds in trees.
The days of spring are here

Hanging fan cat face

This is a very artistic artwork that is a stunning decorative addition to your home.  The beauty of this artwork is that, as an adult you can prepare a lot of it beforehand and then allow your toddler or younger child to spray their artistic paint over it. Older children will have no problem folding and attaching the paper. 

You will  need

  • Fullscap paper: 72cm x 36cm 
  • Two smaller rectangles for the ears
  • Paint
  • String
  • Toothbrush/ dish washing brush
  • Staples
  • Glue
  • Picture of a cat

To do

Fold the paper into a concertina style fan. Tie a piece of string a the centre and glue or staple either side to make a circle. 

Make the ears by folding them in a similar way, pinching one end and stapling it together, with the wider side to be stapled to the circle. 

For the face use an image of a cat with eyes, nose and whiskers. Cut them out and paste them on. (I used the image next to this text)

Now it’s the fun part! Get out the splatter equipment, toothbrush, dish washing brush, immerse them in different colour paints (we used yellow, orange, red). Keep a bowl nearby to rinse your implements inbetween colours. 

 

Hang your cat fan artwork up!

 

 

Vegetable Sculptures: Potato People

For kids who love to play with their food, or construct things, this is an ideal craft activity. It’s really fun for them to build a potato person with different fruit and vegetables and then pick it off afterwards and eat it, as my son did!

You will  need:

  • a large potato for the head
  • hair: eg broccoli, parsley, lettuce (plus ribbon for a girl)
  • eyes: eg blueberry, grape
  • mouth: eg red pepper, tomato
  • nose eg patty pan, sweet potato
  • ears: eg carrots, baby marrows
  • cheeks: eg red pepper
  • toothpicks

It’s a good idea just to get a lot of colourful vegetables. I had a good, cut up mixture from the local fruit and veg shop, and after the kids had used what they needed I cooked the rest up for supper! 

To do:

Place the potato on a flat surface.

Lay out all the vegetables on a tray and then discuss with the child about how to build the face. Start with the hair and then work around all the facial features (as above), using toothpicks. Push the vegetable in the potato as far as it feels stable and then use a scissors to cut off the remaining end. 

Display your work of art for as long as you can before … you start eating it!

Plastic bottle shakers

plastic bottle shakersChildren love to shake these bottles and the plastic bottles can filled with different items to make different sounds. Plastic bottle shakers are also very easy to make and are a fun way to recycle.

You will need:

  • An empty plastic bottle
  • Dried food such as lentils, pasta, popcorn or rice.
  • Tape
  • Strips of coloured paper
  • Paint/stickers (optional)

To do:

  • Fill the plastic bottle with the dried food.
  • Place the bottle lid on the bottle and tape securely.
  • Cut long strips of coloured paper and tape to the end of the bottle

Notes:

plastic bottle shakersYour child can paint the bottle or decorate the bottle with stickers.

 

Let your child shake, shake, shake!

 

Why is Recycling Important? Plus a Bird Feeder using a plastic bottle.

It’s important to instill the importance of recycling in our children. And what better way than to teach them the reasons why, plus create a craft from an item that would normally be thrown away. Here’s why recycling is important and a useful birdfeeder activity to put these ideas into practice. 

 

Why is recycling important?recycling and kids

  •  It saves energy
  • It helps the environment
  • It reduces litter
  • It keeps our planet clean
  • It protects our wildlife

 

Did you know that we can save 220 million trees each year if we all recycled our newspapers?

Did you know that it takes as fast as 60 days for recycled aluminium cans to be processed and the new cans displayed in the grocery shelf again?

You close this cycle by buying and using the new product, and when you deposit the can in the recyclable bin, the process starts again.

1 million sea creatures die each year from used plastic dumped in the sea

Did you know that it takes as fast as 60 days for recycled aluminium cans to be processed and the new cans displayed in the grocery shelf again?

You close this cycle by buying and using the new product, and when you deposit the can in the recyclable bin, the process starts again.

What is Recycling?

Recycling is a process. It involves the following:

Collection of recyclable waste like paper, plastic, glass, etc. From the moment you place your trash in the proper recycling bin, the process of recycling starts.

Separation of the waste materials into different groups.

Processing of the material to produce a new raw material, like aluminium being melted again to purify the metal and return it to the production cycle.

Manufacturing of a brand new productfrom the recycled material, or the making of new aluminium cans from the melted material.

        

 A Recycled art activity Bird feeder

You will  need:

  • An empty plastic  bottle
  • A pair of scissors
  • String
  • Mixed bird seed

How?

  • Cut the base of the container
  • Punch two holes on either side
  • Thread a  thick string through the holes on either side
  • Place  the bird  seed in bottom of container
  • Choose a suitable tree in your garden and hang the bird feeder.

Paper plate lions

These lion paper plates are a cheerful addition to your animal theme and require some fine motor work to create the mane with the fork. 

 

You will need:

  • A fork
  • Paper plate
  • Bowl of thick orange paint
  • A bowl of yellow paint
  • Paint brush
  • Googly eyes and glue
  • Black marker pen

To do:

  • Dip a fork into the bowl of orange paint
  • Press the fork, flat side down on the outside of the paper plate .
  • Continue until the outer paper plate is printed with fork prints.
  • Using a paint brush, dip the paint brush into the bowl of yellow paint and paint the middle of the paper plate.
  • Stick two google eyes in the centre of the plate and assist your child with drawing a mouth and whiskers.

Colour washed, wax and newspaper paintings

Sometimes the most beautiful artworks are also the most simple. These paintings create pretty, colourful layered artworks and they require only a few basic materials. 

You will need:

  • Paper
  • Bowls of different food colouring diluted with water
  • Cut out newspaper shapes
  • Sponge
  • Wax crayons
  • Glue

To do:

  • Dip the sponge into a bowl of diluted food colouring and sponge the paper, using different colours.
  • Leave to dry.
  • Paste your newspaper shapes onto the paper. e.g. flower petals, boat, flower shapes etc.
  • Colour your newspaper shapes with wax crayons.
  • Sponge over your artwork again with the diluted colouring.
  • You can also add your child’s handprints with paint for an extra personal painting.