Panda Shapes Craft – printable

Ever since M made this adorable little shapes-raccoon,he’s been asking to make a panda bear.  Why a panda bear?  Well, your guess is as good as mine, but panda bear it is. ;)

So, finally, we got around to doing this and I love how it turned out!

I did the cutting because some of the pieces are pretty small, but M did all the gluing and arranging and coloring by himself: This is the rare albino-pastel panda bear. :)  But isn’t he adorable?  And that’s a green pom-pom on his face for a nose.  I wish he was 3-dimensional so I could cuddle him up!  He is made completely with circles and ovals, which we talked about, and counted, prior to putting him together.

You can download and print him out here.  If you are going to make a black and white panda bear, you can use the shapes on page two as a template for cutting them from black paper.
 
Have a beautiful day! :)

Raccoon Shapes Craft – printable :)

So, tonight I had two hours of uninterrupted internet time. I was going to write 3 posts for later this week, comment on all your lovely posts out there, and maybe even play some sudoku.:)


What I ended up doing instead was creating this little guy: Isn’t he cute?

Next week our theme is autumn animals – think owls, squirrels, bats… and raccoons. I found some great raccoon books at the library today, and wanted to make a fun workbox activity for M that went along with them. We haven’t done much with shapes lately, so I came up with this. He’s entirely made of shapes. Well, except for the googley eyes we’ll be putting on him and the whiskers (probably black yarn since that’s what I have on hand).

I looked all over internet-land and couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, so I *had* to make one from scratch (oh, darn!). DLTK has a cute one that is entirely made of hearts, but M, being very manly, is not into hearts so much. ;)

If you are interested in making one, or if you ever do a raccoon theme, you can print out the template and instructions from here. I’ll probably cut the shapes out and then use them for a template on black paper. I’ll let M color the shapes on the second page gray. If you have a kid who is good with scissors, they could do a lot of the cutting too.

Enjoy!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Craft Time – Rainbows Galore – #1

I wanted to do these crafts as part of our Noah’s Ark theme last week, but we simply ran out of time.  They are pretty fun to do though, and I like the results, so I’m sharing them here.
The first idea I got from Making Learning Fun.  I printed this template, then circled the color names in the appropriate marker color so M could do this on his own a little bit.  Then I put a muffin tin out with different flavors of Jello powder – cherry, orange, lemon, lime, blueberry, and grape. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it?

(Please pretend you can’t see my rusty old pan.)

M put glue on each stripe of the rainbow (he needed a little mama guidance with this, so no pics), then used a small spoon to *sprinkle* (dump) the powders on.

Here’s the finished rainbow, and it smelled delicious!

There are a couple of things you should know before you do this with your little one though…
1. The paper becomes very heavy with this on it, because it gels when it mixes with the glue.  We used cardstock thankfully, or it would’ve been a disaster.
2. It gels when it mixes with the glue.  So, you know, you have gluey Jello  which, while it smells pretty and looks pretty, is really kind of gross.
3. Ants may come calling when they realize there is gluey Jello nearby.  For this reason M’s artwork ended up in the garbage early the next morning, the evidence covered up with lots of paper towels.  Thankfully he has not asked about his pretty, smelly rainbow yet. :)
So, if we do this again… and it was truly a LOT of fun for M (kept him occupied for a good 45 minutes) we’ll use sugar free koolaid. 
Have a beautiful day! :)

A "Dog" Craft (or... maybe some other animal...)

The first thing Saturday morning M wanted to do "art". I was a little bleary-eyed, but that was ok, you can't hold back a creative genius just because you are tired. ;)

So I asked him, "do you want to make a collage, do you want to paint, or do you want to draw with your markers?" I'm thinking, do I need to get out the glue, paint, what? M had a confused look on his face, and said, "No, Mommy, I want to make a DOG!" A dog? Well, that's a bit specific for a tired mama brain on a Saturday morning, isn't it? He normally isn't that specific in his art requests. Maybe we are entering the "crafty project" stage.

Anyway, the wheels slowly started turning in my head, and I came up with something that made him happy, but doesn't really look like any dog I've ever known. I'm not sure what it is. Anyway, it was fun, and that is what counts, right?

IF you want to make this same... um, creature... here's what you'll need:

paper bag, marker, scissors, paint in the color of your child's choice, something to paint with (we used a sponge), 2 googley eyes, glue, and 3 brads (if you want moving parts, and, honestly, who doesn't?). You'll also need a piece of cardstock or some heavy paper to glue the "dog" to.

1. Draw your dog parts on the paper bag - body, head, 4 legs/feet, tail, 2 ears:

2. Paint the dog parts with color of choice. M chose white. White didn't really go with the weiner type dog I had in my mind's eye and had already drawn on the paper bag; I was thinking more along the lines of brown, but he was not to be swayed. He knew what he wanted.

3. After the paint dries, cut out your pieces. The nice thing about painting on paper bags is that the paint soaks in and dries fairly quickly. You'll appreciate this if you have a child who is as impatient as mine is.

4. Glue the body of the dog onto your cardstock paper, then glue on the head, eyes, and feet as well.


6. Poke holes in the paper where you want the ears and tail to go, then poke a brad through each ear and the tail and then into the holes. Flip the paper over and open the brad prongs so they secure the pieces to the dog. (I'm so sorry I can't find the picture I took of this step, but you can see from the next couple of pictures where we attached the pieces with the brads.)

7. Use your marker to draw the nose and mouth. If you are a better artist than me (and you probably are) you could draw the head of the dog a little differently instead of using a plain old circle, and it might actually look like a dog when you are done! Imagine!

8. Tape it up and let your child "wag" the dog's tail and flop his ears around. What fun!

Enjoy! And have a beautiful day! :)