Art Time - Summertime Sand Art

This project is a lot of fun. We did this same thing last fall... inside. What a mistake that was. I'm ok about some messiness, but that took messiness to a whole new level. Anyway, I wanted to do it again, and this time we took it all outside. That's really where sand belongs anyway, isn't it?

Please excuse my messy patio. How is it I never see what needs to be done until I've taken pictures of it?

We bought our colored sand at Michaels, but I believe you can color your own sand with food coloring and let it dry, if you are inclined to do so. (If you are, I'm in awe of you.)

We bought little salt and pepper shakers at the dollar store. I filled them up with the different colors of sand using a funnel, then stuffed 2 to 3 cotton balls in at the top to keep the sand from spilling out. M wanted red and blue construction paper, so that's what we used. Here's the set up:

Actually, the picture doesn't show it, but we ended up putting the paper in a shallow pan to catch the extra sand. The rocks are to hold it down.

Give your child the glue bottle. Chances are they'll know exactly what to do from there (sorry the picture is blurry).

Shake the sand onto the paper:

It looks pretty just like that, doesn't it?

Shake the sand off, and let your masterpiece dry. It's fun and the clean up was pretty easy - take the extra sand to the sandbox and dump it in.:) M loved doing this and it was the first thing he showed to Daddy when Daddy came home.

While M was doing this I made some sand letter cards to use when we are learning letters. M has been asking me to help him write letters, and I thought tracing these with his fingers would be a good way to start learning how they are shaped. Montessori teachers have sandpaper letters that they use for this. These are no where near the same quality, but hopefully will be helpful anyway!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Sunday School on Friday - A Net full of Fish

Last Friday we read the Bible story about the apostles who were out fishing but weren't catching anything. Jesus showed up and told them to cast their net onto the other side of the boat. The net was instantly so full of fish that they had trouble hauling it in! Again, we used our favorite little Bible for toddlers.

M is REALLY into fishing lately so this was a great story for him. He has never really been fishing, but he sure pretends to a lot. He fishes in the backyard with a stick, in the bathtub, at Grandpa's farm sitting in a wagon... he is a born fisherman.

For activities we played a fishing game that I made a long time ago. It's made from cardstock and has the letters of the alphabet on it. The "eyes" of the fish are metal grommets. The fishing pole is a wooden dowel with a string glued to it and a magnet glued to the end of the string. Once a fish is caught we name the color it is and the letter written on it.

We also did a craft with liquid watercolors. You can buy these at school supply stores, or simply make your own by mixing regular (washable!) tempera with a little water or liquid starch. We keep ours in a muffin tin and used plastic pipettes to drop the paints onto coffee filters and paper towels. I am so sorry I didn't get pictures of this part. Must've been a little too tired that day. The neat thing about watercolors on coffee filters, paper towels, and tissue paper is that one little drop will soak in and bleed out, making new colors as the paints mix on the paper.

After letting them dry, we (I) cut fish shapes out and using a needle and white thread we created this mobile for M's room. The picture doesn't really do it justice. It turned out really pretty. And, most importantly, it was a chance to be creative and have FUN!

Have a beautiful day! :)