Art Time - Oiled Paper Suncatchers

I remember seeing this somewhere a long time ago, and it's been sitting in the back of my mind ever since. Finally we got around to doing it.

We used some sketch-pad paper, slightly heavier than regular printer paper. I thinned our tempera paints down a little bit with some liquid starch, thinking that might help it appear more translucent; however, after seeing the completed project I'm thinking bolder, more vivid colors would look nicer. The oil really makes the paper as translucent as it needs to be.

So, stick your paper somewhere in front of your child and have them paint it:
Let it dry.

Take some cotton balls and some oil (we used mineral oil, but you could use baby oil or even vegetable oil) and rub the oil onto the back of the artwork. I was going to let M do this part, but I got impatient while he was doing something else and ended up doing it myself. I'm glad I did because, well, oil is... oily. And it can make a big mess. Just an FYI. :) And the finished art:

The picture doesn't really do it justice. It's pretty in real life. I like it, but next time we'll go for brighter, bolder colors.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School

(M is 35 months old)

We've been talking about patterns for a while now and M apparently thinks it's a line up of any kind. He made these "patterans" this week and was so proud of them:

It was so cute, he listed off the patterns to me like this - circle, square, circle, circle, star, square... and on and on until he was at the end. Evidently we need to work on the idea of repeating objects in order for it to be a real pattern. And don't you like how we had to hang his lacing beads up on the window tie-back? "For decoration" of course. :)



We did a little toothpick and styrofoam activity, pushing the toothpicks in and then putting beads on. I tried the whole pattern thing with him again, seeing if he could copy my pattern. He did, and then he added his own little touch:Then some pipe cleaners got in on the action. This activity kept him busy for quite a while:
We did a little squeezing-water-out-of-a-sponge-with-a-garlic-press activity (That's it's official name). I think I got this idea from The Wonder Years, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
He did his foam ABC puzzle. Hammering the letters in never gets old.We did a dinosaur matching game (file folder game found here):
And we lined up color cards by shade, lightest to darkest:
He did his name puzzle:
And he worked on this little wipe-off mat we found (dollar spot at Target, I love it!) - We picked a letter then I went through and named all the objects for him and he circled the ones that started with that letter's sound. He did great. And he actually circled things, which I didn't know he could do. Yay for fine moter skills! :)
He spent about an hour playing with play-doh, he was very into it!
He worked outside on his car. He's really into fixing things lately (pretend of course). :)
One day he had to have a Superman mask. He doesn't even know who Superman is, but he got a little Superman action figure at a garage sale and I told him a little bit about him. So we went online to see if there was a mask we could print out. No superman, but I found a cute site that has a lot of animal masks - all printable for free! He decided to be a frog! :)
That's my boy!

For more Tot School ideas, visit 1+1+1=1!

Ribbit. Have a beautiful day!