Sticker Collages and matching ABCs

We are leaving soon for a week long trip to visit my parents.  It will be fun once we get there, but the drive… oh, the long long drive… not sure that’s going to be as much fun. ;)  We’ll be in the car for about 6 to 7 hours for 2 days; somewhere around 12 to 14 hours total.  This does include some frequent stopping, which I feel is necessary for a small child.  If it were just hubs and me, it’d take about 11 hours and we’d do it all in one day.
Anyway, as you can imagine I’ve been trying to come up with good car activities for a 3 year old.  (If you have any input about this, PLEASE leave a comment!)  I want things that aren’t too messy, are engaging and interesting and novel for him, and won’t involve my turning around every 2 minutes (my neck aches just thinking about it) to help.  I do have a few things planned that we can do together for a while, and for which I’ll move to the back seat to be next to him, but I’m hoping he’ll be able to do and enjoy some activities on his own (besides dvds and cd books and coloring).
I had an idea about how to use stickers in a new way (new for M), and made up some little pages for him to do.  I’m not sure if this will be something I’ll have to help him with or not… I may decide to do one of them at home with him some time this week before we leave so I can gauge how easily he can do it on his own.  I thought I’d post these in case anyone else thinks it’s a good idea too. :)
I put together some little sticker scenes using half a sheet of construction paper.  These are foam stickers and we have a TON of them.  After I had the scene how I wanted it, I labeled each sticker with a letter, then wrote the same letter on the paper in the space where the sticker should go:
When it’s put together it will look like this:

Here are some more I put together.  I snapped pictures of some of them before I actually wrote the letters on them…
    The last one has some layered stickers.  I’m curious to see how he’ll do with that.  Can you tell that’s supposed to be a kite in the sky?
To store these, I put the papers in a pocket of the bag we’ll be taking with us, and all the stickers in a ziploc bag.  I labeled the back of each page with a shape, then labeled the back of each sticker with the appropriate shape. 
Let me know what you think!  These were fun for me to put together; I hope M has fun with them too.
Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box - March 8, 2010

In the Art Box last week: aluminum foil and large window markers; muffin tin with stickers, pom poms, pipecleaners, foam stickers, some sparkly gel pens and some “spiky balls”; a variety of papers, watercolors, scissors, oil pastels, markers, glue.

We tried, once again, crayon resist watercolor painting… this time I had M use the white oil pastel crayon and the results were much easier to see than the last time we tried. I made some designs and he made some and then he painted over them with his watercolor paints. I discovered that giving him a paper towel to wipe his brush on after he dips it in the water helps keep the colors more vibrant for him, which makes them more fun of course.

I put some foam stickers on a cardboard tube for him (sorry this isn’t pictured in the box above… I must’ve snuck it in sometime during the week). (side one)(side two)

He rolled it in paint and then made this:

He worked on painting a passenger car for the train he’s (slowly) been putting together:

He colored on the foil with some giant window markers he received for Christmas:

And he made yet another Valentine (evidently he just can’t stop himself), this one’s for Grandpa: Note the “M” at the bottom. :) I love how he’s more into “writing” now instead of just drawing. You can also see some “spiky ball” prints on this. He used the spiky balls (I found them 6 for a dollar at Walmart in the party favors area) by dipping them in water then into his watercolor paints, then dabbing them around on the paper.

The hit of the week was using pipettes to drip liquid watercolors onto papertowels:There’s a snake in there, a caterpillar, a hamster at the bottom of the ocean, a duck, and a seahorse. :) Also, a mommy and daddy birdie holding a baby bird in their nest. :)

I made the liquid watercolors with regular tempera paints mixed with liquid starch. You could use water too, but the starch keeps the papertowels from becoming totally soaked, while still spreading out quite a bit.

Link up below to share your little masterpieces and some good ideas! Please remember to link back here in your posts. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)