We had family from New York visiting last week and most of our time was spent just having fun with cousins.  The Art Box did not see much action, but I did capture a couple of creative moments… these were times when a very over-tired 3 year old who doesn’t take naps anymore needed something quiet to do.  While sitting in one spot. ;)

 

First, a little sand art, which is always a huge hit with M.  Michael’s has these cute little containers and M used a funnel to fill them up with colored sand:

 

Also, some drawing on the side of the fridge with window markers.  This was a novel idea for him and kept him happy and creative for a good half hour at least:

(His “snowman” drawing)

If you have a kid's art post, link it up below! Be sure to link back here somewhere in your post.

Have a beautiful day! :)

ABC Collage and Trace Book

I’ve written about M’s little ABC binder before.  He still uses it on a regular basis and enjoys it.

There are two parts to this little book (a 3-ring binder, actually).  First, each letter has a tracing page.   Both upper and lower case letters are on one page, and they each take up about half the page.  It’s so much easier for children to learn to write using large spaces… once they get the movement down, they’ll be able to start making their letters smaller and smaller. These are placed in page protectors and then clipped into the binder.  M uses a dry-erase marker to trace them, then erases them with a small piece of felt.

Secondly, each letter has a collage page that goes beside it, showing things that begin with that letter.  I print out a page of clip art and a page that is blank except for the letters in the middle:

M calls these his “cutting pages” and LOVES them.  He cuts out the pictures and glues them onto the blank letter page.  This isn’t about precise cutting, and he leaves a pretty good border of white around each picture.  The clip art is spaced widely apart to allow for plenty of room.

The finished collage page is then placed in a page protector and added to the binder, next to the tracing page.  He can “read” his abc book by himself and practice tracing the letters any time he wants!

It’s been such a great project for him that I decided to make it available as a printable.   The file download includes the tracing pages for each letter, a page of clip art, and a page to glue the pictures onto after they are cut out.  Each letter has 5 pieces of clip art except for X and Z.  C and G both have two sets of clip art – one for the hard C or G sounds, and one for the soft C or G sounds.

Go here for the download, or click on one of the images above. 
Have a beautiful day! :)