Preschool Craft – Cardboard Tube People

We made these silly and fun little guys a few weeks ago, and they’ve been joining us for meals ever since. :)
M actually inspired this craft by drawing  a face on a cardboard tube and sticking a big pom pom on it’s head.  Alas, that little guy has been lost, but when I found some face stickers at Michael’s I knew exactly what we’d use them for.

Supplies:Glue, pipe cleaners, pencil, buttons, large pom poms, cardboard tubes (toilet paper size), googley eyes, face stickers (or other items to make a face), and construction paper strips cut to half the size of your tubes, and long enough to go all the way around them.

I got the face stickers at Michael’s, but you could also use markers, buttons, and small pom poms for facial features.  We made our large pom poms (for the hair) from yarn. 

Wrap a tube with a piece of construction paper and glue in place:
Add details to the “shirt” with buttons or a marker, and add your facial features:The pencil is lying inside the tube to weight it down so it won’t roll while the face and shirt decorations are added.

Wrap a pipe cleaner around the pencil and slide it off.  This makes it “twirly” (and it’s just fun to do):
Poke holes in the sides of your tube, and stick the pipe cleaners in for arms.  After doing this I realized they would stay in better if we had threaded one long pipe cleaner through both arm holes, then twirled the arms around a pencil.  Our arms kept falling out, so I eventually put a dot of glue on them inside the tube.

Pop on the pom pom hair, and you’ve got some pretty cool tube people:

Give ‘em a snack:        
These guys are so much fun to play with! :)  It is especially hilarious if they run across the table, then lean over to look at the food on your child’s plate, and their “hair” falls out. ;)  Good times!

Have a beautiful and funny day! :)
 

Preschool Arts and Crafts – Valentine Suncatcher and Art Box supplies

Suncatcher Craft

Honestly, we are in some sort of suncatcher rut around here.  M loves hanging things in the windows “for the birdies to see”, (never mind that our stinker of a red squirrel has pretty much chased away all the birds and other squirrels – grrr).  But if you search for “suncatcher” or “sun catcher” (because I like variety in my spelling) on my blog I bet you’d get 50 hits.  Or somewhere around 10 or so, maybe.  But it feels like 50.

Anyway, they are pretty, right? :)

For this little craft we used black paper, tissue paper scraps in a few colors, a black marker, scissors, and contact paper.

I folded the paper several times and drew half hearts on the folds here and there: 

I always love to give M a little scissor practice, and he thinks it is so cool to open up the hearts.Last year I set out folded scrapbook paper with half hearts drawn on his activity shelves, and he happily sat and cut out about 20 hearts, acting surprised each time. :)  Oh, the joy that was 3 years old.

Cut a piece of contact paper that is slightly smaller than your black paper, and stick it on to the front of your paper.  Flip it over and stick on the tissue paper pieces. 

M wanted purple, but we didn’t have any, so I showed him how to make purple by layering the bright pink with the blue. 

When it’s finished, flip it over to the front, and hang it in a window. :)

 

ART BOX supplies for Valentine’s Day

Last year, M was still making valentines for everyone he knows well into March. :)  So I decided to get a Valentine Art Box ready for him right away this month.  I don’t really post about his Art Box much anymore, but it is still a significant part of almost every day.

(My craft/school supply room is also our exercise room.  So, yes, that is a treadmill that the art box is sitting on.  It’s the most use it’s gotten in months, hee hee.)

I spread everything out to give you a good look:In the Art Box: paper doilies, markers, regular and craft scissors, buttons, a variety of stamps (including several trucks to “man it up” a bit, hee hee), stamp pads, several patterned papers (the little ones on top are metallic and I cut them into smaller pieces to get more use out of them), watercolor pencils, pom poms, pony beads, glitter foam cut into heart shapes, regular sequins and heart-shaped sequins, googley eyes, foam heart stickers, ribbons and rick-rack cut into small pieces, craft punches, and glitter glue.  There’s also regular white and colored construction paper in the box, as well as glue and watercolor paints.

Let the Valentine-making begin! :)

I’m linking this up to Kids Get Crafty!

Have a beautiful day! :)