Yesterday, we used some old corks and the last of our fall acorns to make a group of adorable Christmas carolers for our fireplace mantle. My daughter loved the idea of those carolers and thought that their little heart shaped mouths were so cute, so we just had to make another caroler craft.
My daughter’s favorite movie is Madagascar. She is in love with the little penguins, especially Private. We had movie night this weekend and while in the middle of the movie, she jumped up and said, “Mama, what if we make penguins.”
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We couldn’t decide whether we wanted to paint or make our penguin with shapes, so we did both and opted for a mixed media project.
When I was young girl, I can remember my grandmother’s Christmas village. She always set it up at about this time each year. Her miniature houses sat on a blanket of cotton and were surrounded by little pine trees and Christmas carolers. I used to sit and look at them whenever I would visit during the holidays. Looking at them just felt like Christmas.
I enjoyed a beautiful fall weekend with the family. We went to the pumpkin patch one day, went on a hay ride and went to a wonderful evening theater production in the woods. It was a walk through production for the kids with multiple skits along the way. My daughter had a great time and laughed the whole way through.
Ever since we introduced our daughter to cutting & her safety scissors, all she wants to do is cut. I have scraps of paper lying around everywhere. We have done several crafts & activities to feed her new-found love for cutting. Her new thing is to draw pictures and cut them out & then glue them together in a collage on another piece of paper. She refers to these as “her mosaics”.
She loves making these and each one always tells a story. Last night, we cut up some of the scraps into shapes.
I intended to use them to make a shape craft, but Mai had another idea in mind. She grabbed some shapes & wanted to paint them. I gave her some paints & she painted away.
She had a small cupcake liner full of glitter from a previous project that was still out. She dumped that onto one of her paintings & then proceeded to paint the inside of the liner too. “Look mama, doesn’t this painting look like Starry Night?”, she said about one of her paintings.
I handed her more shapes & we pulled out some other art supplies to use on our shapes. She grabbed crayons, markers & colored pencils. She pulled out glue & some buttons too and we worked on more shapes.
She grabbed a circle & drew a picture. She explained to me that it was a memory ball just like in the movie ‘Inside Out’. She drew a girl crying in the middle of the ball and told me it was Sadness.
This piece was a slice of pepperoni pizza because she looooves pepperoni pizza.
I made a few shapes too.
We let the paint dry on our pieces while we cleaned up & got ready to go to bed. Right before bed, we glued the shapes onto another piece of construction paper.
She then used markers to finish off her collage by coloring in some of the free space. “Let’s paint more!!” Not tonight little girl. It is time for bed. We can paint more tomorrow, but until then have sweet dreams about Starry Nights and pizza.
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My daughter and I sort of have a set evening routine. I come home from work, we eat supper together as a family, we talk about our days & then my little girl and I head to the craft bin. Some nights she wants to craft with me, on others, she wants to craft on her own & some days, she just wants to draw.
Last night, she pulled out some old scraps from a cupcake liner that we had cut up for a craft. She looked at the liner for a minute & then said to me “Mama, this looks like a tutu. Let’s make a girl out of this.” She glued it down on a piece of paper & I took some of the other remnants and made a bow with it and placed it where a head might be. Mai squealed & took the paper & began drawing her girl. She drew in the face, the hair, legs & high-heeled shoes, like mommy has.
She was very excited when she was done.
This simple activity sparked me to want to try more shapes and see what she did with them.
I glued down a triangle & a rectangle. In my mind, when I envisioned this, I pictured her creating a house. Her perception of these shapes was different from my own.
I watched her fascinated, as I realized that she was creating a well.
It is amazing to watch a young mind work.
Next, I gave her two circles.
She drew up a storm on this one.
Mai offered me a very detailed description of what was happening in her drawing. This was a garbage truck & all the garbage guys we going to work.
The last one that we made was just 2 yellow cupcake liners glued diagonal from one another.
Mai saw a baby chick in this one.
Her cute craft & imagination inspired mommy to make a cupcake liner chick of her own.
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As many of you know we moved last week. The new owners close on the house today, so yesterday we went to clean out our few remaining things & walk around our old home one last time to say goodbye. It was an emotional final walk through the empty house that we called home for so many years, but it is exciting anticipating the completion of our new home.
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We like to work with shapes a lot in our home. My daughter loves creating with shapes & I love watching her. Her imagination is flourishing & it is an amazing thing to see. We use these shapes to make abstract art, holiday crafts & we even use them for imagination play in the bath. Last night, my daughter came across a photo of shape magnets for kids in one of her kid’s magazines.. Her eyes automatically lit up. “Mama, I want these.” My eyes lit up too when I realized that I could make them myself at home.
Foam Shape Magnets
What you will need:
Directions:
Cut several different shapes in different sizes out of the foam. I use foam a lot for crafts, so I luckily had a big bag of scraps left over.
Cut several pieces of magnets and set them aside.
Use a glue gun to glue the magnet pieces to the back of the foam pieces & let the glue dry.
Put your shapes on the refrigerator & let your child go.
This was a fantastic activity for her. She was so excited & happy as she created pictures out of her shapes. She showed me each one & told me the story about each creation.
This one was a milkshake with a straw.
She worked on her tippy toes to form this one, which was a girl flying a kite at night.
This one was me holding an ice cream cone.
This kept her happy & entertained up until bedtime.
The magnets were pretty simple to make, but you can always purchase a set of shape magnets too. They would make a great gift for an imaginative toddler in your life.
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