Easter Craft from Last Year

This is a repost from last year.  We are big fans of salt paint, and this is one of our favorite uses for it.  There is a good chance we will redo this sometime this week, but I thought I would repost this now just in case anyone else wants to try it before it gets too late!

We have been enjoying two books about marshmallow chicks, and I have been waiting anxiously for the right opportunity to revisit the salt paint technique we used for our Texas cactus painting.  Marshmallow chicks have the perfect texture to recreate with this technique.  The finished product really feels like a marshmallow chick.  I love this paint.

The books we read are:

Max Counts His Chickens by Rosemary Wells - R LOVES Max and Ruby and this book is really cute.  The Easter Bunny has hidden ten pink marshmallow chicks and Ruby finds all of them while Max just makes a mess.  When it looks like there are no chicks for Max, Grandma makes a phone call and the Easter Bunny comes to the rescue.  R likes to help Max count the right way when he gets the numbers mixed up at the end!

Owen's Marshmallow Chick by Kevin Henkes - We have owned this book for years, and it is definitely for younger children, but R still loves it.  Even though she has progressed to longer picture books, she still enjoys listening to toddler books! 

For the craft, I drew chicks similar to those in the Rosemary Wells book.

I then mixed up some salt paint.

Here is the recipe:  1/4 cup liquid laundry starch
                             1/4 cup water
                             2 TBSP paint
                             1 cup salt
                             Mix it well and paint!
                             This recipe makes a lot of paint and R continued painting with it long after she was done    painting the marshmallow chicks.

R had a blast making pink marshmallow chicks!  Then she enjoyed one or two of the real thing!

Salt Paint Snowmen

I like salt paint.  When it dries, the final project looks so unique and you just have to touch it.  Last Easter, we made salt paint marshmallow chicks (click on the link to check them out!) and they looked just like marshmallow Peeps!

While cleaning under my kitchen sink, I found the bottle of liquid laundry starch that has been sitting there for quite some time and figured it was time to use some of it.  I decided to make salt paint.  This is the recipe:

• 1/4 cup liquid laundry starch
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 TBSP paint (we used white paint this time to look like snow)
• 1 cup salt

I mixed all of the ingredients in a foil pie pan and C and R got to work making snowy scenes.  When the salt paint dried, C and R used markers to add details to their snowmen.

It is really hard to capture the texture in photographs.  This is C's salt paint snowman:

Here is R's salt paint snowman:

We followed this with a snowy story time.  We began by reading Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner.

Just like the other snowman books by these authors (Snowmen At Night and Snowmen at Christmas), this book is fun to read and the illustrations are perfectly sweet.  We love to find the hidden pictures on each page too!  The concept behind this book is unique - imagine your snowman friend could last all year, think of all the things you could do together.  C and R like the idea of trick or treating with a snowman and taking a snowman to the beach in the summer!  I am particularly fond of the snowman camping under the starry skies. 

Our second snowman book of the night was Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert.  On the first day of winter, snow men, snow women, and snow children come out for a special party.  There is dancing, singing, and seasonal fun.  The illustrations are very charming!  I like the simple text too.

Any book that has snowmen coming to life makes my children very happy!

I am linking this to stArt, Kids Get Crafty, and Read, Explore, Learn.  Visit all three sites for more book inspired projects!
 

Clean Fingerpaint Smoosh

This is a fun tactile experience and the end result is some cool art. 

First, place your paper on a table and drizzle two or three colors of paint on the paper.  Add glitter if you want.

Next, cover the paper and paint with contact paper, STICKY SIDE UP, and tape the edges to the table with long pieces of tape.

Smoosh the paint around by pressing down on the sticky contact paper.  The tactile stickiness combined with the color mixing and paint spreading is a fun experience. 

When you finish smooshing the paint around, discard the contact paper and let the artwork dry!

R did not want to pose with her art, but here is her finished masterpiece!

This idea came from the book, Art With Anything by MaryAnn F. Kohl. 

"Sand" Castles

Recently, we painted on sandpaper.  I had purchased a few packages of sandpaper from Dollar Tree and I still have a lot left, so I was very excited when I came across an idea to create sandpaper castles.  I cut some castle type shapes and some ordinary shapes out of the sandpaper.  I then gave C and R construction paper, the sandpaper shapes, and glue, and challenged them to build sand castles!  This is what they created:

Special thanks to Little Learners Lounge for the sandpaper castle idea!

Marshmallow Chicks

We have been enjoying two books about marshmallow chicks, and I have been waiting anxiously for the right opportunity to revisit the salt paint technique we used for our Texas cactus painting.  Marshmallow chicks have the perfect texture to recreate with this technique.  The finished product really feels like a marshmallow chick.  I love this paint.

The books we read are:

Max Counts His Chickens by Rosemary Wells - R LOVES Max and Ruby and this book is really cute.  The Easter Bunny has hidden ten pink marshmallow chicks and Ruby finds all of them while Max just makes a mess.  When it looks like there are no chicks for Max, Grandma makes a phone call and the Easter Bunny comes to the rescue.  R likes to help Max count the right way when he gets the numbers mixed up at the end!

Owen's Marshmallow Chick by Kevin Henkes - We have owned this book for years, and it is definitely for younger children, but R still loves it.  Even though she has progressed to longer picture books, she still enjoys listening to toddler books! 

For the craft, I drew chicks similar to those in the Rosemary Wells book.

I then mixed up some salt paint.

Here is the recipe:  1/4 cup liquid laundry starch
                             1/4 cup water
                             2 TBSP paint
                             1 cup salt
                             Mix it well and paint!
                             This recipe makes a lot of paint and R continued painting with it long after she was done    painting the marshmallow chicks.

R had a blast making pink marshmallow chicks!  Then she enjoyed one or two of the real thing!

Clouds

I currently host a preschool story hour at a local coffee shop.  This week, I read two books about clouds.

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw is a fun book for kids because they recognize the familiar shapes on each page and after a few pages, the repetitive text allows the children to read along with you.  Is it spilt milk or a bird or a birthday cake or an angel?  No, but what is it?  Use your imagination because there really are no wrong answers.  It's all about what you see in the clouds.

We also read Little Cloud by Eric Carle.  This book is about a little cloud that drifts away from his friends and changes shape to become many different objects.  In the end he joins his friends to form one big cloud and it rains.   I think Eric Carle is a wonderful author/illustrator and this book is no exception.  It's a fun read for children.

The story hour attracts children between the ages of one and five, so I try to keep the craft portion simple and yet fun.  This week they all made their own clouds.  I provided blue paper, glue, and cotton balls.  Older children can draw a picture on the paper first (using white chalk is great to create the cloud effect) and then fill in the picture with cotton balls to make their clouds look like something specific.  Younger children can just enjoy the tactile experience and stick the cotton balls on the paper however they like.  This is a very open-ended craft that translates well for children of all ages.  Story hour was a success!

Armadillos

This is our final project for the state of Texas.  We really enjoyed learning about this state.  There is so much to learn about, and so many fun things to explore.

C, R, and I enjoyed two books about armadillos.   

 (C did not want his picture taken, can you tell?)

Armadillo Rodeo by Jan Brett is about a young armadillo in Texas who wanders away from his mother and brothers because he thinks he has spotted a red armadillo.  That "red armadillo" is actually a pair of cowgirl boots on the feet of a young girl heading to the rodeo.  The armadillo has quite the adventure while trying to talk to his new "friend".  If you don't know already, armadillos don't have very good vision!

The second book is Substitute Groundhog by Pat Miller.  Groundhog gets the flu right before Groundhog Day and decides to look for a substitute to fill in for him on the big day.  Many animals audition, but most have some trouble doing the job right.  Finally, an armadillo on vacation visiting her cousin Badger comes along and offers to get the job done right.  She fills in perfectly, sees her shadow, and tells Groundhog that winter will be sticking around for a while.  Groundhog was a bit upset that spring would not be coming early, but then Armadillo invites Groundhog to go home to Texas where the weather is already spring-like. 

After reading these books, C and R made their own armadillos.  First, cut an oval out of corrugated cardboard.  You have to make sure the ripples go across the short width of the oval.  Then peel off the cardboard to expose the corrugated ripples.

Now you have the armadillo's body.  Glue the oval on to a piece of paper and draw a head, legs, and a tail.  Finally, draw the setting in the background.

That is a cowgirl boot with a blue bandanna sticking out of it (C was inspired by the illustrations in Jan Brett's book) behind C's armadillo.  He also drew a few bluebonnets in the background.

This is a great tactile project!  It's also a great way to finish up the state of Texas.  We'll miss you Texas!

For more book/art projects, check out stArt at A Mommy's Adventures.