Category: Craft Projects

Puffy Paint Penguin

1/19/2018

We made puffy paint penguins after circle time today. It was a great project for scissor skills ... sensory and fine motor development. We used black and orange cardstock paper to make the the penguins. We free cut the penguin shapes but I have included patterns that you can trace around on the cardstock paper.

The next step was to make the puffy paint which was really easy. The children mixed 1 cup of shaving cream and 1/2 cup of white glue together with a craft stick. The puffy paint should be like a thick marshmallow topping ... if it is not you can add more glue.

The children applied the puffy paint to the penguins using either their fingers or craft sticks. The penguins took a while to dry because of the thickness of the paint.

penguin pattern

You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:

Puffy Paint Penguin Craft Project For Preschool and Kindergarten

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Paper Plate Gingerbread

12/19/2017

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paper plate gingerbread craft for preschool and kindergarten

We made paper plate gingerbread and they really turned out super cute. Not only did the children enjoy making this project but they also got lots of fine motor practice.

You will need to have:

paper plates (we glued two together)
white yarn
black yarn or pipe cleaner
brown paint
paint brush
scissors
black and pink craft foam or construction paper
white sequins (optional)

The first step is to paint the paper plate brown and let it dry. While the paper plate is drying we cut out two circles from the black craft foam and two from the pink. You can also use construction or cardstock paper if you do not have craft foam.

We glue the black circles on for the gingerbread eyes and formed a smile shape with a black pipe cleaner and also glued that on (you can substitue black yarn if you do not have pipe cleaners). We then glue a pink circle on each side of the mouth to from the gingerbread cheeks.

The next step was to apply glue around the edge of the paper plate and press the yarn on to make the gingerbread icing.

We went around the the paper plate twice with the white yarn. To add an optional sparkle we then pressed white iridescent sequins on the glue as well adding more glue dots if we need them.

You can see a video of this project by clicking below:

paper plate gingerbread craft for preschool kindergarten

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Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Crafts

9/11/2017

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chicka chicka boom boom crafts for preschool and kindergarten

Here are three of our favorite craft projects we do with our chicka chicka boom boom theme:

ccbb crown - Cut construction paper into 4 1/2 inch wide strips. Measure the strips around child's head to make sure they fit ... in some case you will need to attach two strips together to make a longer one.

Print the patterns on cardstock paper for the ccbb tree and regular paper for the letter circles. Cut them out and glue the patterns on to construction paper and glue ... tape ... or staple ends together to form a crown.

handprint ccbb tree - trace around child's on green construction paper and cut out three hand prints. Cut out a tree trunk from brown construction paper. Glue the trunk on a sheet of construction paper or colored cardstock paper. Glue the three handprints on top of the trunk.

Cut three small coconut shapes out of black construction paper and glue where the tree trunk meets the leaves. Print letter circle patterns and cut them out. Glue several onto the leaves ... trunk ... and background.

ccbb tree - check out the video below on how we made these adorable trees and grab the patterns here.

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Giant Scarecrow Project

10/12/2016

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giant scarecrow craft project for preschool and kindergarten

This is one of our favorite fall craft projects to make!! We do it over a span of two to three days but you can adjust it to fit the needs of your early learners. We use large sheets of construction paper (usually sold right next to the regular sized construction paper) but if you do not want to make giant scarecrows you can scale the project down to make smaller ones.

You can either have the pieces already cut out for younger children to put together or have guide pieces set out for the children to use as a reference for cutting their scarecrow pieces.

You will need to have a head ... hat ... pants ... shirt body ... sleeves ... straw ... eyes and a nose. You will also need to have various colors of tissue paper that has been cut or torn into squares.

Once all of the pieces have been cut out it is time to put them all together. You can put them together any way you wish but I found that we had the most success starting with the head and working our way down.

The hat gets glued at the very top of the head and the shirt body on top of the bottom of the head. You want to make sure to leave enough room to make a face on the head.

The sleeves the next to get glued on and they should be glued behind the shirt body. The sleeves can be angled in any direction.

The pants are glued under the bottom of the shirt. We used three inch long strips of yellow paper glued to the bottom of the hat ... arms ... and legs to represent straw.

We glued the eyes and nose on the scarecrow head and also drew a mouth with a marker. The last step was to glue the tissue paper squares on the scarecrow.

You can see a video of this project below:

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Fall Tissue Paper Wreath

9/23/2016

9 Comments

Fall Tissue Paper Wreath Preshool and Kindergarten Art Project

Once of our favorite super cute fall craft projects is a tissue paper wreath. These are super easy to make but really great for fine motor development. We cut the centers out of paper plates (those just starting to use scissors may need some help). The next step was to cut or tear fall colored tissue paper in to small squares or rectangle shapes.

Fall Tissue Paper Wreath Preschool and Kindergarten Art Project

Children can sort the tissue paper by color if they wish but we just put all of the tissue paper into bowls. The children applied glue to the paper plates and then scrunched up the tissue paper pieces and press them on to the glue.

You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:

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Bubble Painting

8/11/2016

6 Comments

bubble painting for preschool art and kindergarten

We decided to bring our art center outside today to make bubble paint. It was very easy to do but a bit messy so you want to make sure you have your work surface and children's clothing protected.

You will need to have washable paint ... dish soap ... and water. I did not use specific measurements but I used the instructions on crayola.com as a guide. I started out by pouring the paint into the muffin tins and then added dish soap and water. I put enough dish soap in to cover the paint and then the same amount of water.

Once I had all of the liquids in the muffin tin I stirred each color with a craft stick making sure it was all mixed together well. If you feel you have added to much water or dish soap you can always add more paint.

The next step is to take a straw and gently blow into the paint until bubbles form above the top of the container you are using for your paint. Younger children may need help with this. I did a demonstration of how to make bubbles in the paint first and wet talked about not sucking the paint in but blowing air out of the straw.

After we had one color that had bubbles we quickly placed a sheet of cardstock paper over the bubbles. I found that we needed work somewhat quickly as the bubbles tended to disintegrate quickly. We repeated the process with all of the colors until we were happy with the bubble art.

You can see a video of this project below: