Let's Explore - Creative Activities for Preschoolers

Playsilk Doll Slings

Playsilks make really great doll slings...

 

or Curious George slings! :)

Happy Playing!

The Fairy Olympics

Okay, I've got one more round of Olympic fun for you!  Since my girls are really into all things tiny (i.e. fairies), we decided to do some itty bitty Olympic events.  Here's what we did:

Wind & Clouds - The weather fairies have to blow the clouds away, so the sun can shine on Fairy Garden.  Use a straw to blow cotton balls across a finish line, into a bucket turned on its side, or off the edge of a table.  We blew ours off of a paper sun.  (This is *great* for strengthening oral muscles, by the way!)

Penny Toss - We tossed pennies (aka fairy money) into an egg tray (aka the Fairy Bank).

Fairy Soup - We carried pom poms and jewel beads on tiny spoons from our play tea set.  We worked together to carry one piece at a time until we filled a tiny bowl -- mmmm, fairy soup!

Straw Javelin Toss - We tossed our little plastic straw javelins, then measured how far they went.

Ah, this was fun -- and all the fairies in the land came out to watch the events! :)  And, as an added bonus, the girls zipped off to create their own mermaid and princess olympics when we were done!

I've also got some fun panda projects in the works -- look for those next week.  We didn't do quite as many projects this week as I had planned because I decided mid-week that I needed to move some furniture and reorganize ALL of our arts and crafts supplies.  It's a big job, but the girls can't wait to dive in to all the stuff we forgot we had! :)

This cuddly panda finger puppet is over in the shop, along with so many other darling Folkmanis finger puppets.  Seriously -- go look at the hedgehog! :)

Also, if you haven't already signed up for the Let's Explore shop mailing list, be sure to do it by Monday (Aug. 11) at 11:59 pm pacific time.  The big giveaway is coming up!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Making Masks - Part 2

We finished up our paper plate masks from earlier this week.  The glitter mixed with the glue gave them a nice sparkle!

Natalie made a frog, with a pipe cleaner tongue:

Both of the girls made elephants, which are really more like puppets than masks.  They decided to use googly eyes and we attached the ears and trunks with brads, so we can make the elephants do crazy things if we want!

Natalie used clothespins for "handles."  She didn't want anything permanently attached to her works of art. :)

The girls said this was one of their favorite, favorite projects, so I guess we'll be doing it again!

Happy playing!

Making Masks - Part 1

The girls and I started working on some simple paper plate masks today. We used paper plates cut in half, glue with a tiny bit of water added, and tissue paper squares. I had a bunch of tissue paper already cut-up, but you could also tear it as you go along. And, for sparkle, we added some glitter to our glue.

We spent about 45 minutes glueing and glueing - I encouraged the girls to put an additional layer of glue on top of the tissue paper for extra sparkle! Natalie decided to make animals, so she spent a great deal of time sorting out the colors of tissue she wanted.  She's making a frog and an elephant. At her request, I also cut out ears and a trunk from paper plates, and she covered those too. I think Delaney is making a rainbow elephant. :)

The masks are out in the sun drying - tomorrow we'll post the finished products!

Also, a quick store update:  Crayon Rocks are on sale right now for $5.95 -- that's a $2.00 savings!  If you've been thinking about adding a set of these soy crayons to your art supplies, this is a great opportunity.  Not familiar with Crayon Rocks?  Read my blog post about them!

Happy Playing!

This and That...

Here's a bit of what we've been up to...

I love it when the girls work together and play together - they come up with some creative ideas!

Making people out of play jewelry:

Setting up and playing store, complete with departments like tools, jewelry, baby toys, and more:

We've also been enjoying experimenting and creating with oil pastels & watercolors. For making resists, the girls have been really impressed with the results using the pastels rather than crayons:

Plus, a little reading - these books have been in heavy rotation lately:

And a lot of dancing! We can't get enough of this new CD by Dan Zanes & Friends. As Natalie says, "I don't even know what they're saying, but it's great for dancing! I love it, I love it, I love it!"

Have a great weekend!

Play Silks

I love providing my girls with toys that are open-ended and can serve many purposes in their creative play. They both love to dress-up and build forts, so our collection of beautiful play silks from Sarah's Silks has been a great investment. They are played with daily, from pretending to camp-out under our giant night sky silk to creating our own costumes of skirts, capes, wings, headdresses, and more. When they want to play ocean, a blue silk is the water. When they are playing doctor, the silk can be easily tied into a sling for a broken arm. Baby dolls get swaddled in them, and big girls & boys even cuddle under the large ones.

We also use scrap pieces of fabric for playing, but the thing I love about the silks is how easy they are to tie and untie. That's a huge plus when creating costumes. They are so soft too -- who wouldn't want to cuddle them? I think the rainbow silk is the favorite around here, but the night sky is pretty neat too.

Play silks are great for music and movement activities, perfect for playing peek-a-boo with babies. Use them for magic tricks, tea parties & picnics. Tie one to a stick and wave your flag. I'm just going on and on, but you get the idea -- endless possibilities, beautiful products, fun, fun, fun!

To introduce our shop's collection of Sarah's Silks products, we are offering free shipping on any order that includes 2 or more Sarah's Silks products. In addition to the play silks and large silkscapes, we also have reversible silk crowns and fun silk garlands, great for dress-up.

Use the code summersilks when you check-out to take advantage of the free shipping offer. This offer is only good thru Monday, June 30. 2008.

Happy Shopping!

Dandelion Fun

The girls have been serious dandelion hunters lately. Whenever we are near a patch of grass, they are searching for white dandelions to blow and wish upon. Last time we were at the library, I found the book Dandelion Adventures by L. Patricia Kite over in the kids' science book area. It tells about the different adventures of seven dandelion seeds as they blow around and land in various places. The girls have really been enjoying it. It also has all kinds of information and fun facts about dandelions at the end. (It doesn't seem to be available at Amazon right now, so definitely check your library!)

After reading the book several times, we pretended to be dandelion seeds floating in the breeze. We made up fun places to land and grow. The girls came up with Disneyland, a mountain stream, the mall, the park near our house, Grammy & Grampy's house, and lots more. A fun and simple creative movement activity.

We also did some dandelion art.I found a little plastic ring in our dress-up jewelry that looked like it might make good dandelion prints. The girls had fun drawing rows of green stems, and printing yellow dandelion flowers on top.

Natalie also wanted to try doing a crayon resist with white crayon & watercolor. No matter how many times we do this type of art, it is still magical to the girls when the white crayon "appears" as they paint over it.

Still on our list to do:

• Collect dandelions and make necklaces or crowns.
• Make our own paper parachutes to explore how dandelion seeds move through the air.
• Dig up a dandelion and check out it's flower, stem, leaves, and roots.
• Read some more books about dandelions!

If you have any fun dandelion activities, crafts or books to share, I'd love to hear about them!

Happy playing!

Magnetic Menu

Both of my girls love to play restaurant, which usually involves creating some sort of menu. Sometimes we draw menus, sometimes we cut and paste pictures from grocery ads and magazines. We also have a collection of kids' menus from restaurants we've been to. I decided to give them another option for menu creating by printing out different food items on printable magnet sheets.

We have a couple small magnet boards to use, but you could just as easily use a small cookie sheet or even the fridge. For the menu items I used clipart from Word and tried to choose foods that matched our play food collection.

The magnets are thin, but they seem to be holding up well. Fun and easy -- and it gets used all the time.

Off to play with my chefs and servers!

Creating Zoo Maps

Some of the most coveted "souvenirs" in our house are the maps we bring home from places we visit, especially ones from the zoo and Disneyland. My girls will look at these again and again, remembering things we saw, tracing their fingers on the little paths. I think this type of "real-world" reading (also called environmental print) is such an important part of literacy and reading development, which is why I also save children's menus from restaurants, brochures, etc.

I thought it would be fun to learn more about maps and make our own. I decided to start with zoo maps. We have a full-color one from our local zoo, plus I printed about 5 more from various zoo websites. The National Zoo, San Diego Zoo, and Oregon Zoo had nice printable maps.

Just looking at these maps was an activity in itself! The girls loved identifying the different animals, and we also had the opportunity to talk about legends and what the different symbols mean. They really enjoyed finding all the bathrooms!

Then it was time to get to work. We used large sheets of easel paper for our maps. Natalie drew her entrance & exit first, followed by all sorts of paths. Then she filled in with her animals and other attractions. Delaney started with a bus that brings everyone to the zoo, then added her animals, and finally connected them with a path.

They worked on these for close to an hour. I added labels or words if they wanted. Natalie drew a rectangle with a P on top to show all the "potties" in her zoo. She also put in a food court, a fountain, a farm animal petting zoo, and a place called "Kids Explore," which is some sort of fantastic kids' play area.

Delaney's zoo had an armadillo, an octopus, a tiger, two bunnies, a pig, and a flamingo.

Of course, the fun is not over, because now they want to use toy animals to create these fantastic zoos. I can't wait to visit!

I'm sure we will revisit map making soon -- maybe we'll make our own Disneyland!

Happy playing!

Pretend Play: Flower Shop and Gardening

This idea has been in my mind for a while, and I finally pulled all the pieces together yesterday. I set-up a Flower Shop and/or Gardening pretend play prop box for the girls. I was able to gather quite a few things from around the house, then added in fake flowers and plastic vases from the Dollar Store. It has been such a hit! They played with it for at least an hour yesterday, and it was the first thing they wanted to do this morning.

The box includes:
2 plastic "crystal" vases
2 fake potted plants
an assortment of fake flowers
some empty pots from herbs we planted
brown crinkle paper (from the gift wrap area) for soil
2 small watering cans
flower-shaped notepads for taking orders, writing receipts, etc.
flower fabric for a tablecloth
picture cards with flower and garden-related words

Still to add:
empty seed packets (after we do some planting this weekend)
gardening magazines & catalogs
gardening tools
ribbon
small gift cards
play money

The girls added their own touch with signs and price tags, too.

A fun way to bring a little bit of springtime inside. If you are interested, here are the picture cards I printed for the girls: Download flower_word_cards.pdf

I just printed mine on white cardstock and cut apart. I thought about covering them with clear contact paper, but the girls were too eager to get started!

Happy Spring!