No-Sew Caterpillar and Butterfly

As you may know I am a great fan of Memetales, an online e-book resource. 

Ditto The Butterfly

See more at memetales

Ditto The Butterfly is the sweetest story about a little butterfly who learns that it is important to drink from different flowers to become a beautiful multicoloured butterfly. The story aims to encourage children to have a well-balanced diet and to try out different foods.

I have been  inspired to do caterpillar crafts lately and did a post on The Very Hungry Caterpillar a little while ago. So when Big One and I read  this story about Ditto, I thought it would lend itself beautifully to this craft that we had been working on. I don't sew (except for buttons), so I needed to make this without a needle or cotton in sight. I was very pleased with the result and have put together a little tutorial for you.

You need socks (little ones), batting, elastic bands, plastic eyes and pipe cleaners. Simply take a piece of batting about the size of a golf ball and push it into the toe part of the sock. Shape it into a nice ball and when you are happy with the size, seal it off with an elastic band. I used elastic bands in colours that matched the colour of the socks. Continue until you get to the end of the sock. There will probably be a little bit of sock left at the end. Then attach the pipe cleaner, by inserting it through the top elastic band at the caterpillar's head and bend it to make two antennae. Attach some eyes and there you go...a no-sew caterpillar!

To turn your caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly, cut out some wings from felt and glue onto the body of the caterpillar. You can then decorate your wings with some more coloured felt.

We, however, wanted to make a craft that we could pair with this sweet story of Ditto, so we made a garden and attached some felt flowers with velcro. We then also added velcro to our butterfly's wings, so that when she goes to drink from a flower, you can remove the flower from the garden and add it to her wings. So as she drinks from the different coloured flowers, her wings become multicoloured, just as in the story!

You could add the velcro to either side of the butterfly's wings. I think it would look nice either way.  You could also add a mouth. We thought that the sock's seam looked like a gentle smile, so we didn't add anything extra.

PS. I linked this to:

Making the World Cuter Monday 

Show and Tell @ ABC and 123 

A Story and Art @ A Mommy's Adventures

Colours and Feelings

I was first introduced to connecting feelings and colours in a play therapy course at University. The technique was called Color-Your-Life (See reference below) and it required that a child would connect  different feelings to specific colours. Once they had their feeling-colour pairs, they would then be asked to fill a page with these colours to  represent the feelings they had experienced in their life. For some children this is rather an abstract concept. A piece of white paper hardly represents a "life", so sometimes one needs to model it first. I must mention that the technique is usually used with children aged 6 to 12 years.

 

Now whether I use this technique in therapy or not, I always tell children about feelings and colours. The book Colour Me Happy by Shen Roddie and Ben Cort is a wonderful companion to have in this process and even though the pictures may seem appropriate for a younger child, I can assure you that older children are grabbed by the bold, bright colours and the humour depicted in some of the pictures. If your child doesn't immediately understand the concept of connecting a colour to a feeling, this book really helps.

Before introducing the book though, it is always interesting to see what feelings children will tell you about when asked. Sometimes they will leave out a feeling that you may consider significant, such as feeling "afraid". but will add a less discussed one, such as "confused". The choice of feelings can give you an idea of what your child may be experiencing at the moment. Remember that children for the most part operate in the here-and-now, so will probably talk about feelings that are relevant to them on that particular day.

Here are some more ideas for using colours and feelings:

Draw a picture of a feeling face or feeling person in the feeling colour that is chosen  by your child and use these pictures to make Feeling Cards. Paste them on some card stock and stick them up in your child's room. It's so easy then to point at a card and say "I'm feeling like this today!". That reminds me, remember to label your feelings out loud, so that your little one hears you acknowledging it.

The Pick-Up-Sticks Game (See reference below) is a another fun way to encourage children to talk about feelings. When your child is familiar with colour-feeling pairs, you can play a traditional game of Pick-Up-Sticks, however when you pick up a stick, you need to tell about a time when you had the feeling associated with the colour of the stick. Remember to share your feelings too. Children want to hear about Mom and Dad's feelings and it's a great time to model the appropriate sharing of feelings.

Most importantly, these games are meant to be fun! If your child resists, try again on another day or think of a different variation. I would always love to hear what colour-feeling games you have come up with. Please leave comments below. I love receiving them.

References:

The Color-Your-Life Technique(Kevin J. O'Conner, 1983). In C.E. Schaefer and K.J. O'Conner (Eds), Handbook of Play Therapy. New York, Wiley, 252-258

The Pick-Up-Sticks Game (Barbara McDowell). In H. Kaduson and C.E. Schaefer (Eds), 101 Favorite Play Therapy Techniques. Aronson, 1997, 145-149

PS. I have linked this to: Show and Tell @ ABC and 123

Fun with Photos : Photo Art

I just LOVE projects that involve photographs and so I thought I would share this very easy idea with you. I wish I could say that I did this art work, however all these pictures were painted by a very creative friend of mine and given to me as a gift. This first picture is one that was framed in Big One's room when he was a little younger. The rest are pages from two books that start at his birth and share moments of the first two years of his life.

first smiles...

first funnies...

first steps...

first friends...

Every page of these two dear-to-my-heart books has a different feel and theme and is as gorgeous as these I have shared with you. 

This is really a project that anybody can do. Paper, paint and a matt photograph is all that is required. I have also added some embellishments (as you may have noticed) to some of the pages, just to add some more fun!

You can also do bigger pictures using more than one photograph. Paint a boat and have the children looking out of the portholes, a train with them sitting in the carriages, or a big bus or house with lots of windows and their faces peeking out...there are so many possibilities. Just remember that when working with more than one photograph on your page, the pre-planning of your picture is a bit more important.

So here is one more from the book, one of my favourites, a special Big One-Mommy moment.

If you do decide to do this art project, please let me know. I would just love to see your masterpieces!

Adam's Art Spot : Pizza Base Art

I have a crazy creative boy living in my house, who LOVES art and crafts and tackles them with speed and gusto! Needless to say he has many great ideas of his own. In fact, my ideas are often left by the way side and replaced with his. I must say that managing his enthusiasm and my little one at the same time, makes for very messy, high energy, disaster management art sessions. But I do it - 'cause I know it's good for them!

I previously promised to share some of my son's super art ideas, so I have decided to make this a regular feature.  So I hope you enjoy this, the first of "Adam's Art Spot".

Now I'm sure that these are not all original ideas, in that Adam may have seen the idea on TV, or in a book, or at School. I, however, am choosing to give him full credit for them, seen as he always tends to put his own spin on art. As for this idea, he claims he just got this idea from his brain! Who am I to argue! So these lovely plates are painted polystyrene pizza bases. Painted and then using the back of the paintbrush, while the paint is still wet, he has drawn his family. I'm the green one, Dad red, and Adam and his baby brother in yellow! I think these make rather attractive and modern wall art!

Now you may know of "Art Attack." I only know the books, having never seen a TV program or a DVD. My son and I can both highly recommend the Art Attack website. It is jam packed with very cool ideas. I must mention that the crafts are definitely geared towards an older child and there are not many girly crafts, but lots of fun crafts for boys.

Till Adam's next attack, I hope you are inspired!

PS. I linked this to:

Show and Tell @ ABC and 123 

Kiddos Create @ Mama Jenn  

Craft Schooling Sunday @ Creative Jewish Mom

"Untie the ribbons"

Memetales and Bubble Wrap Ocean Art

As you know, I love wonderful websites and Memetales is just such a space. At Memetales, you and your child have the opportunity to read a wonderful variety of children's e-books up to eight times before you have to purchase it (should you want to keep it forever). You are also encouraged to share any ideas, arts or crafts based on the book you have read with the Memetales' audience. For me this is certainly one of the highlights of this space. Children will have the opportunity to see their very own creations online. Children are also encouraged to write book reviews.

Memetales decided to dedicate this past week to raising awareness of Autism as April is Autism Awareness Month. They have just published a new book by Tara McClintick, called  "Water".  Tara's one son is on the Autism spectrum and through her experiences with him, she has created a number of books that engage children easily and encourage participation. This book is a little different from the others that I have read on the site, in that it is a wordless picture book, with a poem to start.

So my oldest and I decided that we were up for a challenge and after reading Tara's book tackled an art project. With water as the theme, we decided on painting bubble wrap so that we could print a watery, bubbly effect and then create two underwater sea scenes. The bubble wrap print was so much fun to do and very easy. The fish, squid and submarine were all cut out from the inside wrapper of some corn thins that we eat a lot of in our home! I love the silvery shiny effect!  My son also added some white round stickers to create some extra bubbles and the squid's cave. We have submitted this as an activity to add to the "Water" book collection and we are waiting (with bated breath) to see if it is accepted.

I can highly recommend this site. My son loves it. I hope you will go and visit and let me know what your favourite books are.

PS. I have also linked this up to: Show and Tell @ ABC and 123

Cheerful Chores

"I love hugs and I love kisses,

But what I really love is help with the dishes!"

- Author Unknown 

(and the washing and the ironing and the cooking and the packing away...Author - ME!)

Chores certainly don't make my heart sing. In fact, sometimes I can really moan about them! I have to remind myself that little ears are listening and that I am setting the example for how my children will approach their chores. If I moan about them, they surely will too.

So how does one make the humdrum of daily chores fun?

• Play a game called "It's a record!" -  Tell your child to count out loud while they are busy with their chores or set a stopwatch and see how fast they can complete them. They must remember their "record" and the next time that they do their chores, they must see if they can beat their previous record.
• Another fun game is "It's a race against time!" - Set a timer and as each minute passes, count them down. Your child must try to complete the task before the time runs out. You can pretend that when the time runs out the house will explode, or take off to the moon...anything that will create some fun tension and speed the little racer up.
• Sing
• Put on some of your favourite music and dance. (Just don't forget to clean up)
• If you are all in the same room while doing chores, play a game like eye-spy. 

Do you know that it is so important for children to have chores and responsibilities around the home. It's a very effective "Self Esteem Builder". When we do things for our children that they can do for themselves, we are saying to them " I don't think that you can do it, or, I don't think that you can do it well enough". One of my son's responsibilities is to make his own bed in the morning. If I did it, it would take less than a minute to shake the duvet, fold the pajamas and straighten the pillows . Nice, neat and tidy, just the way I like it. When he does it, it's not always up to scratch. The pillows may be a bit crumpled, the duvet a little skew. However, by taking this responsibility away from him, I'm taking away an opportunity for him to become a more capable, independent individual. On top of that, when he completes the task and does the job well, he feels a healthy sense of pride at having done it all by himself.

Clearly defined chores (written or verbal) are helpful for children. They act as reminders and take away any unnecessary bargaining or negotiating on your child's part. My son often asks why he needs to do chores. I have explained that we all live in our home and want it to be reasonably tidy and functional and that means that we all have to contribute to making it work properly. I have used the example of not washing dishes and the consequence being that we would not have any clean plates to eat from when we have our next meal. It's pretty basic stuff, but I keep it matter-of-fact and positive.

I recently read an article by Dr. Ruth Peters about the importance of teaching children a work ethic. The article is an excerpt from her book called 'Laying Down the Law'. The article reveals many truths and is well worth a read. She reminds us that children do not grow up demonstrating good frustration tolerance, perseverance and self-discipline. These are characteristics that we have to take the time to teach them. You can read the article here.

I also like the way Maria Montessori viewed it. She saw the endpoint of a child's development to be that he should be well-adjusted and self-sufficient. Therefore, any assistance we offer to a child's natural development, should foster independence and self-sufficiency. In a nutshell, we need to help our child to do it by themselves.

                            A Happy Helper - Dec 2009

If you have any fun ideas to add to making chore-time cheerful, please leave a comment. I would love to hear it.

"The world of the child is now."

StART: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

"StART" is the brain child of Michelle at A Mommy's Adventures. She encourages you to read a story to your child and then do an art project of your choice, based on the book you have read. I just love the idea and think it's such a good one, because what can be simpler than taking a great book as inspiration for an art project. You may be thinking that arts-and-crafts are just not your thing, but the truth of the matter is that most children would be happy to simply draw a picture about a book they have read, especially if they know that Mom is a participant of sorts in the event. Without me ever formally introducing this idea, my older son has done many StART projects spontaneously. He is often inspired by a book and comes up with wonderful ideas. I will definitely be sharing some of his creations with you in future posts.

Another fun part of StART is that after you have completed your art project, you can  link up to Michelle's blog (that is if you have a blog of your own) and share your ideas with other blogging Moms. So we are joining the fun and have decided to use " The Very Hungry Caterpillar" as our first book inspired art project.

Both boys thoroughly enjoyed the story. I love that my Big One is not too big to enjoy stories like these. For our art project we found these super cute craft packs from Play2Learn. My lovely friend Grietjie is a consultant for these terrific products and you can email her at joyfulmama@telkomsa.net  if you would like to purchase some. They cost only R20 and you can make two caterpillars/worms from each packet.

These were so easy to make. All you need is some thin wire, foam circles, beads and some eyes. The wire easily pierces the foam and the only tricky part was gluing the face on.

I really love this book. It teaches children about the life cycle of the butterfly, the days of the week, counting and about healthy eating. It also has die-cut pages which allows for some interactive fun. I went and checked out Eric Carle's website and blog and was surprised to discover that the book celebrated it's fortieth anniversary last year. Eric Carle also shares that his illustrations are collages, made from his own hand-painted tissue paper. I must say that I am inspired to do some tissue paper art after reading about this. If you would like to read up more about Eric Carle, you will find his website here and his blog here. Enjoy!

I hope that this has encouraged you to do a book and art project this week.  If you are looking for some more ideas, pop over to A Mommy's Adventures and have a look at all the StART posts.  I will also be sharing many more of these with you in future posts.

PS. I linked this to Making the World Cuter Monday

Resurrection Eggs

These little eggs are one reason why I love the internet and especially love blogging. This was a discovery I made at Carisa's site (see link below), where she shared about these little eggs and how you can use them to teach your child the story of the Resurrection. In a nutshell, each egg has a small item inside that symbolizes one part of the Resurrection story.

Egg 1  - donkey- Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Egg 2  - coins   - Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 silver coins.

Egg 3  - a cup or bread- The events at The Last Supper.

Egg 4  - praying hands- Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Egg 5  - whip- Jesus was whipped after his trial.

Egg 6  - crown of thorns- Jesus was mocked by the soldiers.

Egg 7  - nails - Nails were driven into Jesus' hands and feet.

Egg 8  - dice - The soldiers gambled for Jesus' robe.

Egg 9  - spear- A spear was pierced into Jesus' side.

Egg 10- cloth- Jesus' body was wrapped in linen cloth.

Egg 11- stone- The tomb stone was found rolled away.

Egg 12- empty egg- The tomb was empty because Jesus had risen!

The original  Resurrection eggs can be purchased here. I, however, decided to make my own set and used these plastic eggs from Woolworths. I also used a combination of actual items, such as real coins, nails and a piece of cloth, as well as printed pictures for the other items, which I found at Christian Preschool Printables.

This is the first time that I have shared the Resurrection story with my oldest son in such detail and he really loved the concept of the eggs. I think that being able to open each egg and hold and touch the items inside, really helps children remember the details of the story...and of course there is the BEST happy ending ever!

Carisa at 1+1+1=1  also has some wonderful printables that can be used with the eggs. To see what she did, click here.  Jill at Totally Tots also shares incredible insights about what she has discovered using the eggs and you can read her post here. I will definitely be saving mine, as I know I will be using them for years to come.