Cute No Sew Octopus

If you read my blog regularly, you know that for Kindergarten this year we are using My Father's World Creation From A to Z.  Each unit focuses on a different letter of the alphabet using a corresponding theme.  The unit we started on Monday was "o" for octopus.  I was scrolling through Pinterest and found this cute craft for a no sew, fleece octopus and we had to make it because it went perfect with what we were doing this week!

We Used:

16x16 piece of fleece
3 in styrofoam ball
piece of yarn
ribbon
googly eyes


How We Made It:

We laid our fleece on the floor.  The orange and white fleece we used was just leftover from another project.  Then we cut a square out of each corner.  I cut a 4 in square and I wish I would've cut a 5 inch to make the legs a little longer.  Then we made 5 cuts out of each side the length of the square which made 6 strips on each side for a total of 24 strips.  Next we placed the ball in the middle of the fleece and gathered it around the bottom of the ball and tied the piece of yarn around the neck tight.  We used three strips to make a braid and tied a ribbon around each leg continuing until we had 8 legs.  Then we hot glued the eyes and Lily made a construction paper mouth that I glued on hers. Emmie drew her mouth with a marker.

The girls were quite impressed with these little creatures and both slept with them last night.  I had all of the supplies on hand except for the styrofoam balls that Chelsea picked up for me when she was at Walmart.  She bought a 6 pack because she said it was cheaper than buying them individually.  This project only took around 15 minutes each to make.

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Cute Winter Snowman Craft

We had several rainy, yucky days in a row.  I got this project from this cute idea on Pinterest and knew it would b perfect for a rainy Friday afternoon to give the girls (5 and 3) something fun to do.  

We Used

Shaving Cream
Elmer's Glue
Glitter
Peppermint Extract
Construction Paper
Googly eyes
Disposable Container to mix it in


What We Did

First we mixed equal amounts of shaving cream and glue in a disposable container.  Then we added a few drops of peppermint extract to make it smell minty and a liberal amount of silver glitter.

We drew the snow men on the paper first.  If I had planned well, I would've had the buttons, hat, and faces cut out first, as it would've been much easier then trying to help the girls get them drawn and cut out as we went along, but we managed.

They used their fingers some, and also used a paint brush.  Emmie really liked using her fingers, Lily preferred the paint brush.

After we got the paint where we wanted, we drew and cut out the hat, carrot, nose, bottons, and coal mouth.  We had some googly eyes that we used for eyes.  The hat we glued on.  The rest we just stuck into the paint.  We added some snow and snow flakes for the background as well.  The girls wanted more glitter, so they shook some more on top (yes they got glitter everywhere, but luckily we have tile floors that can be easily swept.)

Emmie decided to do a blizzard instead of a snowman

Lily's snowman

They wanted to do some pictures with color too.  So I grabbed the food coloring and we added some colors to a shaving cream/glue combo.  Had a great time experimenting with mixing colors too :)

It kept them busy for well over an hour, and only cost .97 for the shaving cream since I had everything else on hand.

Happy Homeschooling!

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Colored Salt Dough Ornaments

My 3 year old likes me to snuggle with her at night until she falls asleep.  Often I will read on my iPad, or scroll through Pinterest looking for crafts, recipes, sewing ideas,art projects, 4 H ideas, or educational things for our homeschool.  The other night I came across this pin.  We have made salt dough ornaments one other time, but we painted them.  I would have never though of coloring them!

What We Did

First we made the salt dough using this recipe.

4 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
1 1/2 cups cold water

Mix the flour and salt and add in the water.  I did one cup first and then added in the other half cup slowly.  You may need to add a bit more water if the dough doesn't come together well.

Then, we divided the dough and gave a chunk to each of the children.  They rolled out the dough and used a variety of Christmas cookie cutters to cut out different shapes.

Next I put a hole in the top of each ornament using a plastic straw.

After that we baked them in a 275 degree oven for 2 hours.  You want to bake them until they are hard but not brown.

I put a paper towel in front of each child and put a bin of crayons on the table.  I handed out the ornaments one at a time and left the others to stay warm on the stone.  The children chose their crayons and colored on the ornaments.  The ornaments were warm enough to melt the crayons but not too warm that they couldn't touch them.

Nana helped too.

If the ornaments got too cool, the colors did not work as well.  You can leave them in the oven on warm and only take out a few at a time to keep them warm.  Just watch the bottoms!

They turned out really good!

After they were all colored, we strung them with green yarn and hung them on the tree.  This craft was a big hit and I love how they look.  I hope they last a long, long, time.

Happy Homeschooling!

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