Freight Train Craft

Both of my children love the book Freight Train, by Donald Crews.  With its simple language and bold pictures, it's a keeper.

  Now that my daughter, age 4, can draw some basic shapes, I thought it would be great for her to draw her own freight train, based on the book, and have her color it.  Since my son likes to color, I thought I could draw the train, and have him color it.

We began by reading the book, one page at a time, and drawing the car that was there.  I modeled it for M.  First we drew the train track.  Then we drew a red rectangle at the back and colored it.  We continued until her freight train was complete.  Her coloring skills hide her nice shapes, but she was very proud.  If you look closely, you can see the wheels and how the cars are connected.

As it turns out, E was not interested in coloring the train.  He just colored for fun while we worked.  I think last year's Freight Train craft would be much more his style.  Just a simple paper craft!  (Click to see it!)

We are linking up to a couple of great sources!  Check them out!

Coffee Filter Snowflakes

This week we had a bit of fun with snow.  Snow books and snow art and snowflakes.  (Some snow art will be posted later next week, too.)

I like coffee filter snowflakes for lots of reasons.  Coffee filter snowflakes are easy.  Both my 2 and 4 year old children could participate.  Circular snowflakes.  Snowflakes that make coffee filters useful.  (With my small package of coffee filters, they will likely last a lifetime.  Yep.  My husband and I do not drink coffee, but we do have a tiny coffee maker for guests who need it.)

First color the coffee filters with markers.

  Place the coffee filters on a paper towel on a plate.

Then spray it.  The kids love this!

 Let the coffee filters dry.  (If you spray lightly it doesn't take long.)

Fold in half three times

Draw some markings on it if your child is not able to understand how to cut the snowflakes yet.

 Let the child cut!!  

It takes a long time at our house.

Open it.

Be totally amazed at your child's beautiful creation!

 Honestly, I had a blast with this project, too.  (Can you tell?)

I cut the snowflakes that my two year old son or I colored.  I had lots of fun.  

We hung them in our kitchen window and the windows by our front door.  

E (2) had fun coloring and spraying.  M (4) had fun coloring, spraying, and cutting.  

Initially, I only wanted to make white snow flakes.  M had great fun with that.  Then on another day, I decided it would be fun for both children to get involved in the project and so we all made colorful snowflakes.  M's favorites are the colored ones, of course.

I loved that the the coffee filters were already round since I dislike square flakes.  More importantly, they were easy to fold and cut for my little girl's introduction to snowflakes!

After our little project we read the very short chapter book Henry and Mudge and the Snowman Plan.  Though it is a chapter book, we read it in one sitting.  I love that M is starting to enjoy lengthy books!  E's (and M's) favorite snow book is probably Snowmen at Night or Frosty the Snowman!  

I have seen these easy snowflakes around blogland quite a bit, but the first place I saw them was at Cheerios Underfoot.   Thanks for the inspiration!

I am linking this to some great crafty resources!
 

Apple Prints

Don't you just love it when your library displays a fabulous book or two for you to enjoy?  Well, that is how we found Ten Red Apples by Virginia Miller.  (It's a Bartholomew and George book, if that means anything to you.)  I plan to check out her other books because I enjoyed this one so much!

I think what sets this book apart from some others is that though it's a counting book, the story stands on its own.  Each set of pages has a sidebar where the counting of the red apples happens, though it's natural to do it with the main picture, too.  Another fabulous feature is that the number zero is featured.  Not all counting books do that.

This book just needed a craft to go with it, so we made some apple prints.  As basic as they are, using red and green paint to make ten apples altogether takes it a step further.

Materials:
apple, cut in half
paint,
lids (to hold paint)
large paper

I add a bit of yellow to both my red and green paint to make it seem more realistic.

In the book, the green apples on the tree turn red, but there are always ten apples altogether (until they are made into a pie).

With that in mind, M got to print some red apples, and then green apples.  I let her decide how many of each color she wanted.  As it turns out it was five and five, as she is showing you.  The eleventh mark on the paper is her handprint.






I don't remember apple prints being so hard to do, but she struggled to get the  apples off the paint lid and the paper.  It was too slippery!




I'm linking up to ABC & 123's show and tell as well as stART at A Mommy's Adventures.    Both offer great preschool and toddler ideas!

God's Gifts

We all need to be reminded that we have many, many gifts from God.  The book Ruby Paints a Picture, tells the story of how Ruby, the raccoon, paints each of her friends since they are a gift from God.  It's a very sweet story and a good choice for beginning readers.

This book is great, but of course it is not needed to initiate a conversation with your child about how God has blessed them.   Like Ruby and my daughter, your child could paint pictures of God's blessings.  When asked what God's gifts for her are, my daughter wanted to paint each of our immediate family members and then our swing set.  (Below is her painting of her brother.)  EDITED TO ADD:  Please know that my daughter chose our family as her "gifts" because it was similar to the book.  I was thankful that she chose us, but also surprised!

Of course, you do not need to limit your child to painting God's gifts.  You could cut pictures from a magazine, use stickers, let your child take photographs, or use your own photographs to create a collage.  Older children may also really enjoy using fancy lettering and colorful paper to make a word collage.  A blessing walk around your home and community might be an alternative way to discuss God's gifts!  Whatever you do and however you do it, it's good to focus on what God has given to us!

This week I want to link this to A Mommy's Adventures for great stART (story + art) activities and ABC and 123's show and tell.

stARt: Freight Train

This is a repost from our family blog. I just loved this project and so did M. We did this when she was about 2 1/2. It's a great way for children to identify and say colors. It was a great speech activity at the time, though now it would not be challenging to M. We made a paper freight train based on the wonderful book by Donald Crews. We used the book to help us know which car/color would come next. I had the cars precut into the appropriate shape. I also had the track drawn on the paper ahead of time. M really enjoyed telling me which color would come next with almost no prompting. We know the book well. She chose to use crayons for the smoke. She was so precise with where it went. This was our second train, so I didn't tell her where to put it. She knew. The wheels are made with her little fingerprints. Yes, the yellow hopper car is upside down. This is quite large. I thought two inch wide cars would be a good size. It wasn't until after I had cut them out and was placing them on the paper that I realized that there was no room for the black tender even with the two papers side by side! An inch would have been large enough!

For another similar, yet different Freight Train project, visit my friend Jennifer at My Two Happy Homeschoolers! Check out the Gundersen's felt Freight Train, too. For more story based art projects, visit A Mommy's Adventure.

stART: Mouse Paint

M is home from preschool this week (with a little rash), so we had some extra creative time.

We borrowed the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh from the library. It is really, really cute. Three little mice who jump in some paint. Then they walk in some puddles creating new colors. It is super for showing children how to mix primary colors to make new colors.

For our ( story + art= a great) stART, I read the book again while doing the project. Each jar of paint was a blob of paint on the paper. We pretended the q-tips were the mice's feet. And then we mixed colors.

This was fun, but I think we could revisit this again when she's older. I did this spur of the moment, but there are lots of activities out there. Here is one site of ideas.

For other stART activities, visit A Mommy's Adventures.

Humpty Dumpty ~stART~

I love this idea of a STORY + ART =  A Great stART.  A Mommy's Adventure shared the idea, and lots of us are enjoying it.  (What a clever name, too!)

M has recently been requesting Humpty Dumpty out of The Lucy Cousins Book of Nursery Rhymes book we borrowed from the library.  A lot.  She will try to say it with me, too.  It makes me smile.

Isn't he adorable?  (Humpty not E's head.)  His very special feature is the mouth.  Usually it just smiles, but when he falls, it opens up to be a large circle...and then M screams!  So cute.  (To create, just fold circle in half, and only glue half to the paper, positioning so that it will open correctly.)

This idea is from Hubbard's Cupboard.  (This week we're working on the Walls of Jericho, and this is the very appropriate nursery rhyme for the week.)  It's simple, but fun.  If you would like some Christian-based ideas for any age child, it's a great resource!  We use the 3 year old activities.

Here M is making him scream!  haha!

I cut the egg shape.  All the body parts are a shape.  So instead of a hand shape, Humpty has a square hand.  Make sense? 

Since it wasn't obvious which shape went to what body part, I would tell M to find the "blue rectangles for shoes."  Then I had her tell me the color and shape.  It's really just a review for the colors and shapes for her, but it would be a fine learning activity for shapes and colors, too.

To read an explanation of stART go here.  To see more stART activities for this week, go here!