Kids Craft: St. Patrick’s Day Thumbprint Pins

In preparing for St. Patrick’s Day each year we all find ourselves looking for or purchasing something green to wear to avoid getting pinched. Instead of buying something, here’s an idea that will give you a timeless keepsake and something green to wear. Make thumbprint art that you can turn into a one of a kind St. Patty’s Day pin.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Green and black stamp pads, tempera paint, acrylic paint, or watercolors.
Cardstock, poster board, or thick construction paper
Contact paper or laminating sheets
Hot glue (or your choice of other craft glues)
Safety pin
Markers

Here’s what you should do:

1. Use green to make thumbprints for leaves of a clover. You can also use a black thumbprint as a pot and small fingerprints for the gold in a pot of gold. Here’s what you’ll have at this point.

2. Next, use markers to embellish and add detail. Draw a stem on your clover and a rainbow over your pot of gold. (You may choose to embellish further with mini pom poms, sequins, beads, glitter, ribbon, etc.)

3. Now you are ready to cut out your pin and laminate it. This will both preserve and protect your keepsake pin. If you are a scrapbooker and have decorative papers, you may want to matt your creation on other paper, prior to laminating for a more finished look.

4. Finally, glue a safety pin to the back and you’re ready to go.

Now you have a personalized keepsake pin with your son or daughter’s fingerprints and thumbprints. Hope you enjoy. And have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

If you enjoyed this craft, you may also enjoy the ideas in St. Patrick's Day Crafts (Fun Holiday Crafts Kids Can Do!) and Crafts For St. Patrick'S Day (Holiday Crafts for Kids).

Kids Crafts: Hands of a Child Calendar - January

During my son’s first year of Pre-K, his teachers put together a very special calendar for the parents. I don’t think they would mind me sharing this idea with you on a month to month basis over the next year. Here’s how to start.


The First Page:

This page held a picture of my son, the calendar year, and the following poem:

The Hands of a Child
Written by Amy Ethridge

When you look at the hand what do you see?
There are just some lines most would agree.
But take a closer look this very minute
And notice the treasures that are found within it.
The hand can be so many things,
From tulips to beautiful butterfly wings.
A Santa, an apple, even a heart,
A pumpkin, an umbrella, that’s only a start.
The hand can be a leprechaun trying to hide.
It can be the sunrise to brighten the day.
It can be a fish swimming away.
It can be a turkey strutting along,
Whatever you make it, you can’t go wrong.
Just take a little time to look and see,
Where these hands came from,
And you’ll surely agree
Your child, the artist, reaching his goal,
Created this for you with body and soul.
Keep it and use it till the time has past.
Then put it away so the memories will last.


The Second Page:



Here there was my child’s handprint and the following in print.

“I know you wipe some away,
But these handprints were made to stay!
So keep them forever, a treasure they’ll be,
A special ”I Love You”,
For you from me?"


The Third Page:


The month of January!!! There is a small calendar with snowflakes and a snowman. Using white tempera paint and overlapping fingerprints form my son’s hands, he made a very special snowflake. Above the calendar and snowflake is the following rhym.

Snowflakes
Snowflakes white are dancing down.
Dancing, dancing . . . all around.
Each one is different, it’s surely true.
Here’s one I made from me for you!

The next page, of course is February. I’ll be sure to post it before the end of the month. So you’ll have it to enjoy all month long. As with any craft or art project, this one too can be customized to fit your desire. And your imagination is your only limitation! Happy crafting. Hope you enjoy the handprints.

Kids Craft: Turkey of Thanks

Here is a great craft I heard about from my son. They are doing this at school. This craft teaches the vital lesson of thanksgiving and gratitude.

Here’s what you need:

• Empty tissue box
• Construction paper in fall colors
• Markers
• Scissors
• Glue
• Wiggly eyes (optional)

Here’s what you do:

1. Wrap your tissue box with brown construction paper. If it is square, leave the hole at the top, and leave it open. If your box is rectangular, then you’ll want to stand it on it’s end so that it is tall. Again, leave the hole open.
2. Then draw the turkey’s head with face, eyes, beak, and wattle using your markers.
3. Trace your child’s hand prints on several peices of paper in a variety of fall colors. Cut these out and glue them to the back of your box to create the turkey’s tail.
4. Each day, have your child write something that they are thankful for (if they do not write yet, write this for them) and place it inside the box.
5. On Thanksgiving, you will have a great way for your child to share all the things that he or she is grateful for when you allow them to empty the turkey and read what is inside.

This craft reminds our children of the importance of taking a moment to celebrate the many wonderful things in our lives, the many things that we have to be grateful for. This also encourages gratitude to be a part of every day. If we live our lives in a spirit of gratitude, we are likely to receive more to be grateful for. We are also much less likely to take things for granted, even the little things. Happy Holidays!!!

Kids Craft: Thanksgiving Mosaic

Many of the world’s great civilizations used mosaic art to depict important images in special places. During my travels to Italy in college, we visited Venice. The cathedral there had a dome over the alter that beautifully depicted religious scenes and icons in mosaic tile. While we can’t create something of that scale with our kids, we can help them to see the beauty in mosaic art and gain an understanding of the effort that went into these great works.

Here’s what you need:

• Tempera, craft, or poster paint (fall colors)
• Pumpkin seeds or dried beans
• Glue
• Card Stock or poster board
• Small disposable dish and disposable fork

Here’s what we did:

1. We used dried red beans (because we had them in the house). However, any dried bean will work. A variety of beans can be used unpainted, or one type of bean painted for color. We painted ours with craft paint. I squirted some paint into the bottom of a disposable bowl, poured in the beans, and let the kids use a disposable fork to stir and mix the beans into the paint until they were all coated in paint. We did not get a perfect coating on all the beans, but we decided this would make our mosaic more interesting. We spread the painted beans out on a sheet of paper to dry, making sure that no two beans were touching while drying.
2. While our paint was drying, we took a 9 x 12 inch sheet of card stock. (This was actually part of the packaging from one of the kids’ Halloween costumes.) We cut it into fourths. My son and daughter each drew a fall/Thanksgiving picture. My son drew the Mayflower, and my daughter a leaf. I drew them a turkey and a pilgrim hat on the remaining two fourths.
3. Once our beans were dry, we pulled them off the paper where they were drying. Then we squirted glue onto our pictures, in small sections. Carefully placing colored beans onto the glued sections, we proceeded to finish our mosaics.
4. Once all the beans were glued into place, we let our pieces dry.

A Few Quick Tips:

1. If your kids are really young, you may want to use bigger beans like lima beans or butter beans. These will be easier for little fingers and will cover a larger space more quickly.
2. Remember that your drawings will be colored in with small objects and these will restrict the detail possible. Remind your children of this when they are drawing their pictures so that they can use large, generalized shapes as opposed to very detailed line drawings.
3. Begin your mosaic with the most important item. For example, on our pilgrim hat, we began with the top of the hat. I squirted glue onto the top portion that was going to be black and we filled that in. Then we did the gold buckle. Following that the red stripe, then the brim.
4. If your kids are getting tired, or you fear that their patience will not last to completion of the project, you can remind them that they can space their pieces out a little. Again, on our pilgrim hat, the beans are very close on the hat, but spread out some on the background.

If you would like resources for additional craft ideas here are a few books that might spark your interest:

1. All New Crafts for Thanksgiving (All-New Holiday Crafts for Kids)
2. Crafts For Thanksgiving-Trd/Pb
3. 175 Easy-To-Do Thanksgiving Crafts (Creative Uses for Recyclables)
   

As always, there are limitless variations possible. You can do this project again and again. Change theme, do a Christmas one. Change materials, try pebbles, beads, buttons, tiles. You’re only limiting factor is your imagination. So use your imagination, and have fun!

Kids Craft: Hand and Foot Print Turkey

Here’s another one from my childhood. This adorable turkey uses your childrens’ hand and foot prints. It can be used as a decoration and then saved from year to year as a keepsake. Best of all, no two will be exactly alike, so each of your kids can make their own unique Thanksgiving turkey.

• First, take a sheet of brown construction paper and trace your child’s feet. You can do this with, or with out shoes, but you will have a more rounded turkey if you leave the shoes on.
• Cut out the feet. Glue the heals, one on top of the other, allowing the toes to be spread apart slightly. This will give your turkey a fuller body.
• Trace your child’s hands. Cut out several in a variety of fall colors.
• Glue the hands to the back of the feet, these will become your turkey’s tail.
• Now cut out and glue a beak, wattle, eyes, and feet onto your turkey.

Additional options:

• When tracing and cutting, use the reverse side, the one you have not written on, as the front of your turkey.
• The eyes can be drawn, made with construction paper, or wiggly eyes can be used for fun.
• If your turkey is flat (no wiggley eyes), you can glue the entire thing to an 11 x 17 sheet of paper and laminate it to make a place mat. Or you can just laminate the turkey to save from year to year.

Enjoy this craft, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Kids Craft: Thanksgiving Hand-print Wreath

Are you and your family thinking of Thanksgiving yet? It is right around the corner. (Only three weeks away.) Here is a great craft idea for Thanksgiving that will get the whole family involved. And, as usual, there are a variety of things you can do with this, by just using your imagination . . . and a few simple tips. This idea, while aimed at Thanksgiving, could be done for a variety of holidays with only slight variations.

Here is what you’ll need:

• Colored paper (scrapbook or construction), craft foam, or felt (all in autumn colors)
• Poster board, cardboard, or foam core board.
• Scissors and/or exacto knife
• Glue
• Embellishments - These can be buttons, berries, pom poms, pipe cleaners, ribbons . . . You name it, you can use it.

Here’s what you’ll want to do:

1. Cut out the shape for your wreath. You can make your wreath a circle, oval, or even a square. The choice is yours. You’ll do this with the Poster board, card board, or foam core.
   
2. The three materials suggested were chosen for your so that you would have a material choice that would work with the type of project you were wanting to do. If you are wanting a quick fun project, that you will not be keeping from year to year, then use card board or poster board. Both of these are disposable and either inexpensive or free. If you would like something a little nicer, use the foam core board. This can be found with poster board and matte board material at your local craft store. If you can not find it, a sales associate should be able to help you. This is basically two pieces of poster board sandwiched around a 1/8 inch layer of foam. It is very durable and can be cut with an exacto knife.
3. Next, trace the hands of each member of your family. And cut out the shapes. If you are doing a large wreath with a small family, then you will need more than one pair of each person’s hands. Cut multiples if needed. For this, you will use either colored paper, craft foam, or felt in autumn colors.
4. If you are wanting to do this fast, easy, and with out much expense, you will use construction paper. If you want a nicer quality, with out huge cost, and may not keep this from year to year, then you may want scrap book paper. If you will keep this for several years, then you will likely want to use craft foam or felt.
5. If you do not want to pay for craft foam or felt, but want a nicer finished product, then you can use a technique called Paper Toile. To do this, take your hand prints cut from scrapbook paper and lay them front side down, onto your computer’s mouse pad. Then take a rounded surface similar to the tip of a sharpie lid and trace around the handprint. You will do this about an 1/8 to a 1/16 of an inch form the edge of the paper. Begin softly, and practice on a scrap page, till you get the right pressure. If you are patient, you will be able to create a rounded effect on the edges of your handprints. This will give them a little extra depth and add a nice finished detail to your wreath.
6. Once all of your handprints are cut out, lay them out on your wreath so that your wreath shape is covered. Now you can glue this down.
7. It’s time to embellish! It’s also time to use your imagination. You can change the whole mood of your wreath based on how you embellish it. Buttons placed in small clusters of 1 to 3 around your wreath would have cute, hand-crafted feel. If you used pipe cleaners (maybe swirled into a circle) and pom poms you are creating a much more lighthearted and whimsical feel. Or you could use berries and bows. This would create a sophisticated affect. The choice is yours.

And, as always, you are only limited by what you can imagine. Lay out your options, if you don’t like the look, don’t glue them down, change them to something else. Most important of all, have fun!

Kids Activity: Thanksgiving Turkey Hunt

Thanksgiving in America traditionally involves a turkey. Each year, we take our kids on their own personal Turkey Hunt. They LOVE it. And we have a blast too.

First, we cut construction paper into fourths. (You can use index cards if this is easier and readily available. You can also use regular printer paper or loose leaf paper. Whatever you have on hand will work.) Then we give each child three or four pieces of paper, and take a few pieces for ourselves. We then make a turkey on each. Some years we’ve gotten carried away with our crafting and made 3-D turkeys instead.

Here are some ideas for your turkeys:

1. Trace your child’s hand and let them color it in, drawing a beak and feet.
2. Trace their hand on a sheet of construction paper, cut it out and glue it to your sheet.
3. Let them use paint and a hand print to make their turkey.
4. Let them draw or color the turkey.
5. Use craft items like craft foam, feathers, wiggly eyes, and pom poms, and felt to build a small turkey on the page, or independent of the page.
6. If you want, you can print small clip art turkeys and let your kids color them.
7. You can use fancy lettering to decorate the word Turkey if you don’t want to draw or make one.
8. Or, if you’re feeling really silly, you can use pictures of your kids and call them your “little turkeys”.
9. As always, your imagination is the limit to what you can do.

Once our turkeys are complete we need cages to keep them in once we’ve caught them. We’ve used brown paper sacks, shoe boxes, tissue boxes, and even ziplock bags for this purpose in the past. Pretty much anything will work. If you are using something disposable, you can decorate it or draw bars on it like a cage.

When our turkeys and cages are complete, we choose our first Guide for our Turkey Hunt. Our Guide hides all of the turkeys in the forest, one room of the house. Once they are all hidden, the Turkey Hunt begins. Our hunters, the other children or players, begin to search for the turkeys. As they are found, our hunters bring their catch to their Guide. The Guide will keep the captured turkeys pinned up according to the hunter who has caught them.

Once all the turkeys have been found, we count how many each hunter caught. The hunter who has caught the most turkeys becomes the Guide for our next hunt. And the game begins again. The kids love it. They have fun making a mess and making their turkeys, then they play with them over and over again until Thanksgiving has come and gone.

Kids Crafts: Li'l Leaf

This charming little leaf is made using your child's hand and foot prints. I remember this from grade school. In one of our classes, we had these hanging from the ceiling, one for each child. He can be hung from the ceiling or on a wall. Here's how we made him, along with a few variations.

1. First I went out and found a leaf in the yard. I copied it, larger, onto a piece of construction paper. I chose orange, yellow, red, and brown for this project since it is fall. I did not like the whole leaf, so I chose the best half and folded the page and cut along the line I liked the most. The side of the construction paper that I'd drawn on became my back side. I then drew a face for the leaf.
2. Next, I got my 4 year old daughter to let me trace her hands and feet. Then I cut these out for her. I let my 6 year old cut his own.
3. Using strips of yellow construction paper, folded like an fan, I made legs and arms. The legs, arms, hands and feet are affixed to the leaf using tape. However, you can also glue them, or staple them.
4. The finished product can be hung from the ceiling or on a wall.

Additional options to mix it up:

• You can use ribbon to make the arms and legs, instead of construction paper.
• You can use the cardboard that comes off the back of a used note pad for your leaf to make it more sturdy.
• Our leaf, pictured above, is slightly wilted. My son spilled a drink. Since part of the leaf was wet, I took a paper towel and wet it with more of the same drink. I then dabbed this over the leaf to cover our accident. You can do this with tea or coffee to stain you leaf and add texture.
• You can allow your children to draw on the leaf, hands, and feet. Even if they just draw stripes, patterns, or shapes. This would add visual interest and personalize your leaf more.
• Little girls can add jewelry or other accessories to their leaves. These can be draw, real, or created with craft items.
• Boys can add caps, collars, jackets, balls in the hands, shoes on the feet, etc.
• You can embellish your leaf with things around the house, paint it, etc.
• The list could go on, and on.

As always, the goal is to spend time with your kids, have fun, and be creative. There are no rules to creativity, and the only limit is your imagination. :)

Kids Crafts: Drawing Autumn Leaves

Do your children like to draw? I do, and so do my kids. Let's celebrate the season by drawing the world as we see it, not as we percieve it. (Don't write off this article if you think you "can't draw", read on, and try to challenge your thinking.)

During the autumn, we watch the leaves turn brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow. Then they drift gracefully to the ground. I challenge you to go out into your yards with your children and let them pick a leaf, or two or three, which has fallen from the trees. Give them a paper and a pencil. Ask them to look at their leaf. Look at it and really see it. Ask them to take note of the outer shape of the leaf. Observe the stem and how the leaf grows out of it and is supported by it. Look at the transition from leaf to stem. Help them notice the veins within the leaf. Notice the beautiful patterns to be found there.

If you have very thin, soft drawing paper, like news print, have your child lay the paper over the leaf and, with chalk pastels or a crayon, lightly rub over the leaf and watch the leaf come to live on the page.

On another page, have your child look at the leaf and draw it. Instruct your child not to look at the paper, and not to lift the pencil. Try this a few different times, putting as much detail into the picture as possible. Then look at the result. You will be surprised. If you practice, these can become quite good. But either way, they are a great excersise in eye-hand coordination.

Then, if you child is still interested, ask them to draw the leaf by looking at it, and the paper. Remind him (or her) not to draw their idea of a leaf, but instead what they are seeing in front of them. Look at the lines on the leaf and draw them. Look at the way the light hits the leaf and draw that.

If they wish to add color, encourage them. But again, discourage the addition of simple green, or yellow, or orange, or red. Ask your child to look at the leaf. What colors do they see on the leaf? Where are those colors and how do they blend together? You and your child will learn a lot about the way you see the world, and about the things you miss on a normal basis. You will also learn a lot about the leaf.

Of course, limit the excersise to your child's age and attention span. You can break this up into several sessions if you like. I'll have my kids do this excersise tomorrow and will post some of the results for you. Hope you all enjoy the drawing!

Activity Alley: Welcome

Welcome to Activity Alley! First, I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. Then I'd like to let you know what to expect from this site in the coming months.

As a mother of 5, my family is the most important thing in my life. I believe that there is no greater gift that I can give to my children than to spend quality time with them. Time to talk, time to play, time to read, time to share, and time to love.

If you are a parent, then you already know that the experiences our children have, regardless of where these occur and who they are shared with, shape and mold them into their future selves. The time that we, as parents, spend with our kids will affect who they become as adults since it gives us a chance to directly affect our children's personalities, value systems, opinions, ambitions, and feelings. Because we as parents have a vested interest in our children and their futures, I wanted to create a website to share this passion with other parents.

I plan to post ideas for kids activities and kids crafts on a regular basis. And I'll incorporate regular book reviews. I'd also like to include a letter to parents. In this section, we can discuss issues that arise in our families and with our children.