Liberty Crowns (and Torches)

The last stop of our road trip was New York! After "visiting" Niagara Falls, we went to the Statue of Liberty. We used paper plates again for our craft, cutting out the middle just like our craft for Mount Rushmore.

Then I took the middle circles and cut them into 8 triangles.

You'll only need 7 of them and if you want to make them skinnier or pointier you can, but I left them like this. The kids colored the plate and the triangles (both sides).

They used a glue stick to attach the triangles, but of course it didn't work well so I followed behind with my stapler.

You can also have your child color the whole plate first, then do all the cutting, but I wanted my kids to practice their counting.

When it was all put together, the kids enjoyed wearing it around the room, putting their hands up for the torch.

Well, within a few minutes they all wanted to make a torch, so we did that as well. I traced their hands (fingers close together) on orange paper and cut out 4 for each child. Then they glued them to the top of a piece of paper.

After letting the glue dry for a bit, I rolled the paper up and taped it closed. The torch was complete.

I told the kids that if they went home and dressed in a robe, held a book, wore their crown, and held up their torch for their parents, they would get "extra credit." They have to bring in a picture for proof. I wonder how many will do that. The last time I asked the kids to do that, I had 3 pictures brought it, out of 22 kids. Hmmm....

Play-Dough Arches

This is just a quick post to share our project for our latest stop on our USA road trip -- the Gateway Arch. Normally, this wouldn't be blog-worthy, but in case there are others out there interested in doing a landmark theme, here's an idea. We used play dough to make arches. Simple, right? And you know kids love working with play dough.

I put out all the play dough accessories, but I asked the kids to make an arch before making their own creations. They were happy to oblige.

This one even had a princess:

Torn-Paper Grand Canyons

Today on our road trip, we visited the Grand Canyon! I showed the class beautiful pictures and pointed out the different layers of colors.

(Photo source: Smithsonianmag.com)

Our art project was so simple, and I actually thought it up that morning as I was looking around our room. (I had planned on the kids doing a painting of the Grand Canyon, but I liked this idea better.) I spied our big bucket of scrap paper and it clicked -- they could tear up paper and glue it on in layers! So that's what they did.

I told them to try to overlap the bottom of each layer with the new layer. I also said they could use any colors they wanted.

When they were done, they colored the sky blue.

I wrote "My Grand Canyon" at the bottom of their papers. It was such a simple craft, but had amazing results!

Mount Rushmore Heads

This week my class is taking a road trip across the United States. First stop: Mount Rushmore! I've been there myself, so I was able to bring in all my pictures. A girl in my class has also been there and she brought in her pictures as well. I taught the kids a little bit about the four presidents and then showed them what the craft would be. I got this idea from somewhere, but I have not been able to find that website again. I first found it about 4 or 5 years ago, so maybe it's no longer up. I wish I could find it to give proper credit, but I will show you our craft and maybe one of you will recognize it and can tell me where it's from.
First I found pictures of the four presidents that were highly pixelated so they'd resemble rock carvings. (At least to me they do.)

After printing them out, I taped them to construction paper to make them sturdy, then cut them out. The kids then had to decide which president they wanted to be, and then they colored the OTHER 3 presidents. (This was a little difficult to understand. "But I want to be Washington! Why can't I color Washington?" But they soon figured it out.)

I cut the middle out of paper plates, and stapled the president heads onto the plate in the correct order, using the plate as the "missing" president. Then the kids stuck their heads through the plate! Here's our Washington:

Our Jefferson:

Our Roosevelt:

And our Lincoln:

I also taped a craft stick onto the plate, but it was still pretty floppy. A jumbo craft stick would probably work better. We spent all day practicing the names of the presidents so the kids could go home and tell their parents!
I was planning on giving you the name of the website where I found the president heads, but that's no longer available, so I scanned mine in. I'm leaving them full size so you should be able to print them any size you want.