Dot Art Suncatchers

Last year I shared snowman suncatchers that were made by painting a paper towel and framing it with black construction paper. This year I decided to use Do-A-Dot markers and boy, they did not disappoint! We chose to make hearts for Valentine's Day. First you make some dot art on a white paper towel.

The more dots, the better!

When they are dry, cut a heart out of black construction paper. Save the heart for a different project and glue the remaining paper onto the paper towel. Hang in a sunny window and enjoy!

I love it with the black frame! This year we made our snowmen with dot markers as well. Faster, brighter and easier than using paint!

Valentine Whale

Here's what my little group of kids made for Valentine's Day!

First I cut out a simple cartoonish whale shape, without the tail, and glued it to a big piece of white paper.

(I would recommend construction paper, but I didn't have any. I used pieces cut from a roll of paper, which is why it's taped down on the corners.) I then used the kids' handprints to form the tail.

When the paint was dry, I put a heart sticker at the top of the whale to indicate where the blowhole was.

(Sorry about these horrible photos. I never remember to bring my camera so I have to use my phone for pictures.) The kids added more self-adhesive foam hearts (given to me by CraftProjectIdeas.com!) above the whale.

Then they added a big wiggle eye and drew a mouth.

I wrote the words, "Whale you be my Valentine?" by tracing over printed words because I don't have great handwriting.

The crinkled paper is yet another reason to use construction paper. I really wish I had it for this craft. The little one's handprints were a little tricky to get right, but it's still cute!

Candy Heart Trees

I bought a 2-pound bag of conversation candy hearts a couple weeks ago and then searched for craft ideas. I loved the trees they made at Happiness Is Homemade, so I decided to go that route. Instead of having the kids paint a tree, I traced their hands and arms on black construction paper. (I went with black instead of brown because I thought it looked better with the colored backgrounds we were using). After cutting them out, I glued them to a piece of construction paper. Then I put a bunch of candy hearts in a bowl and we all got busy.

I kept reminding them as they glued, "Dot, dot, not a lot." It really seemed to help!

Elmer's white glue seemed to hold the hearts quite well. I first tried tacky glue and it didn't work that great. They turned out beautifully, but they are quite heavy so I think I'll just send them home instead of hanging them up.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love Bugs and Valentines

I love when a craft opportunity is found right under my nose. That's how these love bugs came to be. For afternoon snack on Monday, the kids had little cups of ice cream. As they were eating them I started thinking about the possibilities these little styrofoam cups had. On my lesson plan for the week I had "Love Bugs." I was going to bring in a few different recyclables for the kids to decorate. But these little cups were the perfect size so I rinsed them out and saved them until Wednesday. Then I put out every pink, red and purple craft supply I had and the kids got to work making their bugs.

I sat at the table with the kids helping with glue dots and double stick tape. This way we didn't have to worry about glue dripping down the sides of the cup. Because they were styrofoam, it was very easy for the kids to poke holes with the pipe cleaners to make legs and antennae. They used one pipe cleaner and weaved it through two holes for the antennae.

And they did the same for legs.

I put all the bugs on a little table in front of our mailbox folders. They are adorable!

I didn't have a styrofoam cup so I used an old fruit cup. It worked just as well except the Sharpies didn't show up so great so I had to trace over that smile several times. And I had to use a scissors to poke holes in it. But still cute, right?
I also wanted to share with you the valentines that me and my daughter will hand out. Since my class is crazy about Olaf, I just had to include him in my valentines. I saw several online that had the line "Some people are worth melting for." And when I saw the ice pop idea at Poofy Cheeks, I was sold. I decided to make my own tag, though, because I wanted it to say, "You're worth melting for, Valentine." I just taped the ice pop to the tag.

And my daughter, who is about 23 months, loves the applesauce pouches. So I decided to have her give those to her class for Valentine's Day. I saw several sites that had the tag "awesome sauce" but I also wanted to include something about squeezing, so again I made my own tags. It reads "You're awesome sauce Valentine! Give me a squeeze!" I attached the tag with some elastic string I received from CraftProjectIdeas.com.

And she's giving her teachers mini take-out boxes filled with kisses and heart-shaped chocolate. The tag says, "Love and Kisses from Elise."

I should have one more Valentine craft to share with you tomorrow, if all goes well at school!

Valentine Birdies and Silhouettes

I saw this cute door display at Life In First Grade. It was a bunch of birds on tree branches and the teacher called them her "tweethearts." I decided to do something similar with the kids. I found a bird template here, enlarged it and traced it with different colored markers. The kids painted the birds with glitter watercolors.

When they were dry, the kids added a heart folded in half for the wing and a smaller heart for the eye.
Then I cut them out.

I displayed them in the hall with some small hearts and titled it Ms Betsy's Tweethearts.

I also wanted to show you the silhouettes we made last week when we had our shadow theme. I cheated and took pictures of the kids instead of trying to trace their shadows. (I've done that in the past and it's really hard to do because they are always moving!) Then I printed out the pictures as 8x10s (in draft mode to save ink), cut them out and used them as templates. The kids used heart cookie cutters to decorate white paper and then I put their silhouette on it.

I like how it looks like they are thinking lovely thoughts.

To see other silhouette ideas, go here and here.

Valentine Bags and Heart Links

I wanted to quickly show you the bags we made to hold our valentines. We started it last week during our dental health unit. I traced hearts onto white paper and put out red, pink and purple paint. The kids dipped toothbrushes into the paint and flicked the bristles to make the paint splatter onto their heart.

This didn't work as well as I thought it would. I tried adding water, but that just made it drip big globs of paint. Maybe our brushes were too old or something. We had one brush that worked great, but the others were very hard to work with. But the kids enjoyed it, so that's all that matters. When they were dry I cut them out and wrote their names on them. Then I taped them onto bags that I bought at Party City.

And then, to decorate it even more, we used some foam stickers that I got from CraftProjectIdeas.com.

 The kids loved the glitter ones.

 We pretended those purses were padlocks, keeping our valentines safe!

Here is the valentine I made for my kids:

I wanted it to be something they could read themselves, so I used a wiggle eye, a heart gem and used glitter glue to make the U. I attached it to a kaleidoscope that I found at Party City.
Another thing I wanted to share with you are these heart links I found at Target. They were in the valentine section, not the dollar spot. They were $3 and had 60 in a pack. We've been using them all week, to make patterns,

practice counting (using a die to tell us how many links to add to the chain),

sort them by color using what I like to call "robotic claws,"

and play tic-tac-toe. My kids are really into this game lately.

We haven't had any break yet, so I'm pretty happy with them. And they really are pretty, too!
Happy Valentine's Day!