YAH: Deployment Homecoming Ideas

(Picture taken the morning Dan deployed.)

In honor of Veterans' Day yesterday, I thought I'd show you a few things I made for my husband when he came back from his year-long deployment to Iraq. (If you've read my More About Me page you know we actually got married when he was home on his two-week leave.) But before I get to those, I want to share how I counted down the year. I knew counting the days would be too much for me, so instead I counted down the weeks. Fifty-two weeks seemed like nothing compared to 365 days. For Valentine's Day, 2009, Dan bought me a clock that had to be wound once a week.

It chimed every 15 minutes. I loved that. Every time it chimed, I would smile and think of him. Anyway, he made a little chart in the card and every time I wound it I would put an X in a box. After 52 X's, he'd be home! He left exactly one week later, so the very first time we wound it together and put the first X in. Once it got closer to his homecoming, I decided I could count down the days. So I made this game board and hung it on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

The only reason I made it bright green and bright pink was because that's what I already had in my closet. But after I made it, I was glad I used such bright colors. I drew the path and cut out pink squares and triangles from poster board. Then I printed a bunch of army-themed clip art from a greeting card software program I have. I glued those all over the game board.

Then I used a picture of Dan's face and put it on the body of a cartoon soldier.

This was my game piece that I moved along the path. (I used that sticky blue stuff to keep it on the board.) Every morning when I woke up, I'd come down the stairs and move him one more space closer to home. And the best part was he came home about 1 week early, so toward the end I got to "jump ahead 8 spaces!"

OK, now onto the surprises I made for him. The first one was a banner that I had planned on hanging outside off the garage. Because it was winter, I knew I'd need something sturdy. (If it had been summer, I would have just used regular paper.) So I looked online and found cheap banners at Oriental Trading. I was worried about the quality, because their stuff is so cheap, but I was completely satisfied with what I got. I ordered a red vinyl banner and got it personalized.

It was nothing fancy, but I was still so happy with it. After receiving it in the mail, I added some pictures of us that I laminated. The day before Dan was to come home, I went outside to hang it up. Well, that nasty winter wind blew it down in 2 seconds. I ended up hanging it inside on the fireplace, under the clock he bought for me a year earlier.

I also made a candy bar card. This turned out so cool, but was a bit of work. I bought two big black foam boards from Michaels and taped them together to make a card. Then I bought all kinds of candy bars and printed out words on my computer and taped it all on the boards.

The hardest part was finding candy bars that fit with what I wanted to say. I found most in stores around town, but some I had to order online. It's amazing what you can find! The candy bar names weren't always perfect (plural when I needed singular, for example), but I think it worked out fine.

Over the next couple of months, we ate almost all the candy off the card! Well, wouldn't you?

Jaguar Puppets

We discussed the letter J today, so I taught the kids all about jaguars. Then we used brown paper lunch bags to make puppets. I cut out a bunch of "spots" from brown paper, then cut out some ears and tails.

First the kids drew on a face with markers. Then they glued on the spots.

On the flip side, they glued on more spots, plus the ears and the tail.

They also drew in some sharp teeth under the flap.

During circle time, I had told the kids that one way to tell the difference between jaguars and leopards is by their spots, which are called rosettes. Jaguars have spots inside their rosettes. Here is a picture of a real jaguar to show you what I mean. (Source: Animal Corner)

Aren't they beautiful animals? Anyway, back to the puppet. The kids used markers to make spots inside the spots that they glued on.

Now it's a "true" jaguar.

Fun Fact: Jaguars are the real "king of the jungle." (That's right. Lions don't live in jungles.) They have powerful jaws and can kill in one bite. Sadly, these beautiful animals are endangered.

Class Cookbooks

When we talked about healthy foods last week, I decided to make a class cookbook. I asked each child to contribute one recipe to our book. Some had a hard time coming up with something, others didn't. Here's one of the recipes:

Chocolate Cake
5 sprinkles
2 birthday sticks
fire (a little)
1 piece of cheese
2 pieces of chicken
3 pieces of broccoli

Mix it together. It turns into chocolate cake. Don't put it in the oven or it will melt! Put sprinkles and birthday sticks on top and then light the fire.

Here's another:

Pineapple Shake
Pineapple (lots of pieces)
2 cups water
1 bottle pineapple juice

Just mix it and bake it in the microwave for 7 minutes. Then add a straw and drink it.

And one more:

Mac & Cheese
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
Mac & cheese taste (the makers make it)

Put everything in a bowl and mix it up. Cook it in the oven at 5 degrees for a couple minutes. Then eat it!

These are obviously not funny to the kids...yet. The parents will get a kick out of them. Anyway, this is how I put the book together. I googled for a cooking coloring sheet or clip art and found something perfect. Then I added "My Class Cookbook" to the cover.

The kids wrote their names in the banner. I put two recipes on every page.

Once I stapled all the pages and the cover together, the kids just colored the picture.

Hopefully the parents will hang onto them until their child is grown. My kindergarten teacher did this for my class and someone brought the recipe book to school when we were seniors in high school. It was hilarious!

YAH: Bird Art

Today I am sharing a craft that I made almost a year ago. I got this idea for bird wall art from here. Please visit that site for step-by-step instructions. But here is what I did differently. Instead of using book pages on my canvas, I painted it. (I actually tried using book pages at first, but they got all bubbly. I ended up really liking the painted version, so I am glad that happened.) I used big tubes of acrylic paint: Titanium White and Raw Umber.

I used an 8x10 stretched canvas for the first one I made. I mixed the white and the raw umber until I got a nice shade of light brown and I covered the whole canvas. (Sorry I don't have steps of this. This was pre-blog.) Then I used the white and raw umber again, but mixed them less so you could still see white and dark brown in it and just lightly brushed that on the canvas. I brushed them on diagonally.

I liked how the streaks turned out. According to the tutorial I followed, she used a sharpie to draw the branches and birds and then colored it in. But I wanted to use paint. So first I drew everything with a pencil. The branches I drew by hand and the birds I traced from pictures I found online. Here is a good site for songbirds. I just found ones that had a cute pose or good profile and cut them out and traced them on my canvas. Then I used raw umber to paint in the branches and birds. I really liked it, but I had only used one canvas because I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I wish I had done two, because there was no way I would be able to match the background color perfectly again. So I kept this single one for myself, and made a double one to give away as a gift for Christmas. For the double one I used 9x11 canvases (from Michaels). Everything else was exactly the same.

For this one, the background turned out a little more grayish, but I used the same paint colors. It just all depends on how much of each color you use. If you do the double, make sure you mix enough to cover both canvases, because it's really hard to match the color if you run out!! My painting was a big hit and I got requests for more, but I have yet to make them. It's very simple and only takes a couple hours. And don't be afraid of acrylic painting. I'm not an artist at all. When my husband was overseas for the military, my sister and I took up painting and used a book to teach ourselves how to paint. We met once a week and it was a lovely way to pass the time. We started simple, with a bowl of fruit:

And worked our way up to more complicated things:

We also did fun, abstract ones:

And I found those to be the most, I don't know...soothing, I guess. I loved just painting streaks of color onto a canvas. So go ahead. Try it!

Framing Art

We did shaving cream art yesterday, which I explained in this post. But this time I decided to frame them and hang them in the windows.

This is how I did it. I cut around the art, flipped it upside down, and traced it on black paper.

Then I followed the shape inside the line, about a 1/2 inch away. Then I cut out the shape and cut out the middle.

I used a glue stick to glue the black frame on.

I really like the results.

I hung them in the window, but the sun was only just starting to peek out after a rain.

Maybe I'll take another picture on a sunny day. I love this project, but I think next time I will use a sheet of paper instead of a plate for the shaving cream. Then the final art piece would be much bigger.

**Linking up to Crafty Moms Share!**

Noodle Tracks

Today we painted with fettuccine noodles! We are learning about what foods are healthy for us and most of my art projects this week are just generic, free art. But today I decided to use food as part of our project. I cooked some noodles at home and then dipped them in paint at school.

The spoons are to push the noodles down into the paint because otherwise they just rest on top. Make sure you leave part of the noodle out of the paint, unless you want to get really messy! Then you just grab the clean end and drag it across your paper this way...

and that way...

and repeat with other colors until you have a masterpiece.

I don't know if I'm going to cut these out or just hang them up as is, but they are too pretty to not put on display in our room. I love the colors and the kids had a blast painting with noodles!

UPDATE: I decided to hang them as is:

That's actually a green wall, even though it doesn't seem to photograph that way, and it makes a great background.

Glittery Pumpkins

I got the idea for this next craft from Mess For Less, but she found the idea here. I had leftover orange paper plates from our Halloween party, and my center always has plenty of glitter. So I set out the plates with glue bottles and told the kids they could make any kind of face they wanted. They just used the glue bottle like a marker.

I also set out bowls of green and silver glitter and put spoons in them to make it easier for the kids to sprinkle it on the glue.

I let them sit like this for an hour or so before shaking the glitter off. I didn't want the glue to run and ruin their adorable faces! Then I used a hole punch to make a hole in the top of the plate and used a green pipe cleaner to make a stem. I decided to form it into a loop so they could be hung up.

They turned out so cute!

Another thing we made yesterday was gourd ghosts. A two-year-old teacher brought in a whole box of finger gourds for all the kids in the center. So I cleaned them and had each kid pick one. Then I set out black paint and some brushes and the kids painted ghost faces on them.

It was so simple. If I had more time, I would have had the kids paint them white first, but it was Halloween and we just didn't have time for that. But I think these look just fine, don't you?