Flag Handprints

In honor of Flag Day today, my kids made flag handprints. First I painted their right hands with a blue square/rectangle and red stripes. We didn't need white because we used white paper. Obviously, there isn't room for 13 stripes, so I just painted as many as I could fit. I didn't put any paint on the thumb.

Then they pressed their hand down on the paper.

After it dried, I cut it out and glued on either a red or blue popsicle stick for the flag pole. Then the kids used the end of a paint brush handle to paint on the stars with white paint.

OK, so they are more like circles than stars, and there's no way 50 could fit in the blue space, but you get the idea.

I hung them up on our door. It's perfect because I can keep them up through the 4th of July!

I like how the fingerprint stripes give the flag a wavy shape, like it's blowing in the wind.

Homemade Coloring Pages

Because it's my co-teacher's week to teach, I thought I'd spend this week showing general art projects that aren't necessarily connected to a theme. I bought a box of Crayola crayons that had a code inside to use on their website. It changes regular pictures into coloring pages! I took a picture of two kids at a time, making silly faces or just smiling. Then I went to the Crayola website, uploaded the photos, and printed out the coloring pages. All the parents, kids, and other teachers thought it was the coolest thing. If you haven't tried it, you must! The kids got a real kick out of coloring pictures of themselves! Some colored it so it looked just like them, others went a little crazy and added makeup or pink hair or green skin. It was great! That was last year. I tried it again this year and my code was no longer accepted. <sigh> I'm only allowed to use it once. (The nerve!) And I wasn't going to buy another box of crayons for another code. (This code only came on the 120-count box, not exactly cheap.) So I tried something else this year. I used Picnik to edit the pictures. This site is great. And most features are free. Even when the site is loading, it's super cute. "Growing grass..." "Buttering sandwiches..."Fluffing clouds..." "Stealing picnik basket..." It's so cute, you don't mind waiting! Anyway, once you upload your picture, just click on Create, and then Effects. Scroll down a bit and you'll see "Pencil Sketch." Click on that and it will turn your picture into, you guessed it, a pencil sketch. That's the next best thing to a coloring page. It worked great! The picture goes from this:

To this:

Picnik is actually what I use to blur out the kids' faces on my pictures. They also have a lot of fun features on their site. There's a neon feature that's wildly cool:

I think I might have to use Picnik more often to play around with pictures of the kids in my class. They'd love that!

Opossums

I want to apologize right up front for not having any photos of this next craft. I've only done this craft once, several years ago, and didn't even think to take pictures of it. But since it goes with my Nocturnal Animals theme, and I still teach about it every year, I wanted to mention it to you.

First, you need to explain to the kids that Opossums are different from Australia's Possums, even though many people call the Opossum 'Possum. This is something I didn't know until I taught my kids about it. (I love learning new things while I'm teaching them!) For the craft, you need a styrofoam egg, pipe cleaners, wiggle eyes, and a small pom pom.The pom pom (we used pink) gets glued onto the smaller end of the egg. This is the nose. One pipe cleaner (again, we used pink) gets stuck into the bigger end of the egg. This is the tail. You then can wrap it around your finger to make it curl a bit, like it's wrapped around a branch. We also used small pieces of pink pipe cleaners to make ears. You stick one end in, bend it over a bit and stick the other end in. Do this again for the other ear. The wiggle eyes get glued on. Then we used more small pieces of pipe cleaners (white I think) to stick in the bottom for legs. The kids drew on a mouth with a marker. I'm not going to lie to you -- every parent that picked up their child thought it was a mouse, but the kids were very excited to correct them!

Again, I'm sorry I don't have a picture, but I hope it's easy to visualize.

Fun Fact: The Virginia Opossom is the only marsupial found in the United States.

Hawaiian Party

In our classroom we have a jar in which we put marbles whenever the class works together nicely. This could be for cleaning up after centers, sitting quietly during circle time, sharing toys, or any number of things. Once the jar is filled up (around 50 marbles or so), we get to have a party! The kids decide on a theme by coming up with different ideas and then voting. In the past we have had a Rockstar party, Superhero and Princess party, Monster party, Pajama party, and a Sock Hop. This time the kids chose a Luau! They got to dress in Hawaiian clothes or beach attire. I brought in a palm tree for dramatic play. I bought it years ago at Party City to use for my Island Escape theme in the winter. I also put out the sand from our sensory table along with small buckets and shovels. Each child had a chance to play on the tropical island!

(Sorry about the fuzzy faces. I'd rather not show the faces of the students in my class.)

We also did the limbo, had slushy popsicles, and I handed out those little umbrellas for drinks. We made leis and did a little hula dancing. We didn't have time this year, but in the past I've brought in the movie Lilo and Stitch because on the DVD extras there is a hula dancing lesson. The kids wore hula skirts and tried to follow the video. It was just darling!

 Even the boys joined in on the fun!

Owlets

When I taught about birds, I specifically left out owls because I wanted to cover them in my nocturnal animal unit. I found this paper plate craft at Enchanted Learning. I used small paper plates so my kids could take their time coloring, but still get it done within a short amount of time. You could also use circles of paper if you don't have plates. I didn't cut out any beaks or feet. I don't know if it's because I'm getting lazy after doing this for years <smile> or because I want the project to be mostly done by the child, not me. Probably the latter. So I encouraged them to draw the beaks and feet.

The kids did all the coloring and I put it together (stapling the head onto the body and then using a hole punch and brass fasteners for the wings). My example was from years ago when I used big paper plates, not that you can tell the size from this picture...

As you can see, I had construction paper beaks and feet for the kids back then. Because mine was big I explained to the kids that I made the mama owl and they were going to make the owlets! Here's what the display looks like:

What a hoot! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Fun Fact: Owls cannot move their eyes. They can only look straight ahead. They also cannot turn their head completely around, like many people think. They have a range of 270 degrees.

Skunk Paintings

Today we learned about skunks. I kept the art very simple indeed. So much so, that I probably don't even have to blog about it. But I will! I just put out black and white paint and let the kids do whatever they wanted. I put light purple paper out (we were all out of gray) so both the black and white paint would show up well. Some kids painted skunks.

Others did an abstract painting:

Didn't I tell you it was simple?

Fun Fact: Skunks would rather not spray because they only carry enough of the smelly chemical for 5 or 6 sprays, and it takes about 10 days to produce another supply.

Flying Bats

Today's nocturnal animal was the bat. We learned all about these amazing mammals. The art project was very simple. I found a bat shape I liked and traced it onto white paper. Then each child colored both sides of the bat.

Then I folded the bat in half, right down the middle of the face and body. And then I folded each wing back. The kids could hold onto the body part, move their arms up and down, and the bats would flap their wings!

On an unrelated side note, if you read this post about our caterpillars, I have an update for you! All five butterflies hatched over the weekend! Luckily, we put sugar water and orange slices in the garden before we left on Friday. We didn't want them to go hungry if they came out when we weren't there! We kept them in the classroom for two days, and then released them on the playground. Two flew out on their own, the other three needed a little help from me. We also released our ladybugs. According to the facts that came with the kit, the butterflies are known to stay in the area in which they are released, so we might see them around our center this week!

Fun Fact: Bats, the only flying mammal, are not blind. They can see, but vision is not their primary sense.