Pretzel-Stick Trees

I am so excited to share today's project with you! I thought of it just a couple days ago and hoped it would work. And it did!

I made my own this morning and as soon as I glued the first "branch" on, I was excited! It turned out better than I imagined! Even without leaves it looks cool.

But the tissue-paper leaves give it that extra somethin'.

Once mine was done, it was time for the kids to get to work. We used blue and light green (just for fun) construction paper for our background. The first thing they glued on was a big pretzel stick for the trunk. They ran glue all along one side of the pretzel.

Then they glued on small pretzel sticks for the branches. For smaller branches, they easily snapped the pretzel sticks in half.

They kept adding branches until they were happy with their tree. Check out these amazing trees!

Then the kids headed over to another table to put on the leaves. They just scrunched up tissue paper squares, dipped them in glue and stuck them on their tree! Or they glued them to the bottom of the paper to represent fallen leaves.

We had some beautiful fall trees!

I hung them up with the words, "Welcome Autumn!"

I just love them!! And although I'm not a huge fan of pretzels, they actually smelled good so we had them as a snack later!

**Linking up to the parties on my sidebar!**

Blue B's, Purple Collages, and Rainbow Rice

I decided to lump together our last couple projects that we did for our Color unit last week. They are very simple and didn't seem to need their own post. On Thursday we discussed the color blue and also our letter of the week was B. So I printed out a big B from my computer and traced it onto paper for the kids.

Then I put out three shades of blue paint and different brushes and foam rollers.

The bowl without any brushes was for finger painting. The kids had a great time decorating their B's!

Friday was Violet/Purple day. I found a bunch of random purple things from my craft drawer.

The kids glued whatever they wanted on their paper.

I also made rainbow rice for our sensory tub. I've wanted to color rice for the longest time and this was the perfect time to do it. There are directions out on the web which say to use something like 2 tbsp rubbing alcohol with a few squirts of food coloring and 2 cups of rice. But I never measured. I just poured some alcohol into a big ziploc baggie, added some food coloring and poured in some rice. If it didn't seem to cover it all or if the color wasn't dark enough, I just added more alcohol and coloring. I mixed up the rice just by squishing it around in the bag. I used neon and regular food coloring. Then I dumped the bags out onto cookie sheets that were lined with paper towels so the rice could dry. (I didn't have to drain the bags like I did when I dyed pasta.) I was in love with the vibrant colors!

(My first photo collage!)

I mixed all the pastel colors together first (those from my neon pack) and really liked that combination. It would be great for a spring or Easter project.

Then I added the rest. I could tell immediately that I didn't have enough. When I got to school and dumped it in the sensory tub, it was just a thin layer that barely covered the bottom. But it will do for now and someday I'll make more. I added some little bears that the kids could bury.

Then we used a spinner from our Candy Land Bingo game. Whichever color it landed on was the color of bear they had to find in the rice.

So yes, more rice would have worked better so the kids could dig around a little more. I also put our sand toys in there so the kids could just play.

They really liked that!
So that is the end of our Color week. I hope you got some good ideas!

Yarn Block Stamping

After seeing this cool painting technique at Splish Splash Splatter, I knew I had to try it with my kids.

I took some blocks from our block center and wrapped them in yarn.

I used masking tape to secure the yarn to the blocks.

Because we were learning about green today, I made three shades of green paint. (Although I think using a whole bunch of colors would be best.)

Then the kids just stamped their papers!

I decided to cut their papers kind of funky to give them a little more visual stimulation, and then I framed them on a piece of green paper.

I think they turned out so cool! I will definitely have to try this with more colors someday. I should warn you, though -- the paint was not easy to clean off the blocks. If I do this again, I will use scrap wood from my basement!

Lego Prints

We are reviewing our colors this week, so I thought it would be the perfect time to try out some different painting techniques that I've seen around the web. Yesterday's color was red and the kids painted with feathers. (I had the day off so I don't have pictures, but I'm sure you've seen it before.) Today's colors were orange and yellow and we used big Legos as stamps.

The kids were so curious when I started taking Legos out of their container, but I just kept saying, "You'll have to wait and see!" I double stacked them so they would have more to hold on to.

And I tried using regular Legos, but the paint was too thick and often covered the whole top instead of just the circles, so I took them out. The bigger Legos made better prints.

The kids kept going and going and didn't want to stop! I think it would look cool with more colors, but like I mentioned above, we were reviewing the colors orange and yellow.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, clean-up was a snap. The washable tempera paint came right off!

Wormy Apples

Before I show you today's project, I want to say thank you to all of you who commented about the news I shared in my last post. You all seem to be just as excited as I am! Your well-wishes and support mean a lot to me!

Now, on with the craft:

I drew a bunch of apples using a template. Then I tore up red and green construction paper into small pieces.

You could have the kids tear the paper, as well. I was just trying to save some time. The kids glued the torn pieces of paper onto their apple using a glue stick.

I let them dry for a few minutes, then cut them out. I cut a thin strip of brown paper, and then cut it up into several pieces to make stems. The kids glued the stem to the back of the apple. Then they used a small piece of a pipe cleaner and formed it into a worm. In other words, wiggly! I used a scissors to punch a small hole in their apple, put the pipe cleaner through it, and taped it to the back.

And that's how we made our wormy apples!

I love how the worms are sticking out!

I think teeny tiny wiggle eyes glued onto the pipe cleaner would be so cute!

**Linking up to the parties on my sidebar!**

Something to Share

I want to show you what I've been working on all summer long:


(Scroll down)






(Keep scrolling!)






(A little more)

Yep, that's right! My husband and I are expecting our first child! We are so excited -- more than words can say. We've had two miscarriages this past year, so seeing a healthy baby at our 12-week ultrasound was amazing! And check out this 3D picture:

A little alien-looking, yes, but still cute! To announce my big news at work, I hung this by our time clock:

If you can't read it, it says, "I might wear pink, I might wear blue. My mommy's a teacher. Do you know who?"
And to announce to my family, I sent an e-mail that said, "Dan and I have been doing some remodeling again. What do you think?" And then I attached these photos to the e-mail:

 

Neither of those is my current stomach. For the first one I was sucking in and for the second one I was puffing out. I'm somewhere in the middle. Anyway, our baby is due March 8th! Sorry this post isn't about a real craft, but I thought some of you might like to know!