WeeHands Challenge Today

Today we participated in the WeeHands Challenge.


We had 7 children and 10 adults come together to celebrate.


We had a lot of fun singing and signing at our public library.

Spin Art Stars

One of our favourite crafts involves a salad spinner. Such a simple and inexpensive craft but with great results. Spinners, paint, star-shaped paper and today we added glitter.




With paper placed in the bottom of the salad spinner, dribble paint all around.








Make sure the lid is on tight.
(And if you are going to buy a salad spinner be sure it doesn't have holes in the bottom.)









Then turn the knob around and around, the faster you spin it the more spread out the paint will go.








Open the lid to check out the results.

Gingerbread Update

We've received mail about our Runaway Gingerbread Men.
My sister visiting Georgia, USA, sent us pictures and a story about seeing gingerbread men. We really enjoyed hearing about the crocodile asking a gingerbread man if he wanted a ride across the pond. Luckily our gingerbread man was clever enough not to be tricked.
We heard from a Kindergarten class in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada.
They saw gingerbread men parachuting from a jet above the airforce base.
Then at the playground they're sure they saw gingerbread men making snowangels in the snow.

Closer to home, they've been spotted by the Qualicum train station and at the gymnastics class at the Comox rec centre.

Have you spotted our gingerbread in your town?
I can't wait to hear more news next week.

Christmas Cards

Today we made Christmas cards. We used the styrofoam stencil method.
I used cookie cutters to make an impression in the styrofoam tray.



Then they used paint rollers to cover the stencil.

Cover it with paper and press.











Uncover to see your work.





We used ribbon, buttons, wiggly eyes and snowflake confetti to decorate.

Pretty and inexpensive.

Building Cars

We changed our dramatic play area yesterday. Gone is the vet/animal rescue centre and now it's an open space with road traffic signs, balance beams, big waffle blocks and trucks.
I also gathered some smaller sized boxes that the children could fit in and use for vehicles.
We cut open the bottom of the box then folded in the flaps.



















Using our collection of different lids they decorated their vehicle. Lights, switches, steering wheels, window wipers and more.

The shoulder straps helped to carry it as they drove.
Some just preferred to park.

Gingerbread Cinnamon Rubbings

Today our room smelled like cinnamon.
We made gingerbread sandpaper ornaments that were rubbed with cinnamon sticks.

First they could colour the gingerbread man,
then they used cinnamon sticks and rubbed all over the gingerbread man.

Some even added hair with baubles.

Rubber Band Snap Painting

Oh today's art was messy - real messy. I did warn the families it would be but I didn't realize how much. I saw this on a website and I apologize for forgetting where and not writing it down to give credit.

We tried rubber band SNAPpainting.
I found these old wooden frames at a thrift store and wrapped thick rubber bands around them. With a piece of paper underneath they painted the rubber bands.
Now the really messy part - SNAP the rubber band.
It splatters beautifully.
ALL OVER!

So we had to devise a method to prevent the splatter up to our faces.

That seemed to work okay except it was difficult to hold down the frame, keep the bands covered and allow the child to see underneath to SNAP the bands.
This family was inventive...


The results were pretty.