Sponge Painting Trees

We did a simple but pretty art piece this week.

Cut a sponge into a triangle then into three pieces;

small, medium and large.

 Dip the sponges into green paint and press onto the paper,

 creating your tree.

 We used q-tips dipped in yellow, white or red paint to decorate the tree and background.

 I like using q-tips because the size is right for the children to grasp

and to limit how much paint will go on at one time.

This child added a few more large sponge prints to make her tree taller.

Gingerbread Creation Donation

Each year our StrongStart program creates a gingerbread creation with 

our big buddies.

Then we donate it to a community fundraiser that raises money

for our local Boys & Girls Club.

The little buddies started in our classroom decorating the house

and the train.

Then we got together with our big buddies to make lots of trees

to fill out the board.

They worked together to coat an ice cream cone with green frosting

then decorated it with candy.

I wonder how many candy didn't make it on the tree?

Time to prep the board with lots of frosting

to secure the house, train, tracks 

and all the trees.

Once it was altogether the buddies looked to find their tree.

I delivered it last weekend and then on Monday we went and toured 

all the displays.

And look what we found on our creation...

a post card from our gingerbead cookies.

Milk Carton Gingerbread Houses

Our interest in gingerbread is going strong so I put out some small milk cartons,

brown paper and glue for the children to make their own play

gingerbread houses.

 We used glue and tape to attach the paper.

The children learned how to cover each side and fold a piece

over top for the roof.

The children love using the tape dispenser.

 Over on the glue gun table I put a container of trim

that they could use for the decorations.

As the day passed children started looking farther for decorations.

They used buttons, cupcake liners and more colourful tape.

Next week we will use some of them, that didn't go home,

for a small world play.

Gingerbread Cookie Update

It has been almost three weeks since our gingerbread cookies ran away

and we have received a lot of stories from them as they travel the world.

At school Ms Green's grade 3 class visited and left us some stories too.