Toddler Group Tuesday - Melted Snowmen

We actually had to cancel Toddler Group this week because of the snow. The ground was pretty icy especially on the small side roads through the village, and we didn't want to encourage any accidents. A few of our older volunteers felt a lot happier not having to drive to the hall, and in this sort of weather we are often very quiet anyway because people are not that happy to venture out in the yucky conditions, and with quite a few schools closed, some would have older children at home too.

But, I can show you what we got up to last week at the craft table (having been entirely rubbish and not done my job properly and shown you last week!). We made melted snowman pictures.

To make your own you will need:

- A sheet of coloured paper
- Some white paper
- Glue
- Scissors
- Cotton wool
- A pipe cleaner
- Black card
- Silver glitter
- Orange and red paper or card
- Snowflake confetti

First of all cut a random wiggly blob shape out of the white paper and glue onto you sheet of coloured paper. This is your snowman's melted body.
Glue a ball of cotton wool anywhere you like onto the white paper shape. This is your snowman's head.
Cut a black circle big enough to cover the top of your snowman's head, and a small rectangle of black card that can be rolled to form the top of the hat. Glue the rolled black card to the black circle and allow to dry (we had these ready prepared for our toddlers)
Glue the hat to the top of your snowman's head.

Wrap the pipe cleaner around the snowman's neck and twist at the front to form the scarf.
Cut some small circles from the black card and glue in place as eyes and buttons.
Cut an orange triangle and a red crescent shape from the paper/card and glue in place for a carrot nose and a mouth.
Add glue and glitter where you see fit, and decorate the rest of the coloured paper base sheet with confetti snowflakes.

All finished!

And here's the Smaller Person's finished snowman (stuck on the fridge!)

You can see, his snowman has melted so much, his face has slipped down onto his body!

You could also gather some small twigs from outside and glue to the melted body for arms. Your snowmen could take any form you like, so perhaps it is a snow-woman? You could make a family of melted snowmen.  You could even take ti further and create a little 3D scene next to an iced over pond made with tinfoil or metallic card cur to shape. Melted snowman can also turn up on the top of your cakes and biscuits: use icing as the melted body, a white marshmallow for the head, liquorice laces for the scarf and mouth, biscuits or wafers with sweets to form the hat, and other sweets or icing for the features and buttons. Yummy! Again, the larger scene or family of snowmen could be made on a larger cake.

Toddler Group Tuesday - Cone Santas

This week at toddler group we made Santa models with a cone shape.

To make your own you will need:
- Plain paper in festive colours
- Glue
- Scissors
- Cotton wool
- Glitter (red, gold, green, silver)
- Skin tone paper/card
- Pen
- Foil confetti/craft pom pom/any other decoration you would like

To begin with you need to make your cone base. Draw a semi circle on your plain festive coloured paper. We used green and pink sugar paper for ours (pink? I know, not really festive, but it almost looks like faded red in the right light!)
Cut the semi circle out and roll the sides round on each other to form a cone, then glue in place.
Cut a small circle from the skin coloured paper/card, then using a pen draw a little face. I drew 3 different designs for toddler group today so that the children had a choice.

Glue your face onto the cone, close to the top, but leaving enough of the point to act as the hat.
Glue cotton wool to the tip of the cone, around the cone above the face for the hat edge, around the sides and bottom of the face for the beard, down the centre front for the the fur coat trim and a tiny little bit on the face for a moustache.
Glue you decorations on where you like and draw patterns with glue,then sprinkle with glitter.

All finished!

And this little guy is the Smaller Person's creation.

You could add sting to the top of the cone so that you can hang it, you could make a larger version using card as the base, and attaching some elastic for a chin strap so that you make a Christmas party hat. for extra detail you could cut some little mitten shapes out of coloured paper, stick them on and trim the cuff with  more cotton wool (I was a bit too short on time to cut out the little gloves this time). This would also work for Mrs Claus, Elves, Reindeer, Angels, and Snowmen. You could even make up an entire Nativity scene!

Toddler Group Tuesday - Gingerbread Christmas Cards

Christmas is getting closer and closer by the day (sorry if you hate being reminded!) especially now that we are officially in December!

This week we've been make some lovely gingerbread stamped cards.

To make your own gingerbread cards you will need:
- Plain card in festive colours or white
- Gingerbread coloured paint
- Sponge
- Christmas Cookie cutters
- Gold glitter
- White ric rac or yarn
- Coloured sequins
- Pen
- Scissors
- Red/green paper
- Metallic pen

First fold your card in half to form your card base.
Take your chosen cookie cutter and place it on the sponge. Drawn around the shape with your pen, then cut out. This creates your own Christmas sponge stamp.(If you're lucky enough to have christmas stamp shapes that are big enough, you can skip this step!)
Using your Christmas stamp and the gingerbread coloured paint, stamp your shape onto your card.
Whilst the paint is still wet, stick your white yarn/ric rac as icing, and your sequins as sweets. The sprinkle all over with glitter for some festive sparkle!

Cut a strip of red or green paper (I cut ours in a curved shape) and write your message in metallic paper then glue onto your card to finish.

All done!

Here's the Smaller Person's finished Gingerbread Snowman :)

This works well with any Christmas shape, but especially well with Gingerbread man shapes. Ours today were Christmas Trees, Bells, Snowmen and Angels. You could make your own gingerbread stamped garland in the same way, by cutting your Gingerbread creation out once they are dry, punching holes along the top and threading on a ribbon to hang up. You could cut out 2 of the same stamped shape and sandwich a loop of ribbon between them to make a double sided hanging tree decoration. Make one side plain, and you have a lovely gingerbread gift tag. You can also stamp your gingerbread shapes onto plain paper gift bags or repeatedly onto larger sheets of paper for wrapping. There are so many things you could do!

Toddler Group Tuesday - Scottish Thistles

It is St Andrew's Day on Friday, so we've been doing a little bit of thistle collage today.

To make your own thistle you will need:

- Card

- Glue

- pink/purple collage bits (we've used yarn and cut it up into little fluffy bits)

- Green paint

- Pencil

- Scissors
- Green glitter

First you need to draw a thistle shape onto your card. If you're feeling arty, you can copy our template (photo below) or sketch your own from a photograph or picture, if not you could try this one here or do an internet search for a different image.

Once that is drawn, cut it out with scissors.

Glue all over the flower head and stick the pink/purple collage material in place. I would be even better if you can use some interesting textures to show the fluffiness of the purple flower.
Paint the stem and leaves with green paint and sprinkle with green glitter whilst it is still wet. This adds a more textured to look, just like a real thistle has.

All done!

You could add a little tartan bow (but we didn't have any in our craft cupboards) or if you have more time, you could even make a Scottish flag using a sheet of blue paper and white cross formed using white masking tape. Once your flag is ready, mount your thistle in the centre. This would be great if you could find some green scratchy or fibrous materials to use instead of green paint, to really show the contrast in texture between the stem and the flower. 

Back to Christmas crafting next week!

Toddler Group Tuesday - Christmas Tree Decorations

This Tuesday we made hanging decorations for Christmas. Look! Mini Christmas trees!

 To make your own pine cone Christmas tree you will need:

- A pine cone (one of our lovely mums went out collecting some and brought some in for us to use for different craft projects.)
- Green paint
- Green glitter
- Glue
- Yarn or thin ribbon
- foil confetti or stickers (we used both)

First of all you need to tie your length of ribbon or yarn around the top (pointy end) of your pine cone. Make sure you double knot it, then tie a knot in the end of the yarn or ribbon so that it forms a loop to hang with (so that's 3 knots in total).
That's the worst part, not because it is hard, but because it is fiddly! Once it's done, it's the fun decorating.
Paint green paint on your cone (it doesn't matter that the natural colour shows through, it all adds to the effect).

Whilst the paint is wet, sprinkle with green glitter.
Use the glue to stick your confetti all over, or just use the stickers as they are.

All done!

My example tree.

The Smaller Person tree.

Craft pom poms would work well for baubles on the mini tree too, but we didn't have any. Also, you could make a mini paper banner with scrolled ends to glue across the the centre with a festive message or a person's name (this would work well for an extra special gift tag).

Toddler Group Tuesday - Pudsey Ears

This week at toddler group we have been making Pudsey ears in honour of Children in Need this coming Friday. For those outside of the UK who may not be aware of this charity, it has raised millions for disadvantaged children since it began in the 1980s. Every year in November, the BBC run a telethon to raise more money and features many famous faces and one-off pieces of entertainment. This year, for instance, there is 'POP goes the Musical' which will feature Macy Gray, Stooshe, and Joe McElderry doing 'Thriller', Geri Halliwell doing 'Singing in the Rain, Amelia Lily doing 'Shrek the Musical', Blue doing 'Jersey Boys'  and Alexandra Burke doing 'Les Miserables'. Schools, workplaces and other groups across the country get involved with free fundraising packs to stage their own individual fundraisers across the country. You can see what the Small Person wore to school last year in aid of Children in Need, this year they are all going to school in their PJs (and she's very excited!). Pudsey Bear is the charity's mascot.

In the past we have made spotty dotty pictures by printing paint with different sized cotton reels and sponges. This teddy bear craft from a few weeks ago would also fit well with the theme, just change the collage materials to yellow and cut some bandages from paper or card to go across the one eye.

To make pudsey ears you will need:
- White card
- Yellow card
- Coloured dot stickers
- Glue
- Scissors
- Sticky tape
- Paint
- Small round items for stamping (we've used small cotton reels)

First cut some white card into a strip about 2" wide that is long enough to fit around the head. If you need to stick more than one strip together, do this with some sticky tape.
Cut 2 yellow arched shaped (longer than a semi-circle so you have enough card to overlap and stick) from the yellow card.
Stick each 'ear' that you have just cut to the inside of your white strip near the middle, with a 1"-2" gap inbetween. Use strips of sticky tape to secure.
Cut 2 smaller arched shapes from white card. Decorate them with the dot stickers. Glue these white arched shapes to the centre of your ears on the outside (right side) of your creation.

Print coloured paint dots all over the white head band with your chosen round stamps.

Once the paint and glue is dry, fit around the head for size and fix the ends with tape.
All done!

Here is the Smaller Person's version while we were waiting for the paint to dry :)

You can wear your pudsey ears whilst you watch the Children in Need coverage this Friday (16th Nov). There's still time to get fundraising to help out, or you could just help by donating.

Toddler Group Tuesday - Remembrance Poppies

Today we have been making lovely red poppies in preparation for Remembrance day, which is just around the corner.

For this craft you will need:
- plain card
- scissors
- pencil
- red paint
- green paper
- black paper

First draw your poppy shape onto the plain card in pencil. You can make your own shape, or as you can see from the photograph here draw something that resembles a squashed number 8 or snowman.

Cut this out. Draw your leaf shape onto the green paper. You can copy the one in the photograph, draw around an actual leaf from outdoors, or take inspiration from the official remembrance paper poppies.

Cut this out. Draw and cut out a black circle from the black paper, just the right size to sit in th centre of your poppy shape.

Glue your green leaf to the back of your poppy shape so that it sticks out from underneath.
Paint your poppy red all over. You could use different materials and textures to paint with. Whilst the paint is still wet, place your black circle in the centre. It will stick to the wet paint.

All finished!

You can see what we made for Remembrance day in the past here.

Please remember to dig into your pockets and buy an official poppy, and don't think this homemade version is an adequate substitute. It's great to get the kids crafting and use a craft like this to talk about Remembrance day, but the actual money raised through purchasing an offical poppy goes to good causes.

Toddler Group Tuesday - Halloween

This week is our last week before our half term break so we've been making Friendly Ghosts and Smiley Spiders for Halloween.

To make the Ghosts you will need:
- White card
- Various white collage bits
- Glue
- Pencil
- Scissors
- White yarn/string
- Tape
- Black card/fabric/paper/foam
- Red card/paper/foam/fabric

First you need to draw a ghost shape on your white card in pencil. I made several different shapes for our toddlers. Some are round with wiggly trailing tails, others resemble a pacman ghost. The thing about ghosts is, they really can be any shape you like!
Cut out your ghost shape. Tape a loop of yarn or string to the back of your ghost for hanging.

Glue white collage pieces all over your ghost.

We've used pieces of lace, cut up doilies, white tissue paper and cotton wool.

Cut two ovals from the black material and glue in place for eyes.
Cut a mouth from the red material and glue in place.

This is the 'surprised' mouth shape.

I cut several different shaped mouths for the children to choose from. One is a big wide open smile, one is a wailing mouth which is shaped a bit like a wiggly figure eight, and the third shape is a surprised mouth which is shaped like a fat comma.

All finished!

Alternatives: You could add bow ties, head bows or spiders. You could make it double sided by sandwiching your string between two cut-outs and decorating both sides. You could add a speech bubble 'BOO!' written/painted on a halloween coloured piece of card/paper. You could make a painted version - instead of cutting your ghost shape from white card, choose a suitable halloween colour (black, grey, orange, purple, green). Once your ghost is cut out, use white paint to handprint all over, then glue the facial features as before.

This is the Smaller Person's Spider (his second handprint was quite gloopy!).

To make the spider you will need:
- Halloween coloured paper/card
- Black paint
- Glue
- White card
- Black marker/felt tip pen
- Scissors
- Pink paper/card

This is simple, fun, (very) messy and quick.
First print a black handprint on your Halloween coloured paper/card with the fingers facing out towards the edge of the paper. Next print another black handprint, overlapping the palm with the palm of the first print, and with the fingers facing towards the opposite side of the paper. This is your spider body.

Cut circles from the white card. Draw a black pupil in the centre of the circles for eyes. (we only cut enough for 2 eyes per spider because of the number of children we have, but you could cut enough for the full set of eight!). Glue them in place.
Next cut a smiley mouth shape from the pink paper/card and glue in place.

All finished!

Alternatives: You could of course use googly eyes (maybe in different sizes) instead of cutting your own eyes. You could also add some white triangular fangs to the mouth. Perhaps your spider needs a little colour? Glue sequin 'spots' to the top of his body, add craft pom poms to the end of his legs for little shoes, maybe add a ribbon bow tie under his body or a feather/some fake fur to the top his head for a funky hair-do!

Don't forget the Tube Owl craft we made a few weeks ago is suitable for Halloween and I did make a couple of alternative suggestions at the end of that post to change the craft from Owls to Bats or Fire Imps! You can also see a couple of Halloween things that we've made in the past in this post here.

Enjoy the half term break for those that have it this next week. We'll be back with Toddler Group Tuesday on 6th November.

Toddler Group Tuesday - Printed Elmer

Today at toddler group we painted Elmer the elephant.

You will need:
- a sheet of card
- a pencil
- scissors
- sponges (we used washing up scourers)
- different coloured paints

First we drew elmer the elephant onto the crad with the pencil. You can find outline templates on the internet, trace it from one of the books, or if you're feeling arty, draw your owen outline.
Cut Elmer out.
We cut our scourers into square pieces and used them to print red, blue, green and yellow patches all over our Elmers.

All done! You can switch extra colours in, tie it into a story reading, make Wilbur the black and white elephant or even stick coloured papers with your paint squares.

This is the Smaller Person's masterpiece - he loved it!

Toddler Group Tuesday - Teddy Bears

At the birthday boy's request, we made teddy bears at toddler group today.

You will need:
- a piece of card (cereal box will do)
- glue
- textured brown collage pieces (felt, fabric, wool. fake fur. scrunched tissue paper)
- white card/paper
- black felt tip
- brown paper/foam
- red/pink felt
- pink paper/foam

First draw a teddy bear shape on your card. You can either do this yourself (large oval for body, smaller circle on top for head, smaller circles for arms and legs, then add half circles for ears) or find one of many templates on the internet.
Cut this out as your base.
Glue you brown textured collage pieces all over your bear.
Cut an oval/circle just the size to fit your bear's head as his muzzle.
Glue the muzzle in place.
Cut two cirlcles from white paper/card and draw a black dot in each for eyes. Glue in place.
Cut a small circle from the pink paper/foam and glue in place for the nose.
Cut a heart from the red/pink felt and glue to your bears chest to how the love :)

You could try different coloured bears, especially if you wanted the children to make a new baby card for someone. You could also add other bear accessories: flowers on their head, ribbon bows at their necks or on their heads, patterned fabric paw pads, jar or honey, a hat.... what else might a bear need?

Toddler Group Tuesday - Tube Owls

I remember making a version of this owl when I was just a Small Person, and I've seen a few other variations floating around the web. Here's our version we made with the toddlers at today's session.

 

To make your own tube owl you will need:

- a cardboard tube (we have used cut down kitchen roll middles)
- glue
- white paper or card
- at least 2 different shades of brown paper or card (you could even use fabric, felt or other flexible materials)
- orange craft foam (you could also use paper/card/felt)
- some yellow craft foam (again, paper card or felt would also work)
- a black felt tip pen or marker

First of all you need to make your owl shape. To do this you fold one half of the top down and ease into the curve shape you see here, then you fold the second top half over the top. This is similar to a pillow box opening. We did this for the children so that they were ready to go (don't forget we're working in a short time span with children aged 0-5).

Next we glued a strip of brown paper over the bottom half of the tube (opposite end to the shaped fold). This seperates the body and the head into two different colours.

Back view with paper strip and 'feathers' on show.

We cut feather shapes with flat ends (you can see clearly in the photograph) from the different brown papers. We glued them at different levels all over the body section.

We cut two curved edged pieces (similar to the feather pieces, but rounder and smaller) from the yellow craft foam and glued them to the underside of the bottom of the owl. These are the owls feet.

Next we cut two circles from the white card/paper, roughly around the size of a 10p. We used the black marker to make a big round pupil in the centre of each circle to form the big eyes. We glued these in place close to the top of the head section.

We cut a small triangle from orange craft foam and glue this in place under the eyes to form the beak.

All finished!

We could have attached string or ribbon at the point where we were creating the folds at the beginning, and then you would be able to hang them up. Mr Bogert has already requested that we make some for the christmas tree this year, so I'll be sure to post a Christmas version closer to the festive season.

You could create different variations with different colour papers. If you have time, look up some different varieties of owl and look at the colours of their feathers. A snowy owl for example could be made with different shades of white paper, and mabe even some feathers cut from old printed letters. You could even add a dusting of glitter for a bit of snow or frost. Winter isn't that far away.

A couple of suggestions for halloween craft along similar lines and using the same folded tube shape: to create a vampire bat, use black papers, cut bat shaped wings and glue to the back. You could use googly eyes or the same eyes as the owl, and instead of a triangle for an orange beak, cut two white triangles for fangs! Alternatively, use all red, orange and yellows. Use yellow for the eyes, and white triangles for fangs. Cut the same bat shaped wings, but from red or orange and glue them to the back of your tube. Use foam or card to cut a long spear headed tail shape, and finish with a sprinkling of gold or red glitter - you've just created a fire imp!

Happy crafting :)

Toddler Group Tuesday - Autumn Trees

This week at toddler group we've created some mini autumn masterpieces using finger-painting and collage.

To make these autumn trees you will need:
- paint the colour of autumn leaves (think red, orange, yellow, brown, gold, or any inbetween shades)
- a sheet of A4 paper or card (we've used blue sugar paper because the autumn colours contrast really well with the blue)
- brown collage pieces
- glue
- gold glitter
- a pen or pencil

Begin by drawing the shape of your tree trunk and branches. This was pre-done for our toddlers.
Next, glue your own collage pieces all over the shape you have drawn.
Using your fingers and the coloured paint, print fingerprint 'leaves' all over the top of the tree.
Whilst the fingerprint leaves are still wet, sprinkle with glitter for a lovely autumn shimmer.

Alternatives for the colours:

• Substitute the autumn colour paint for silver paint or iridescent glitter glue for a frosty tree - include some snowflake confetti on your background and use a little white or silver glitter.
• Switch the autumn colours for fresh greens and use buttons or pom poms for fruit.
• Cover the branches in scrunched up tissue paper 'blossoms' in shades of pink and peach. (we've done thi a few time in the past)
• If you have time, you could make a tree picture for each season to make a larger piece of art, or even to use on a calendar for 2013.

Alternatives for the trunk:

• One large brown hand print with the fingers forming branches
• Drawing around your hand and arm on brown paper/card/fabric/foam etc and cutting it out to stick on
• Cutting your tree shape from some textured material such as corrugated card and printing the shape and texture onto your tree picture with brown paint.

This is the Smaller Person with his masterpiece (he was more interested in the paint and glitter). He's so proud that he can't keep still!

So here's his masterpiece in a little less blurry form :)