Stained Glass Flowers

My husband has family visiting right now from Holland, and Monkey has become very best friends with one of his second cousins. Yesterday while we were out he picked a dandelion to give to his "favourite girl" (he can't always remember her name!) but it was already dead by this morning. I suggested that we could paint a flower for her instead and that way she could take it back home with her. Monkey agreed that it was a good idea. 

Supplies: wax paper, paint, paint brushes, construction paper 

I saw the idea here: http://happyhooligans.ca/stained-glass-painting-2/ ...but we tried to do the same effect and it didn't work, so we just painted the wax paper and left it. It still turned out beautiful! 

I taped some wax paper to our table and got the paint and brushes ready for Monkey. 

Monkey jumped right in and started painting his paper. 

He did the first paper any way he wanted to. On the second paper, we did a whole bunch of dots all over the paper. 

Once he was happy with the paintings, we left them to dry. 

A few hours later when the paint was dry, I used a flower template to cut out some flowers out of the wax paper and some frames out of the construction paper. 

Then I glued them onto the frames and we put them up in the window. 

We gave two of the flowers to our relatives from Holland and kept one in our window. They look so bright, colorful, and cheery!!

Mar 

Painting with Pinecones

Last week we went for a walk / strider around the pond near our house. Monkey found a few trees that had dropped a ton of pinecones on the ground, and like most children, he just had to collect some. 

I told him that we could take them home but only if we used them for some art. Thankfully he thought this was a great idea!

I had seen this idea back in the fall here: http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2014/11/pinecone-painting-thanksgiving-turkey-craft.html

Supplies: pinecones, paint, paper, cardboard box (or baking sheet); optional - butterfly cutout, pipe cleaner, googly eyes, glue

I taped a piece of paper inside an old cereal box with one side cut off. You could also use a baking sheet with tall sides but with the cardboard box there is no clean up, just throw it right in the recycling!

Since we weren't using paint that we could squeeze out of the bottle, Monkey used popsicle sticks to drop paint onto the paper. 

Once the paper had lots of globs of paint, Monkey threw in the pinecones. 

Then it was time to shake! 

Of course I was singing "shake it like a Polaroid picture" while Monkey shook the pinecones around. I can't help myself! But he loved it :)

Once the paper was thoroughly covered we took the pinecones out and put them aside on a piece of paper towel. 

I wasn't in love with the way the painting looked. The places where Monkey had dropped the paint were really obvious, and the parts in between those globs where the pinecones had covered looked much better. 

We decided to try again. This time, instead of putting the paint directly on the paper, we put it onto the pinecones. 

This definitely took the mess level up!! But it was worth it. 

Once the pinecones we all painted we put them on the paper in the box. 

Then Monkey shook the box around again. 

This method turned out way better! In the photo below, the top painting is from when we put the paint directly on the pinecones, while the bottom painting is from when we put the paint onto the paper. 

Once the paintings were dry, I used the butterfly cutout to trace and cut out butterflies. 

Then we added pipe cleaners for antennae...

...and googly eyes!

So cute!

Mar 

Recycled Earth Day Art

Today we did a simple art activity, but it's definitely one of my favourite pieces of art that Monkey has ever done. 

I was inspired by the idea I saw here: http://funhandprintartblog.com/2015/03/painted-newspaper-art-for-kids.html

...although we did ours a little different. 

Supplies: newspaper, paintbrushes, green and blue paint 

Monkey helped me squeeze out some paint and then we set up the activity. 

I asked him to cover all the words with green and blue paint. 

He did a great job using both colours all over the paper. 

Once the paper was completely covered, we left it on the table to dry. 

Less than an hour later, I used a bowl to trace a circle onto the paper and then cut it out.

I just love this!! The way the two colours are all blended together makes such a beautiful representation of the Earth. 

Happy Earth Day!

Mar 

Grass Caterpillar

Spring is such a happy time of year! Everything starts to grow and turn green and it's a great chance to explore planting seeds and watching the process of a living thing. 

There are lots of fun ways to grow grass. This time around we chose the grass caterpillar. 

Supplies: soil, grass seed, egg carton, pipe cleaner, googly eyes, glue

Monkey had already helped with collecting some dirt from our planter box to use for this activity. 

Next he gave his caterpillar eyes and antennae. 

Then we planted the seeds. Monkey filled the egg carton about half full with soil. 

Then he added a big sprinkle of seed to each cup. 

Then we covered the seed with a bit more soil and the caterpillar was ready to go. 

We brought him inside, added some water and left him in a sunny place. Monkey remembered from some of our activities last spring that plants need water and sunshine to grow. 

Every morning Monkey checked on the caterpillar and gave it a little bit of water. It took six days for the first few blades of grass to sprout up out of the dirt. 

After that the grass came pretty quickly.

Here is the caterpillar after two weeks.  

The next two days he grew a ton! This is after sixteen days. 

And finally, here he is after twenty days, almost ready for a haircut!!

Monkey really enjoyed this activity. I like that it has kept his interest all this time and he's had some experience caring for a living thing. 

Mar 

Candy Experiment

Today we did a fun science experiment. I've had the supplies for a few weeks now but we just never got around to it. 

Supplies: glass or glass jar, variety of candies, hot water

We were at Bulk Barn before Easter and we loaded up on a selection of all different kinds of candy. I made sure we got many kinds... some chocolate, some sugary, some marshmallow, etc. 

We put the kettle on to boil some water, because I knew some of the candies might melt if we used hot water. While we waited, Monkey examined all the candies. He's not really a big fan of candy so he decided that he only wanted to eat the chocolate ones. 

Once the water has boiled, we poured some into our glass jar. 

Then Monkey picked one candy to drop in first. 

He chose a Rocket. I knew it would dissolve so I gave him a spoon to stir  with. Pretty soon the Rocket dissolved!! The other candies that dissolved were the Lego candy and the peppermint. 

Monkey really wanted to eat the Easter chocolate but we had only bought one, silly mommy! He reluctantly dropped it into the hot water. 

The chocolate melted almost right away and definitely changed the water the most. 

Yummmmm. Not. 

Some of the candies did not react at all to the hot water. 

All the gummy candies (carrot, gummy bear, gum drop, sour watermelon, and marshmallow bunny) just got saturated with water, but didn't look very different when we pulled them out. 

Monkey's favourites were the Skittle, gum ball, and Smartie. These candies lost their colour in the water, but stayed the same shape. 

This was a fun experiment for Monkey. Mostly because he got to eat some chocolates and candies, but also because it was interesting to see what happened to them when we put them in the water. Before we dropped each candy in, I asked Monkey what he thought might happen (hypothesis). After observing, I made sure to use  vocabulary like melt, dissolve, etc. while describing what we had seen. 

Delicious and scientific, yay!

Mar