kids crafts – Page 2

Earth Mosaics

15666 Earth Tone Mosaics girl web

There is no end to the fun nature-themed crafts you can make with R15666 Earth Tone Mosaics. The squares come in rich, earthy tones of different colors such as blue, green, yellow, orange, and others.

Each square has a different color on either side, so you won’t have to worry about flipping every square over to get to the colored side. A matte finish on the back of each square makes for easier gluing, but either side can be glued, depending on which color or finish
(matte vs. coated) you want to use.

Use the squares to make patterns and decorations for:

A favorite journal or notebook
Jewelry box
Vase
Plant pot
A placemat

Create cool nature scenes! The rich, earthy colors of the squares make for ideal seasonally-themed or Earth Day crafts. Your creations will be a great way to bring nature indoors.

Line-20

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every week!

Posted on March 14, 2016February 12, 2020 by Raman

Tessellations Mosaics

Inspired by Pattern Blocks, we’ve created 6 shapes that can be used to make wonderful tessellation patterns. Shapes are: equilateral triangle, rhombus, trapezoid, hexagon, square and small rhombus. Each shape is carefully crafted to match the sides and angles of the other shapes allowing your students to use the shapes to create seamless tessellations or to design animals, people, vehicles, structures and patterns!

Unlike Pattern Blocks, which have specific colors for specific shapes, our tessellations mosaics come in a range of 12 bright, glossy, double-sided colors. Your students can make patterns with similar colors or challenge themselves by creating patterns in different colors. Get students acquainted with the different shapes and talk about their characteristics by giving each group a bowlful of the Tessellations Mosaics. Ask students to sort the mosaics only according to color. They must choose one color and find all the shapes in that color. Note: Make sure to point out that the mosaics are double-sided!
Once all the shapes are found, ask students to describe each shape to you.

What do the shapes look like? For instance, some children may say the trapezoid reminds them of a roof. Once your students get a chance to share their opinions on the shapes, discuss the characteristics of the shapes. We’ve included a short description of each of
the shapes later on in this guide. Now comes the fun part—putting the Tessellations Mosaics together! Pull out the provided pattern sheets and photocopy each set. Keep the
original sheets safe for future use. There are 2 patterns on each sheet. Print as many sheets as required for your class. You can provide the entire sheet with both patterns to students or cut the sheets and hand out one pattern each.

Fill in the puzzles with the shapes shown in the outlines. Before students fill in their patterns with the mosaics, encourage them to experiment with colors. For their first pattern, students can make the shapes match all in one color. Once they get comfortable with arranging the Tessellations Mosaics onto the pattern sheet, they
can switch out different colors for the same shapes. For instance, instead of filling a pattern sheet with Tessellations Mosaics all in red, students can switch out some of the red shapes for the same shapes in blue.

15664 Tessellations Mosaics girl web

Make new patterns with these color arrangements! After all the students have arranged and glued down their mosaics, compare the patterns to see how different color combinations change how the patterns look. These patterns are intended to teach students how to put the mosaics together. They are meant as a guide to understand how the edges and angles of the shapes can be matched. Some of the patterns can be replicated to make regular tessellations. These patterns can be tiled together to make even larger and more impressive patterns. Ask children to cut their patterns and arrange one big tessellation on a bulletin board.

To add more value to your Tessellations Mosaics pack, go online to download our amazing patterns featuring kaleidoscope-like designs and fun animals! Click on the ‘Artwork’ link to access the resources in printable PDFs. You can access the artwork directly here. Fill in the designs with the Tessellations Mosaics! Draw thematic backgrounds, such as an ocean, the plains or a jungle onto the animal puzzle cards!

Line-11

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every week!

Posted on February 16, 2016February 12, 2020 by Raman

Flag Designer

Create your own beautiful flags or duplicate your country’s flag with our Flag Designer kit!

Use the blank card flags to initiate discussion about country flags and their symbolism. Talk about your own country’s flag and what the colors or images on the flag represent. You can even broaden the discussion to include the country flags for students of different nationalities.

You can make the project more interesting if you encourage children to design their own flags for a favorite team, make-believe country or for a special club.

Provide your students with scrap paper on which to first design their flags. Use crayons, markers or pencil crayons to color in your flags.

Pin up the finished flags for a classroom display!

Here are some other great project ideas you can incorporate in your unit study about flags:

• Make a flag windsock using a super-cool color resist technique!

• Hang your flags together with a Paper Hand Wreath to celebrate diversity in the classroom!

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday!

Posted on June 6, 2015February 12, 2020 by Raman

Butterfly Ornaments Bracelets

Turn beautiful Butterfly Ornaments into wonderful bracelets!

Age: 4+

Duration: 15-20 minutes plus drying times

Learning Objectives: Use a unique material to create a color resist effect. Learn to diffuse colors with special paper. Create swirly designs, shapes and interesting patterns on the wings. Use fine motor skills to squeeze wing designs into bug bodies and curl antennae.

You’ll Need:

• R83260 Butterfly Ornaments Kit

• R54460 Squiggle Pipettes

• Clear glue

• Plastic bowls

• Watercolor paint

• Paint tray

• Pipe cleaner

The Butterfly Ornaments Kit features pre-cut butterfly wings made out of Color Diffusing Paper. It’s a good idea to put the wings onto a paint tray as you drip-drop the color resist glue.

Pour some clear glue into a plastic bowl. Squeeze the bulb of a Squiggle Pipette to expel all the air from it, then drop the tip into the clear glue and release. This will draw in some of the clear glue into the pipette chamber.

Press the pipette bulb to squeeze out the glue onto the Color Diffusing Paper butterfly wing. You can draw shapes such as stars or circles, or make patterns like polka dots!

This art camper decided to make polka dots out of the clear glue. Leave the glue to dry overnight.

Once the clear glue has completely dried, use the Squiggle Pipettes to drop watercolor paint on top. As you can see in the above image, all the areas where the clear glue had dried will repel the paint.

Once the wings are dry, you can accordion fold the wings and squeeze them into the slot of a bug body. The bug bodies are included in the kit.

You can insert a pipe cleaner through the head and wrap the length around your wrist. This will make a bracelet!

Alternatively, you can string the colorful wax-dipped antennae through the holes in the head of the bug body.

Our art campers placed their butterfly ornaments onto the greenery in the area. As the watercolor dries, it leaves a beautiful color on the wings!

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday!

Posted on June 3, 2015February 12, 2020 by Raman

Spotlight on… Pocket Portfolio!

Need something to do on those long road trips? Or just feeling very artistic? Try our R82051 Pocket Portfolio, ready set with all the materials you need to make a sketchbook of unique illustrations!

The R82051 Pocket Portfolio is a great kit to bring out even for rainy school days when everyone’s stuck inside! The kit features over 100 printed coloring pages with beautiful illustrations, including everything from a person’s portrait to an ice cream sundae, teddy bear, lady bug and more! The range of coloring pages makes the kit a great repeat project to do whenever you need something to fill in the time for your students.

The kit also includes 8 crayons that you can add to your stash of existing crayons! You can keep the entire kit inside of the package as a handy place to stash all your artwork and materials.

We’ve included an assortment of rubbing plate patterns that you can use to decorate the foreground or background of each scene. Simply place the rubbing plate underneath the sheet of paper. Use the blunt side of a crayon and rub back and forth. The imprint of the rubbing plate underneath will show through the paper to appear as if you’ve colored the sheet in an interesting pattern. Use the rubbing plates to make patterned details on leaves, petals, clothes and more!

Here’s an alternative way to have fun with your coloring kit: Paste on materials to decorate the coloring pages such as colorful mosaics or other fun embellishments!

When you have finished coloring in all the pages in the kit, you can further use your rubbing plates to make cool craft projects!

• Rub designs onto clear protective sheets to make suncatchers

• Use the patterned rubbing plates to make textures for fun spring crowns

• Explore planetary surfaces with our fun paper solar system!

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday!

Posted on May 25, 2015February 12, 2020 by Raman

Four Leaf Clovers

Make your own lucky charm just in time for St. Patrick’s Day!

Age: 5+

Duration: 10 minutes

Learning Objectives: Learn basic cut and fold techniques. Use ruler to measure a certain width for each strip in the lucky charm. Talk about the history of Saint Patrick’s Day. Learn about color combinations through unique Double Color Card sheets!

You’ll Need:

• R22052 Double Color Card Sheets

• Stapler

• Tape

• Scissors

• Ruler

• Pencil

• Optional: Thread or ribbon

Select your sheet of Double Color cardstock. You will first need to make a set of card strips. Start by measuring 1″ (2.5 cm) away from the edge of the Double Color Card Sheet. You can choose either side of the Double Color Card to determine the length of each strip (the cards are 8 x 9″ or 20 x 23 cm).

Make a mark at the inch point at the bottom of the sheet. Move the ruler to the top of the sheet and mark another point. Use the points to draw a straight line from top to bottom.

Follow the line with a pair of scissors to cut out the first strip! Repeat the previous steps three more times.

You can see that I’ve cut out a bunch of different colors! I want to make my four leaf clover as exciting as possible.

Fold a strip of paper in half.

To form the curve of the clover leaves, use a pencil to curl the insides starting from the point upwards.

Overlap the two ends of the curves together to form a heart shape. Secure the two sides together with a stapler or use tape.

The double color feature of the heart looks beautiful just as is! You could make plenty of hearts like these to decorate for Valentine’s Day! In fact, we’ve used a variation of this craft to make our Heart Wreath… go check it out at this link!

Repeat the same steps to turn the rest of the paper strips into mini hearts!

Join two of the hearts together at the sides with some tape.

Add a third heart to one side of the duo. Use tape to secure.

Finish off with the last heart. Secure with tape on both sides.

Make as many as you like! Attach together to make garlands. Or hang them from the ceiling to decorate your classroom! Alternatively, hang the four leaf clovers from push pins on your cork board and make a Saint Patrick’s Day display!

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday!

Posted on February 26, 2015February 12, 2020 by Raman

Thank You 2013 Art Camp Kids!

Today’s post is a little bit different than our regular series of posts! The folks at Roylco enjoyed a fantastic summer art camp in 2013 thanks to our brilliant art campers. Using our classroom materials, the group completed a variety of amazing projects. We would like to say, “Thank you!” to all of our campers and showcase some of our favorite moments from the camp!

Getting to capture smiles like this was definitely one of our favorite moments. Using our “All About Me” products, our art campers were able to express the best of their own creativity with representations of themselves!

These were some of our favorite moments: getting to see the Art Campers working together and having fun while learning new concepts. The kids learned a variety of skills, everything from building, stacking, painting, gluing, molding, sorting and more!

The best was when we let the campers take their own initiatives with their crafts. Let’s have an animal foot race! Or, let’s find a good place to hang our stained glass frames. It’s an endless lesson in fun and excitement.

We had wonderful hot summer days to enjoy our good company! That, combined with good spirits and creativity turned our summer art camp experience into a dream.

We all loved to pose for photos with our new friends!

We have to give a shout-out to our best buds at the 2013 Art Camp! Everyone did an amazing job and had a blast together. Thank you so much, art campers!

Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Posted on September 8, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Tropical Art-a-Roni Bracelets

Today’s craft is pretty simple, but no less fun to try out! We’re making use of our extra-bright and colorful Tropical Art-A-Roni® Noodles to fashion exotic-looking bracelets.

Age: 4+

Duration: 5-10 minutes

Learning Objectives: Develop manual dexterity while threading pasta beads through pipe cleaners and winding pipe cleaners around spiral pasta beads. Mix and match bright and fun colors for a range of interesting bracelet designs. Enhance visual stimulation while combining multiple bracelets into pleasing arrangements.

You’ll Need:

• R2113 Art-A-Roni® Tropical Noodles

• Pipe cleaners

Making a tropical bracelet is a great way to get prepped for some summer fun at the beach! Our Tropical Art-A-Roni® Noodles are pre-dyed for you, eliminating the need to spend hours creating your own pasta noodle craft pieces for the classroom. One box is contains 1 pound (454g) of assorted colorful pasta noodles–just open and start crafting!

There are more than three kinds of noodles that we can use from the pack to make our bracelets. Although the noodles are mostly intended for gluing down, a neat technique allows you to use more noodles than you might think!

On the far left, I’ve placed our radiatori noodles. These look like mini shrunken spirals. In the middle, you will see our fusilli and cellentani noodles and on the far right, penne and rigatoni pasta noodles.

Pipe cleaners are usually made of a combination of a length of braided wire and woven fibers that make up the fuzzy part. You can press one end of the pipe cleaner against your finger and feel the point. This point can be squeezed into the hole of a radiatori–make sure that the pipe cleaner is straight enough to fit through. If you encounter a stubborn length of pipe cleaner, simply snip it off with a pair of scissors. Push the radiatori through to the desired point.

The penne is quite simple to thread through. Simply slide the pipe cleaner through the opening.

The fusilli are a bit tougher to thread through but with the versatility of the pipe cleaner, it is possible! Start at one end of the fusilli. Wind the pipe cleaner around the bottom of the fusilli then follow the spiraling track across the pasta noodle to the top.

Once you get the hang of it, it’s quite simple!

You can use the same technique with the fusilli as with the cellentani pasta noodles. You can see that I’ve filled up almost the entire length of the pipe cleaner with a variety of pasta noodles.

Once you are near the end of your length of pipe cleaner, twist it and tie off.

Here’s a selection of the various kinds of bracelets I made with pipe cleaners and a few choice Tropical Art-A-Roni Noodles®.

Make multiple kinds of bracelets and wear them all at once for an authentic tropical feel!

Thanks for checking out this post! Like us on Facebook, Share this post with your friends, or Subscribe to this blog today to receive original craft project updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Posted on August 7, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Chromatography Flowers

Find out what colors of ink are used in your markers! Chromatography is used to break a solution into its component parts. In other words, the colors of markers are often made by combining several other colors together. To split these colors back apart, we need to use chromatography! In this post, we’ll show you how this amazing technique can be used to decorate our Color Diffusing Flowers with crazy effects!

Age: 5+

Duration: 10 minutes (+15 minute drying time)

Learning Objectives: Learn about the properties of colors through chromatography. Learn what chromatography is and how certain effects are produced using simple materials. Develop a basic understanding of the science behind color mixing. Explore fundamental scientific concepts, such as physical (compared to chemical) changes in mixtures.

You’ll Need:

• R2440 Color Diffusing Paper Flowers

• Epsom Salts

• Plastic cup

• Warm water

• Markers (washable brands)

Optional:

• Ribbon

• Scissors

Chromatography is a great method to introduce young kids to science… or even to try out for yourself! Basically, the materials used in chromatography help to split a mixture back into its original parts. The Epsom Salts in water attach onto certain molecules in the ink and push them apart. Therefore, it’s a great means of exploring color mixing and how colors are put together to make new ones.

We made a very similar experiment in one of our YouTube videos. Check it out at the link!

Let’s start with our materials! As you can see, we’ll need to select a type of flower, some markers and get our basic chromatography equipment ready. Because markers are made with various shades, you won’t have to worry about staying away from primary colors.

Note: I’ve included yellow just to add a colorful range to our chromatography flower, but as I’ve found, yellow is the only color that won’t separate as well as the others.

There are several different types of flowers to choose from. Select your favorite flower type, then count how many petals are on each flower. Choose a similar number of marker colors per petals on each flower, or double up on some colors. Start at the center of the flower and draw a triangle pointing inwards, with the base facing the petal side. Color in the triangle.

Mix one teaspoon of Epsom salts in one cup of warm water. This solution is what you will use to start the chromatography process! I used a wide, flatter cup to help with dipping the flower evenly into the solution.

Pinch your flower at its center until you form a small handle underneath. This will scrunch the flower a little bit, but it’s important to make this “handle” prominent enough that it will reach the surface of the Epsom salt solution.

Now dip the handle part at the center of the flower into the Epsom salt solution. See how the petals stick out from the center? The petals will hold the flower in place so it doesn’t collapse into the cup. You can even curl the petals outwards so that they hold the weight of the flower out from the center.

Look at what happens over time! Not only does the whole flower get completely covered in ink, but the various colors separate into other colors!

Here, I’ve tried another type of flower. You can see the gradual changes that take place in a matter of minutes!

The solution is creeping up!

You can start to see a change in coloration here.

Now, the ink has completely covered the surface of the flower and is separating the ink into individual lines of color. See the small patch of purple near the center of the flower? You can see some light pink being separated from the darker purple parts.

Ta-da! When the Color Diffusing Flower is fully saturated in water, remove from the cup and set on top of a dry container. Leave to dry for about 15 minutes.

I’ve set out all the dry flowers here for viewing. Look at the separation in colors! You’ll see the most differences coming from colors such as teal, indigo, magenta and orange.