kids – Page 2

New Year’s Masquerade Masks

This year’s New Year’s party will be a blast with fancy custom-made masks! Celebrate the past year and what the New Year will bring!

Age: 5+

Duration: 10-20 minutes

Learning Objectives:

You’ll Need:

• R15623 Tie Dye Paper

• R22020 Color-In Masks

• Glue

• Scissors

• Pencil

• Rhinestones or sticker jewels

• Feathers

• Hole punch

• Decorative ribbon

Encourage your students to think of their New Years masks as a reflection of their creative expression. So go crazy with it! Bring out your stock of decorative materials from the craft closet–look for things like sequins, bright, shiny beads or buttons, rhinestones, tinsel and more!

Gather up your plethora of decorations for the masks! You don’t need to use a full sheet of the Tie-Dye Paper to decorate the mask; in fact, it would make sense to cut each sheet in half and divide the halves between two students.

Place the Color-In Mask onto the Tie-Dye Paper and trace around the outside edges with pencil. Be sure to mark those eye holes as well as the pre-punched holes on the sides!

Cut out the Tie-Dye Paper along the traced lines.

Glue the Tie-Dye Paper cutout directly on top of the Color In Mask.

Pick out your assortment of decorative items. Start adding details to your mask! Make patterns with the sequins or rhinestones, trace the outlines of the eyeholes or the edges of the mask.

At this stage, I’ve decided to add decorative feathers to the mask. This adds a bit of flair! You can use hot glue, but regular white glue works fine as well. Simply press and hold down the feather shaft for 30 seconds. If the feather pops away from the paper, dab a bit of glue onto the feathery strands and press down onto the paper.

Finally, punch holes through the Color-In Mask on either side.

Attach a strand of ribbon onto each side of the mask. It’s a good idea to make two strands of ribbon for each mask, as it is easier to tie the mask around students’ heads. This is a great take-home project for kids before they head home for the holiday season!

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Posted on December 17, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Squarehead Teachers: Straws and Connectors Giveaway!

Head on over to Squarehead Teachers and complete the challenge to win a FREE box set of Straws and Connectors! Contest ends December 16, 2014 at midnight.

The Straws and Connectors set is an awesome gift to give your kids or classroom of students this Christmas! Build and design beautiful structures or new shapes. You can learn more about the Straws and Connectors in our recent post at the link or visit the giveaway on SquareheadTeachers.com for more details!

The giveaway post features a full detailed description about the Straws and Connectors with gorgeous photos of various constructions! Check out the full post for contest details.

Are you stumped on where to find lesson plans for your grade-school classroom? Covering a specific unit and can’t find any ideas for it? Be sure to check out Squarehead Teachers! Besides providing you with a variety of amazing FREE PRINTABLES, you gain access to a wide range of subjects for any occasion. Use the resources for any educational space; learn at home or in the classroom with inspirational ideas.

Thank you to Mindy @ Squarehead Teachers for hosting this giveaway!

Images © Squarehead Teachers

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Posted on December 10, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Project Spotlight: Snowflake Weaving Mats

Add beautiful snowflakes to your winter display with artwork your students get to make!

The R16027 Snowflake Weaving Mats kit contains 24 projects for your classroom in four unique snowflake designs. What sets each of your students’ snowflakes apart from each other is the addition of our patterned weaving strips. There are plenty of designs for students to choose. Mix and match different combinations of weaving strips for a beautiful bold look!

Weaving is a great way to encourage fine motor development as it forces fingers to expertly pass the strips over and under the slots in the weaving mat. Remember to alternate the start for each strip as you go!

When you are finished weaving all the way to the bottom of the mat, snip off the ends of the paper strips and tape the finished weave down.

You can see the process for weaving at the link below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZM9688k1z8]

Hang up your finished snowflake designs on a display wall. Alternatively, write the name of each student on his or her snowflake and hang from the ceiling for a lovely mobile decoration.

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

Tissue Paper Button Wreath

Start the Christmas decorating with a simple take-home ornament! Children younger than 5 years can experience the joy of making their own decorations with standard materials you will find in your classroom.

Age: 3-5 years

Duration: 10 minutes

Learning Objectives:

You’ll Need:

• R22052 Double Color Card Sheets

• R2131 Bright Buttons

• R2172 Tissue Circles

• Gluestick

• Scissors

• Pencil

• Hole punch

This wreath is nice and compact to be hung off a doorknob or can be tacked to the center of a child’s room door. Hang up on a tree for a rustic “crafty” look!

We are going to make a simple wreath out of tissue paper and card paper, using the buttons as ornaments to decorate it. Use coordinating colors to make your wreath. You don’t have to make the wreath exclusively for the holidays. Instead, you can adapt it based on different colors that are relative to various seasons! Test out different combinations of colors and materials to see which work best.

Let’s start with making the wreath.

Fold the sheet of Double Color Card sheet in half.

Use scissors to cut a small semi-circle out of the center of the folded sheet. Cut off the corners of the folded sheet and round out the edges to form a larger semi-circle.

Now, unfold the wreath.

Punch a hole into the top of the wreath. Cut a length of decorative ribbon and thread through the hole. Tie a knot at one end.

To add texture to your wreath, you will need to use our Tissue Circles, or find scraps of green tissue paper in your scrap paper box.

Take a scrap of green tissue paper and scrunch it in the center. Pull out the surrounding paper, much like you would when stuffing tissue paper into a gift bag.

Dab a bit of glue onto the wreath and press the scrunched tissue paper on top.

Add more tissue paper scraps all the way around the wreath.

Glue a Bright Button onto the center of each tissue paper section. Enjoy a beautiful but easy-to-make decoration for this holiday season!

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Posted on December 5, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Project Spotlight: Straws and Connectors

What’s so great about our Straws and Connectors? Besides the colors, the simplicity of combinations, and the potential for lessons about geometric structure? Learn more below!

There are two simple components in the Straws and Connectors pack: the straws, which come in a variety of bright and fun colors, and the connectors, which feature 6 prongs to position the straws in any direction.

The most basic shape that students can easily construct is a square using the straws and connectors. Add on more straws and connectors to fill in the structure and turn the square into a cube!

Explore more three-dimensional shapes and talk about their properties as students build them.

The straws are long enough that they can be bent to make curves in the structure, so you are not simply limited to making square structures. It’s a great cooperative material as well! Students can work on separate pieces and combine them all together to make a larger sculpture. This way, children use their skills in coordination, cooperation and critical thinking to create a finished piece.

We challenged our students to build their own projects separately from each other. Students first had to brainstorm their ideas and then bring their projects to life. Can you guess what this project will be?

You can see how this art camper continued creating curves in her structure. This perfectly illustrates just how versatile our Straws and Connectors are!

This art camper made a boat!

And this is a rocket!

Straws and Connectors are a perfect gift to your children this holiday season! Give your students the ability to exercise multiple motor functions while creating sculptures they can truly be proud of!

See more about the R6085 Straws and Connectors here:

Visit the site for more information. Get a look at some of our suggested diagrams for Straws and Connectors!
Our local art gallery featured our Straws and Connectors here
A guest poster presents her son with Straws and Connectors for Christmas!
Check out this group building structures activity!

What else can you make with the Straws and Connectors?

Use our Straws and Connectors to design this ingenious take on a hand fan!

Do you have a Straws and Connectors pack? If so, what kinds of structures did you make with them? We’d love to read your comments below!

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Posted on November 24, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Project Spotlight: Paper Globes

Make beautiful paper globes with colorful paper designs, pre-cut and scored for easy assembly! Hang the globes up on a Christmas tree or decorate one of our mobile bases with the globes.

The Paper Globes feature 8 different color schemes. Each of the color schemes includes 1 solid color and 1 patterned circle. The patterns are all coordinated to work with the solid color circles. Mix and match to make your own combinations! See what works for you.

Each circle is pre-cut with slots. Use the slots to easily slide the circles into each other. You can invert the sides to show through the opposite side of the paper circle you use. The best part about the Paper Globes is that they do not require gluing, so you can turn a craft session into a less-mess experience!

Each pack of Paper Globes will make 16 globes in total. When you have created your globes, punch a hole through the top and tie a length of string or ribbon. With the holiday season approaching, it’s a good idea to consider decorating your tree with easy-to-make ornaments like these!

Alternatively, run a ribbon through the paper globes to make a decorative garland. Hang up the garland on a wall or decorate a ledge in your classroom!

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Posted on November 17, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Craft Spotlight: Peel and Stick Making Faces

Make hilarious faces with creative Peel & Stick face stickers! Choose from a wide selection of funky eyes, noses and mouths to decorate any object! This post details how the face stickers were used to decorate homemade maracas for a great sensory experience.

We used the stickers to decorate bottles filled with collage materials. These materials, when shaken, would produce a sound just like a maraca! To help our art campers characterize their individual bottles, we decided to put a fun face on each of them.

Here’s an art camper applying the stickers onto a bottle. This is a great exercise in facial proportions for your students. Apply two eye stickers side by side at the top of the bottle. Directly above each eye, place an eyebrow.

The best part is that the Peel & Stick face stickers are not specific facial features that should be placed in particular ways, but can be mixed and matched. For example, the shapes that look like mouths can be used as eyebrows! Alternatively, use noses for mouths and so on.

Here’s a look at how the Peel & Stick elements are being used to decorate this art camper’s bottle. The long mouth-like stickers are pasted all over the bottle like an abstract piece.

This art camper decided to put ears on this bottle! This particular piece can be used for a mouth as well, but is vague enough of a shape to give students the flexibility they need in their designs.

To make hair, we used scrapbook scissors to cut strips of tissue paper.

We laid the strips of tissue paper onto the bottle cap and tape them down.

Before capping the bottle, we filled it with beads, rice or some other collage material that will make a cool sound when shaken up.

Give it a try!

We let the art campers take off with their Peel & Stick Making Faces maracas to make some noise!

Here’s another look at a Peel & Stick Making Faces maraca!

And this one! Thanks for checking out this craft!

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Posted on August 18, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Craft Stick Bracelets

Make beautiful bracelets using our R39100 Wild Animal Craft Sticks! An ingenious process creates a curved shape in the craft stick that you can use as a bracelet!

Age: 4+

Duration: 10 minutes. Project dries overnight.

Learning Objectives: Combine craft stick designs with flower pieces to make beautiful combinations. Observe the effects of glue and water on manipulating the shapes of craft sticks. Use simple techniques to create an effective, visually appealing product.

You’ll Need:

• R39100 Wild Animal Craft Sticks

• R15657 Wild Flower Paper Bits

• Small plastic disposable cups

• White glue

• Glue stick

• Water

• Paint tray

• Container

• Paper towels

It’s a good idea to protect your work surface as you will be working with glue and water. Children can share one container of water and glue between each other, but that will inevitably lead to some messes!

Set up all of the supplies you’ll need. The craft sticks are patterned in 5 different designs, but you can experiment with different designs using the Wild Flower Paper Bits.

First, mix 1 part water with 1 1/2 parts glue. You want to have more glue than water, as this will help the bracelet retain its shape. I suggest mixing the glue and water together in a bottle. Cap it off, then shake to get the two ingredients fully mixed.

Pour the mixture into a container that’s long enough to fit the craft sticks inside.

Dip one craft stick inside the container. Let it sit inside for about 1-2 minutes.

Once you remove the craft stick, it becomes bendable! Carefully press the craft stick along its length to loosen it up. Grab the ends and gently bend the craft stick inwards.

Place the craft stick inside the plastic disposable cup along the topmost rim.

Let sit overnight until it dries. In the morning, remove the bracelet from the cup to reveal a beautiful shape!

Now you can decorate your bracelet! Pop out a few of the Wild Flower Paper Bits. Choose several different shapes and patterns.

Dab a bit of glue into the center of each flower. Layer the flowers.

Finally, add a lot of glue to the center of the craft stick bracelet and press your flower design down onto it.

Ready to wear!

You can try a number of different combinations with just a few sheets of flower bits and a great craft stick design!

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Posted on July 2, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Craft Spotlight: My Very Own Puppet Theatre

Play and perform with your personalized puppet theatre! The projects are die-cut to look like theatre curtains and come with two puppet cutouts to decorate and use as characters in your very own play!

R39201 My Very Own Puppet Theatre projects are each hole-punched on either side so they can be threaded with string and worn like a great big necklace.

First pop out the puppet theatre from the backing. Color in the theatre with bright marker colors, like red or purple! Color in the puppet characters as well. The characters are cut with a handle so they are easy for kids to hold.

One of our art campers came up with an idea to make her own puppet character. She used card to cut out a fish shape, colored it in, then attached it to one of our Goo Spreaders! Your students can experiment with different ideas like this.

R39201

Kids can wear the puppet theatre and perform puppet plays anywhere! Read the Puppet Theatre full web guide here to discover curriculum connections and great activities for the classroom.

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Posted on June 24, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman