Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie Craft

finished craft.jpg

This craft perfectly combines early geometry with Thanksgiving cheer!

In order for creativity to flourish, students need a solid understanding of the fundamentals. What underpins the fundamentals is vocabulary. A student has to be able to describe their world and what they see before they can change it and create new things. This activity is a great way to connect the visual aspect of shapes to the vocabulary that students will use for their entire academic careers. Fold a single circle first into 2D then 3D shapes, while getting as detailed as your students are ready for. In the classroom, it might be useful to copy the circle onto an overhead transparency or a sheet of clear Mylar so you can demonstrate for the whole class as you take them through this lesson.

What’s great about this activity is that is can be used for a wide range of ages and developmental levels. Very young students practice their fine motor skills while they fold, and build their vocabularies by identifying the basic shapes they are making. For older and more experienced students, this activity is a great way to practice geometric
vocabulary while learning technical aspects of shapes like faces, vertices and angles. Even better, at every level this is a no-fail activity, so while students are practicing vocabulary, they are succeeding at the basic folds. The small success bolsters confidence, and motivates students to take risks.

Age: 4+

Duration: 15 minutes

Learning Outcomes: Practice and reinforce geometry and vocabulary. Create a cute Thanksgiving craft. Exercise folding skills and following directions.

You’ll Need:

Line-22

The first step for this adorable holiday craft is to decorate your base. Place a color diffusing circle on an art tray or cookie sheet for each student, and have the pipette liquid watercolors onto the circle. Be sure to cover the entire surface! Students can use a pre-mixed orange, or they can experiment with pipetting yellow and red separately. Leave the circles to dry.

 

Once the circles are dry, it’s time to fold them up! We have created a special video to demonstrate the process:

Use this opportunity to talk to your students about circles. Circles are a regular shape, with a single face. Challenge students to think of where circles are in the world. They might suggest bicycle or car tires, pizzas or the moon and sun. Older students can talk about the mathematical properties of the circle, like the diameter (the distance between two opposite points), radius (the distance from the center to any single point on the curve) and the circumference (the distance around the outside of the circle). Challenge your students to find the area of their circle, using the formula A = r2. A stands for area. Area is the amount of flat space a shape takes up.

This activity is great for a few different reasons. First, it’s easy to do; as a no-fail activity it’s entertaining to students of all ages and it boosts confidence. Second, it’s an easy-to-scale activity. You can fold a circle with four year olds or fourteen year olds, and the conversations can reinforce basic shape names or basic geometry. Some of the shapes we fold are uncommon, so reinforcing them in this activity is important.

Once students have achieved their 3D Icosahedron, tape the bottom so the shape holds. Now you have the base shape for your slice of pumpkin pie!

step 4

To decorate your slice of pie, start by adding a crust! Cut out a triangle of brown construction paper that is approximately 4 1/2″ high (from center base to point) and 5″ wide at the base. Glue the triangle to the base and one edge of your color diffusing icosahedron. Use scissors with wavy blades to trim the base of the triangle so it looks like the crimped edge of a pie crust!

 

To top off your slice of pie, fluff up a cotton ball and glue it to the top. No pumpkin pie is complete without the whipped cream!

step 7.jpg

Line-17

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

 

 

Tube Craft Turkey with Color Diffusing Feathers

Image of Turkey made from Tube Crafts

finished craft.jpg

These adorable feathered friends make great centerpieces for any family dinner, and terrific classroom decorations!

Age: 4+

Duration: 15 minutes (plus drying time)

Learning Outcomes:

You’ll Need:

Line-01

We have found that the best way to structure this craft is to start by preparing the color diffusing sheet that will be your turkey’s feathers, and then having students create their turkey’s bodies while the liquid watercolor paint dries. So begin with a sheet of color diffusing paper on a tray and use paint pipettes to cover the whole sheet in liquid watercolor paint.

Set the sheets aside to dry while students create the bodies for their turkeys. Start with one of our card tube crafts flat on the table. Using construction paper, carefully cut out and glue down a belly for your turkey.

Now it’s time to give your turkey a face and some personality! Use a small triangle of yellow construction paper to make the beak. Glue googly eyes above the beak. Next, carefully crumple up a tissue circle to create your turkey’s wattle. Glue it underneath the beak. You can also crumple up a second tissue circle and give your turkey a jaunty set of red forehead feathers!

Once students are happy with the faces of their turkeys, carefully roll them up and insert the tabs into the slots. This will create a tube and allow your turkey to stand on its own!

By now your color diffusing sheets should be dry enough to work with. Carefully cut feather shapes out of the sheet.

Use 5-6 feathers per turkey to give each one a beautiful tail fan of feathers! Carefully glue them to the back of your turkey.

feathers 3.jpg

Line-17

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

What’s Inside Me Doll

59257-Whats Inside Me Doll_Child

Science has never been so cuddly!

Welcome students back to school and introduce them to the basic organs and systems of the human body. Open the front flaps to discover a heart, liver, stomach, lungs, kidneys, bladder and intestines. Open the back of the head to find the doll’s brain! Remove the organs in the chest and you will see a spine, ribs and hip bones to keep everything safe and supported. Squeeze the heart, lungs and stomach to hear different sounds! This doll introduces kids to basic human anatomy.

59257-Whats Inside me Doll_Cube_Child

Use the doll with our First Look: Inside Me scans for child friendly, no-fear imaging!

 

Line-14

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

 

Bug Sculptures

16036 - CHILD SHOT-red_web
Use water to sculpt life-like insects! This ingenious technique using 100% recycled material will create beautiful 3D designs that your students will be proud to call their art!
Before starting, make sure you lay down newspapers or a paint tray onto your working surface. This will help keep the water in one area for easy cleanup.

Choose your insect design. There are 8 bug designs in total, including a bee, spider, rhino beetle, stag beetle, moth, butterfly, scorpion and dragonfly.

16036-CraftGroup2

Wet both sides of the chipboard design. The water will soak through the material, allowing it to bend without tearing. Curve, crease and form wings, legs and antennae.

16036-Bending

When you are finished, prop the sculpture in between small objects to hold the sculpture’s shape as it dries. When dry, color the insects with paint and display the finished pieces in a lifelike nature exhibit!

Line-15

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

Chromatography Kit

54490_Chromatography Kit_CHILD SHOT_web

Turn science into art with our R54490 Chromatography Kit!

Amaze your students with gorgeous science/art projects! Use the power of diffusion and chromatography to create effortless pieces of art on die-cut flower shapes. Students will get to witness how the molecules of the salt-water solution push against the molecules of pigments of marker inks and carry them up the length of the paper flower petals.

Cover your space with a protective sheet or paint tray. Mix 2½ cups of warm water with 2 tsps of diffusion crystals. Stir the mixture until the crystals are fully dissolved. There may be a bit of sediment at the bottom. This will not affect the experiment, but you can add more water to fully dissolve it.

54490_Chromatography Kit_web

Color the centers of the three flower shapes with marker inks. Use marker colors that are mixtures of other colors rather than primary colors. Ask students to guess what types of pigments make up those particular colors. Pipette drops of the diffusion crystals and water onto the center of each flower. The water will move towards the outside edge and separate the pigments along the way.

When the flowers are dry, all the pigments used to create those marker colors will be visible. Heavy pigment molecules are deposited closer to the center of the flower, while light molecules travel further up the paper.

Line-19

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

Lace Paper Kaleidoscope

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Introduce your students to the swirling, colorful, mesmerizing power of a kaleidoscope using simple materials and our R22054 Lace Paper.

Age: 5+

Duration: 10-15 minutes

Learning Objectives: Explore the properties of kaleidoscopes through light and color. Make beautiful artwork. Learn about color mixing principles. Create a fun project that will keep students entertained for hours!

You’ll Need:

Line-03

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

R22054 Lace Paper is another addition to our line of textured papers. This special paper has the feel of our Color Diffusing Paper but features a variety of woven patterns.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

You will need to cut your sheet of high gloss paper in half. This will allow you to make more than one kaleidoscope!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Roll one half of the high gloss paper into a cylinder and secure with tape. This will form your kaleidoscope tube.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Make sure that the glossy side is rolled on the inside of the kaleidoscope tube. You can see the highlighted surface on the inside of the tube! This is what we want to achieve.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Stand the cylinder onto the R22054 Lace Paper. Trace around the outside circumference of the tube and cut out the resulting tracing.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Color in the Lace Paper cut circles with markers. Use different colors. I used primary colors, but you can use any that you like.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Pull a strip of tape that’s triple the length of the circle. Lay one of the lace circles flat across a strip of tape that’s facing sticky side up.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Fold the one side across the middle of the circle, leaving a bit of length on one side. This will be the handle for each of the circles on the kaleidoscope.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Tape the circle against the edge of the kaleidoscope tube. Do this for all your other lace circle pieces.

As you look through the opposite end of the kaleidoscope, fold the circles over top of each other in various combinations. Observe beautiful intertwining patterns!

Check out the different kinds of lovely color combinations using different layers of the kaleidoscope circles:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Line-03

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

NAEYC 2015 – A Great Turnout!

naeyc 2015

This year, the creative folks at Roylco returned to the Annual NAEYC Conference, which was being held in sunny Orlando, Florida! Check out some of our favorite moments captured on our cameras!

Every year, the National Association for the Education of Young Children hosts a large space for companies who specialize in art education (like us!) to showcase their materials and talk one-on-one with the teachers. We had a prime location nearby the entrance to the hall, and welcomed hundreds of visitors!

naeyc2015

Our booth featured a fantastic array of our products, with 4 tables zig-zagging across the front. This allowed us to demo some of the products to our teacher friends while encouraging a flow of traffic through our booth.

naeyc 2015

We showed off some of our new products too! Look out for some of the following great products coming out next year at your local educational retailers:

R60705 Neon Straws and Connectors

R54490 Chromatography Kit

R48236 Junior Fun Faces Mix and Match Rubbing Plates

R59270 My Body in Action Cards

R49143 All About Me Book

naeyc 2015

We had great fun talking about our published ebooks as well (soon to be available on our website!), including The Art of LearningThe Art of EngineeringThe Human Body: Inside & OutLight Table Magic and Learn Math… Without Knowing It! Each e-book is a gigantic resource for teachers, featuring over 50 ideas for implementing art-based learning through various subjects. The focus is on FUN learning, meaning that we don’t provide any worksheets or practice lessons that students need to learn. Instead, we focus on building quality experiences within the classroom, using those experiences as a strong foundation, and strengthening those experiences with further tie-ins.

naeyc 2015

We love our teachers and strive to make the difference with all our products! Email us at info [at] roylco [dot] com for more information about our 2016 products and e-books!

Line-05

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

Sensory Chemistry Kit

sensory chemistry kit

Conduct eye-popping experiments with simple, non-toxic, safe-for-kids ingredients!

The Sensory Chemistry Kit is your easy, ready-set-go method of introducing young students to science. It has all you need to get your students thinking with the scientific method. As each experiment progresses, ask plenty of questions to get students to answer based on their observations.

The Kit comes with materials to help you perform 10 different experiments that teach your students important principles of introductory science. Here’s a video-overview of some experiments featured in this kit:

1. Make Jelly Blocks with different concentrations of gel powder.

2. Reveal if your solution is a base or acid with an indicator.

3. Make color explosions.

Check out the rest of the experiments at our channel!

Line-12

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

Nature Mobile Maker

Image of close up of Nature Mobile

nature mobile craft

Make a lovely mobile decoration for spring! Our R51302 Nature Mobile Maker is a great base for making your mobile. Add on found objects such as leaves, feathers or flowers!

Age: 3+

Duration: 15-20 minutes plus drying times

Learning Objectives: Explore the natural world through decorating the mobile with natural found objects. Experiment with gravity and weight through kinetic studies. Observe the movements and flow of air and how this affects the balance of weight on the mobile.

nature mobile craft

You’ll Need:

R51302 Nature Mobile Maker

R15290 Nature Paper (or found objects, such as leaves, twigs, feathers, flowers, etc…)

• Scissors

• String

• Markers or paint

• Hole punch

Line-08

nature mobile craft

First pop the blank Nature Mobile Maker out from its paper backing. Separate all the elements and then place the mobile on a protected flat surface. Use paint or markers to color in the branches brown and to color in the leaves green.

nature mobile craft

Be sure to color on both sides of the mobile! This will make sure that from anywhere the mobile is viewed, it looks complete.

nature mobile craft

It was a bit of a rainy day when we made our mobiles, so we weren’t able to go exploring for found objects in nature. As a substitute, we used our R15290 Nature Paper! Pop out several of the elements from the paper backing. You’ll need no more than 6-10 elements per mobile. Mix large objects with smaller ones for a diverse appearance. Hole punch through the tops of each element you’ve chosen, then tie on a bit of string to hang from the mobile.

nature mobile craft

Our mobile is designed with ingenious little flip-up tabs that can be raised and pressed down over the length of string to secure it in place. This makes attachment way more easier than messing around with tape or tying the pieces on with difficulty.

nature mobile craft

Our camper friends took their finished mobiles out to the garden to hang them up among the bushes.

nature mobile craft

Even though the sun cleared up and we were able to resume our nature walk, we still had a great time making all our paper mobiles!

nature mobile craft

The mobiles seemed to blend right in with our amazing forest background!

Line-17

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