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Terrific Tree Paper Braided Bookmarks

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Make a woven wood Bookmark! Great for teaching children to follow instructions and use fine motor skills in folding.

Age: 5+

Duration: 10 minutes

Learning Objectives: Cut and fold paper to encourage fine motor skill development. Create bookmarks for literacy. Incorporate tree facts into activity; Terrific Tree Paper features an image of tree bark on the front and wood grain on the back. Investigate different types of trees through the provided prints. Create art from nature.

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You’ll Need:

R15294 Terrific Tree Paper
Tape or glue
Scissors

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Cut Terrific Tree Paper into ½” x 11” strips.

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Glue two strips together at the corner.

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Glue two more strips on top the first strips but directly underneath.

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Fold each strip, in order from left to right, across the others.

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Keep folding until you near the end of the strips.

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Glue the ends together and trim the excess to form the final angle.

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Extra tip: Alternate the pattern by making the first two strips the grain side of the wood and the second two strips the bark side.

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Posted on March 3, 2016February 12, 2020 by Raman

Welcome Back to the New Year!

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Now that we’ve rung in the New Year, we are excited to share our ideas with you over the next little while. Stay tuned for blog posts in a range of subjects, using tools that you already have in your classroom!

We hope that you’ve enjoyed a year of posts from Little Fingers Big Art. Here’s a recap of 10 of our favorite posts:

Use jelly on the Light Cube for a great sensory activity!

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Make lucky four leaf clovers for St. Patrick’s Day, coming up in March!

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Combine letters in a Word Mobile to generate literacy creativity in students!

Guest post from Rebecca Milling about the wonderful creations made with our Straws and Connectors at St. Jerome’s Children’s Home in Nakuru, Kenya.

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Check out this neat step-by-step tutorial on how to make 3D wall art!

Use our Tube Crafts to make a birdfeeder… or critterfeeder!

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Make beautiful tissue paper birds–a great fine motor skills activity!

Animation

Check out our awesome Action Shapes People! Customizable action figures that your students can use for stop-motion animation projects!

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Imagine what dinosaurs really looked like with our Collage-A-Saurus and Dinosaur Paper Sheets!

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Turn old doodle paper into wrapping paper for someone’s birthday or for Christmas time!

These are our top ten for the year! Share your favorite post online with your friends.

Leave us a comment to let us know what kinds of posts you would like to see more of!

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Posted on January 8, 2016February 12, 2020 by Raman

Repurposed Brown Paper Art (Christmas Edition)

We always hear about great ways to get kids thinking creatively, while doing some sort of double duty. By this, I mean putting down brown packing paper onto tables to protect the surfaces, while giving kids the ability to draw or doodle to their hearts’ content! Well… what do you do with that paper after it’s all done? Read on for more, but a word of advice: DON’T throw it away!!

Age: 3+

Duration: 15 minutes

Learning Objectives: Create artistic talent, generate creative thinking skills. Repurpose old art in a new and fun way.

You’ll Need:

Brown Wrapping Paper
Markers/pencil crayons/crayons/pens
Tape
Scissors
Ribbon

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Click to view slideshow.

Over the years, we’ve worked with children at various art camps and picked up a few pointers along the way. One of our good educator friends gave us this hint: cover up workspaces with brown wrapping paper. Get the students to doodle when they are bored or need some creative stimulation. It’s always good to have a canvas available at all times!

But what do you do with it when it’s all filled up?

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Remove the brown drawing paper off the table and cut the best artwork out into large rectangles (about a meter or yard wide, depending on how big the previous workspace was).

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Flip the rectangle sheet over. Place a boxed item such as a new toy or a small keepsake into the center of the wrapping paper.

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Fold in the long sides. Cut off any of the excess and tape the two edges in place. Fold down the sides as you would for wrapping a gift and cut off any other excess. Tape the sides closed.

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This is what you’ll be left with after you flip it right side up.

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To give your wrapped present extra special flair, add on a gold ribbon or bow. Tie it in the center and curl the ribbon with scissors.

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A great way to spread Christmas or birthday cheer any time of year!

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Posted on December 16, 2015February 12, 2020 by Raman

Getting Creative with our 60170 Constructa Clips Creative Animal Set!

A few years ago, we spent the day at the Design Exchange Museum in Toronto putting together a few activities with the kids. One of those activities was our R60170 Constructa Clips Safari Animals set, also known as our Creative Animal Set! Check out what the campers made!

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Campers popped out the pieces of the Safari Animals kit, then started assembling them with the provided Constructa Clips. This is a great little kit for kids who love to tinker with their creations.

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They were working away like Santa’s elves to make the coolest little toys!

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We’ve included full-color instructions to help you put together the unique toys. Experiment a little and see what kinds of combinations your students come up with…

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Like this one! Go wild with your designs and have hours of fun this holiday season with a kit that’s bound to be a hit in your classroom.

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Posted on December 9, 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!

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

Light Cube: Salad Tray Sorting

Sorting interesting items in a see-through tray on the Light Cube is a great way to focus students on the task at hand. Instead of being distracted by a surrounding environment, each child will deliberately place the items on the sorting tray, using the glow of the Light Cube as their focal point.

We asked our friend Jasmine to take all the assorted sizes of stars in the center of the tray and organize them into individual groups. We found the tray at our local dollar store, but a similar snack or salad tray can be used as well!

The stars were found at the dollar store too, but you can use anything that is available in different sizes–such as marbles, beads or even toy animals!

Jazzy had a great time comparing the different star sizes together to see which one was bigger or smaller. She made great use of comparison words in describing the different sizes!

The glow of the Light Cube made this simple activity much more interesting and enjoyable!

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Posted on January 29, 2015February 12, 2020 by Raman

Christmas Tree Heart Mosaics

Christmas is a month away, but what better way to get into the holiday spirit than to build your own tree on paper using our R15367 Heart Mosaics!

Age: 4+

Duration: 10 minutes

Learning Objectives: Layer multiple pieces together. Identify biggest to smallest and coordinate similar colors. Make associations between the shapes in order to create a larger picture. Develop fine motor skills through sorting, placing and gluing the pieces. Discuss triangles as a geometric shape and use

You’ll Need:

• R15367 Heart Mosaics

• R22052 Double Color Card Sheets

• Glue

This is an easy project to do, but makes a great activity for students as they are waiting to transition between class periods or as a thematic holiday art project.

This activity requires very little preparation; all you need are materials that you may already have in your classroom! Give each group of students a pile of Heart Mosaics to sort through. Although we’ve chosen a purple background for our Christmas tree, you can use any color from the Double Color Card Sheets set as a backing to your designs.

This step allows you to talk a little bit about the basic structure of a Christmas tree. It isn’t just lights and decorations. The shape of the tree is important. Traditionally, most Christmas trees should have the basic shape of a triangle, which is what we are going to make first with our Heart Mosaics.

Ask your students to separate their Heart Mosaics into like colors of green. We have several different colors of green to choose from, so all students will get a chance to make trees.

Start with the largest Heart Mosaic pieces first. Locate the largest pieces and place them upside down at the bottom of the card sheet. Make a wide base.

Add a few more upside-down pieces to the base, moving upward. Angle the ends of the Heart Mosaics inwards so that the shape of the overall tree takes on a triangular form.

Keep adding and angling the smaller Heart Mosaics inwards as you progress to the top. Choose two small and skinny Heart Mosaics to form the peak of the tree.

Now it’s time to decorate. Select several smaller Heart Mosaics to form the ornaments as pops of color. Turn the Heart Mosaics right side up and place them on top of the green tree.

Decorate the tree just as you would at home! Space out the ornaments in an even, balanced way.

Finally, top your Christmas tree with a bright yellow Heart Mosaic. Glue down all the pieces. Students can take their Christmas trees home or tack them up on a board as part of a Christmas display!

Check out another great project with Heart Mosaics:

• Make a beautiful tree of hearts for Valentine’s Day cards, for a birthday or just to show someone how much you love them!

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Posted on November 26, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Nellie Mae from This Little Blog of Mine uses our Amazing Animal Paper!

Halloween has already come and gone, but if you are planning to host a kids’ dress-up party this weekend, take a cue from Nellie Mae and use some of our Animal Skins Paper to make quick and easy costumes!

Nellie Mae posted her students’ work on May 18, 2011 under the title, “Why I love the end of the year… Part 2.” Click on the link to visit her site!

The kids received various sizes of brown paper bags to make their hats and vests, but you can use regular Bristol paper and cut it to size. Nellie Mae’s students cut holes into the sides of the large brown bag to fit their arms through. The smaller brown paper bags were used as the hats.

You can decorate the hats and vests with printed pattern paper, such as the ones we make. The sheets only come in 8.5 x 11″ (21.5 x 28 cm) but use three sheets to decorate the paper bags. Glue two sheets onto the vest–one to the front and one to the back–then wrap a third sheet all the way around the paper hat.

Use any one of the following printed papers to make different kinds of costumes:

R15198 Creatures and Animals Value Pack — Featuring a diverse selection of animal, sealife, dinosaur and bug designs.

R15240 Dinosaur Craft Paper — Dress up as your favorite dinosaur!

R15237 Bug Craft Paper — Are you a butterfly or a bumblebee? Make your pick!

R15239 Sealife Paper — Discover wonderful aquatic colors and patterns!

The summer dress-up theme for Nellie Mae’s class was ‘animals’ so the thrifty teacher decided to use our R15256 Amazing Animal Paper to decorate the paper bags with!

Check out her link for photos of the students’ costumes. Some of them even made armbands with the leftover paper!

Thanks to Nellie Mae for this post!

This post was not sponsored for a review. At LittleFingersBigArt, our mission is to present to our readers and viewers the newest and most creative craft ideas that fans of Roylco have made on their own. Our goal is to allow you and other educators and parents to reuse our products in fun ways so that children always get the best educational experience from them!

We’d love to see more ideas like this one! If you’ve got a brilliant craft idea or have made a version of one of our crafts that you would like to share with us, send an email to subscriber@roylco.ca with photos, descriptions or a link to your work. We will create a feature post and link back to you with full credit. We’d love to hear from you!

Posted on November 1, 2013February 12, 2020 by Raman

Go Kid Yourself uses our True to Life Human X Rays!

Following the trend of guest posters using our R5911 True to Life Human X Rays, I’ve received another link to a Roylco fan’s post on our x-rays! Check out the amazing photographs in Petunia’s blog post at Go Kid Yourself!

Petunia posted her son’s playful exploration on her site Go Kid Yourself at the post link entitled, “X-Ray Play Puzzle on a DIY Lightbox” on November 5, 2011.

This adorable photo shows Petunia’s son trying out proportions in his True To Life Human X Ray play!

What charming characters!

This resource is perfect for teaching students about basic anatomy, such as the names of major bones in our bodies or learning about bone placement and how skeletons help to frame or support all the organs in our bodies.

Thanks to Petunia for this wonderful post!

Posted on October 25, 2013February 12, 2020 by Raman