One Hook Wonder

Quick And Easy Kiddo Art

I set this up for the littles the other evening in order to keep them out of my hair while I cooked dinner.  The idea came from Mary Ann Kohl's book First Art, which I've quickly become a huge fan of.  Basically you wet down dark construction paper and let your littles experiment and explore by coloring/drawing on it with chalk.  Kohl mentions that you could even have them wet their own paper with paintbrushes, but as I was in a hurry and didn't want a huge watery mess (inevitable with my boys!) I opted to just run the paper under the tap.  

This kept Short Pants engaged enough that he wanted to do two chalk drawings.  He had a lot of fun experimenting by turning the chalk on its tip and on its side:

 
   

Pita Pocket was more interested in scrunching up his wet paper than drawing, but that was ok too:

As Pita grows I'm looking forward to being able to set up a mini art center for the boys.  Right now we still have to be careful about leaving crayons, etc. within reach without supervision.  Oh, and Pita tends to bite the tips off markers! 

Arty Books

Are you getting tired of the recent spate of painting posts?  We've just started introducing Pita Pocket to the world of painting, and it's so exciting that I can't help but post about it!  Last week he did wet-on-wet watercolor painting for the first time.  At first just dipping the brush over and over in the rinse water was thrilling enough:

But soon he was exploring the color red and actually laughing as he watched the bright color appear on his paper:

We also played with fingerpaints one evening.  Both the boys had a ball with this one (what kiddo doesn't?):

 

Pita Pocket also decided that using his wet hand towel to wipe his paper had an interesting effect:

As the weather continues to turn colder we'll be doing more and more open-ended art sessions like these.  The Mister gave me a wonderful book focused on preschool art for my birthday.  I liked it so much that I immediately ordered the book for toddlers and twos the very next week.  If you haven't seen these great books by MaryAnn Kohl, do check them out.  They are chock full of simple ideas.  What I love most about them is that they are all process based; I think a lot of time when adults do art with children they have a bit of an agenda (if that makes any sense).    I have no problem with doing an occasional seasonal/holiday focused craft or four, but I think sometimes we parents can get so caught up in wanting art time to be "educational" or "focused" that we forget that simply handing some paint and a blank canvas to a child can be the most educational experience of all!  It looks like I'm going to be heading up a small once-monthly art group for Short Pants, Pita Pocket, and a few of their friends soon.  Wish me luck!

Beginning With Pita Pocket

I did a few simple Montessori-ish things with Pita Pocket this last week - finally!  I realized that due to his speech delay I've been underestimating him.  He just seems so much "younger" than my other kids did at 20 months.  He seems to understand everything just fine, but only has about 8 words at a time when he should have between 20-25. (he's actually being evaluated for speech therapy mid-month)  I've been working to remind myself that he can understand TONS more than he can verbally communicate, and that he's definately not too young to begin simple activities. 

Short Pants and I worked together to make him a simple color book using the idea I saw over at Hearthstone House.  We didn't have any magazines, so I just downloaded pics from the net and then Short Pants helped me glue them in place.  It came out pretty cute:

 
 Short Pants wanted his (scribbled on) hand in the picture too:

 
I also introduced Pita Pocket to placing pom poms one by one into a muffin tin:

 
He promptly dumped the whole bowl onto the tin and then looked at me like, "Seriously, woman, why must you waste my time with this?"

 
A much more successful activity was showing him how to place spaghetti noodles into the holes of an old parmesan cheese container.  Pita Pocket loved this one and worked at it for some time:

 
His fake surprised face:

 
He also discovered that breaking the spaghetti was fun as well:

 
I downloaded Montessori for Everyone's Comprehensive List For Toddlers, which looks to be a great resource for the younger Montessori set.  I've also been looking at tot trays and am thinking about starting our own little "Tot School" postings so that I can link up with other mamas of toddlers doing similar things.  It seems like that might be a good way to hold myself accountable to doing mini lessons with my littlest guy every week.      

Hope you all have a great weekend!  Bean and Boba will be here, and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with my big kids. 

Pirate Army

So, the plan for both of Short Pants' parties was to have the littles paint treasure chests.  We had enough for the family party, coudn't find enough for the friend party.  I came up with the idea of having the kidlets paint pirates instead, so I spent a few minutes with my trusty sharpie and created my own pirate army:

 
 I'm *pretty* sure I could have skipped the sharpie treatment, as most of our pirates ended up looking like this:

 But hey, the kids had a blast, and those are some pretty cute pirates!  I really liked the idea that this was something they could take home and play with and be proud of making themselves. 

Sorry I have been rather quiet and boring this week.  I'm still so tired!  My theory is that it's the fault of our new Wii Fit, which has me exercising for the first time since I was approximately 10.  Is anyone else creeped out by the fact that the trainer's lips DON'T MOVE when she speaks?  I do rather like it when she claps for me though.

A Boy And His Art

Sorry - no Montessori Monday this week!  We were super busy last week getting ready for the birthday party, plus Bean and Boba were here for their Fall Break (yay!).  Short Pants and I only ended up doing lessons during one afternoon, and they were lessons set out from the previous week.  New stuff next Monday, though.  ;)

Short Pants has been providing me with some wonderful reminders lately about how important the process of creating is to little ones.  One afternoon last week I was cutting some fabric to make a curtain, and he was right behind me gathering up the selvage and any stray scraps he could lay his hands on.  Next he asked for yarn and his scissors, and informed me that he was going to make a fall decoration.  He then asked to go outside so that he could gather leaves, so while Pita Pocket ran around like a wild thing Short Pants collected leaves in a container.

When we came back inside, he asked for glue and tape and informed me that he was going to make an art project "...that you don't know how to make.  I need to do it by myself." 

So I walked away and left him sitting happily at the kitchen table, where he worked on his "fall decoration" for almost an hour:

The next day it was a request to get out his easel, and exclamations of delight as he mixed different colors:

Just the other day he told me that he wanted to sew "a big giant fish."  I can't wait!

Melty Fall Suncatcher

Short Pants and I have started working on fall crafts to hang up on one of the sliders in the living room.  This is in a vain attempt to somehow disguise the fact that it is almost totally opaque now.  Everything looks better with kids' art covering it, right?  I can't wait till we replace that sucker this coming spring.

We decided to make a suncatcher, so we gathered up some leaves from outside and set to grating crayons:

Short Pants only grated crayons for about 3 seconds.  This is because he values his fingers.  I, on the other hand, am typing with raw bloody stumps.  That's right - I sacrifice for my child.

He enjoyed the arranging part much more, I'm happy to say.  Once we put the sheet of wax paper down he took his time placing his leaves and crayon shavings just so:

 

Some newsprint over the top, a few passes of the iron, and it was done:

Short Pants liked this one so much that we'll probably do another fall craft with crayon shavings soon - just as soon as my stumps grow a new layer of skin.

Pirate's Treasure

We were at Hobby Lobby last week when Short Pants spied some cute unfinished treasure chests in different sizes.  He loves to dress up as a pirate, and what pirate doesn't need some treasure to bury?  Being the sweet big brother that he is, he picked out one for Pita Pocket as well (smaller, of course - he's not that sweet). 

First they worked on painting them.  This was Pita Pocket's first chance to use the paints, and he really had fun:

 

The next day we glued some "gems" on: (also found at Hobby Lobby)

I manned the hot glue gun while Short Pants picked the gem and told me where to put his gems:

Lastly, we filled them with pirate treasure:

Pita Pocket seemed slightly overwhelmed by his newfound wealth:

Captain Short Pants had no such problem.  Here he is chanting, "I love gold.  I love gold":

Short Pants has mentioned that he'd like another pirate party for his upcoming birthday.  Since my littles had so much fun with this I think I'm going to set up outside the day of the party and have a treasure chest painting table for all of their friends. 

Painted Cookies - I Will Only Do It With A Toddler Again If I'm Drunk

There is nothing like writing out most of a post and having it get eaten - thanks Typepad!

Anyway, this is not a story about how I baked fall-themed cookies with my kids and they were perfect and then we took them to a homeless shelter because we are just wonderful, beautiful people inside where it counts.  Instead, this is more like the story of how I *really* wanted to hide in the closet and swill alcohol at 3 in the afternoon because I baked cookies with a 19-month-old in the room instead of just waiting till the next day while he was napping.  I knew I should have waited, but I was trying to be Perfect Mom, the woman who bakes cookies with her 2 kids even if it means holding the toddler the whole time and stirring the dough with her foot.

If you've never made painted cookies before they are super easy.  Just make regular old rolled sugar cookies, but before you put them in the oven, "paint" them with a combo of egg yolk and a few teaspoons of water.  Use food coloring to get the colors you like.  The weird dark green was actually supposed to be brown...oops:

As Pita Pocket has eaten both cat food and uncooked rice within the last week, I thought it prudent to keep the egg yolk paint away from him.  He got a paintbrush and a handful of dough to play with instead.  This was ok with him for about two minutes:

I gave him the sprinkles to shake in attempt to appease him.  Did you know that Pita Pocket can open the sprinkles?  No?  Either did I till that fateful afternoon.  Next came the phone, in a last ditch attempt at a bribe while I was putting one tray in the oven and holyshitwhyareyouclimbingonthecounter and fortheloveofallthatisholywillyoupleasejustsitstill?  And why yes, his shirt *is* funny in this context:

Eventually we managed to get all the cookies baked:

The Mister arrived home to this:

He wiped the flour off my face and told us our cookies were delicious.  Then he cleaned everything up.

I love that man.

Sculpey Prints

(FYI I'll be jumping back on the 30 Days of Happiness bandwagon soon - I've been busy the last few nights on a special project for Short Pants!)

I saw this idea (umm, like most of my kids' crafts ideas...heehee) over at The Artful Parent and thought it looked like fun.  We actually saved this one for a weekend when Bean was here, but when offered the chance to do it, she declined!  That'll teach me to try and guess what a pre-teen will do.  ;)

Short Pants and I gathered a variety of herbs, leaves, etc. from the yard and garden:

 Then we rolled the sculpey into balls (I mostly did this - the sculpey was a bit difficult for Short Pants to manipulate) and pressed them down onto our pieces of nature:

Then we turned them over....

...peeled the (in this case, rosemary) off, and presto, a cool nature print:

I think my favorite was the Queen Anne's Lace:

After we finished making all of the prints, we baked them at 250 degrees for 45 minutes in order to harden the sculpey.  Short Pants asked to paint them the next day, so we got out the paints and he went to town:

We will probably now keep these in a very high place as Pita Pocket seems to believe they are perfect airborne missles.  Nothing like getting clobbered in the head with a piece of hardened sculpey.  Good times.

Shaving Cream Painting

Very simple, very fun, potentially very messy.  Short Pants mostly used the paintbrushes with this project, though I did persuade him to dip his hands in a time or two (and then he would immediately ask to have them wiped off!).  There are many many ways of doing this, but I just put a bunch of shaving cream on a poster board, provided paints and brushes, and let him go at it:

He asked for a second piece of posterboard and was excited to squirt the shaving cream himself.  The next few pictures are a sweet reminder that art with littles is all about the process, not the product: