Craft club junior! Book page art

Following from the previous nights book page craft club (here) I thought I would try it with the boys!

I let them use the sharpies under supervision (but still ended up with a permanent doodle on the tablecloth!).

Then they used crayons to colour it in. It took a little persuasion to get them to leave some bits blank for the colour to show through but they were really impressed with the results. I was too!!!

 JJ decided to draw 'Daddy's car'!

 While Eden went with a house design!

I love them!

Junk Art !

This is a project that has been on the go for a good few months now!
I wanted to get rid of a lot of the boys toys that weren't being loved anymore or were broken but thought they would bring some happy memories in years to come so I decided a giant rainbow art piece was the way to go!
I started by pencilling out a rainbow onto a canvas which Joplin then painted.

I then began to glue-gun the toys I had collected on to the canvas in their different colour spaces. 

 It is gradually being built up. The only big hitch though is that when it is left between gluing sessions the boys 'discover' their old toys again and want to re-love them!! See those white patches? They were once filled with toys!!

And here is the finished product!! Still a work in progress really and I am still trying to persuade Eden that he really doesn't need the purple broken toy dinosaur he hasn't played with in months! It was great fun too make although a larger project than I originally thought!

Santa's Lost Map Grid Activity

I found this print out last night on Teachers Notebook and knew instantly that Joplin would love it! He loves maps and we are trying to teach him how map references work, so this was a perfect activity. You can download the printout here - you need to sign up but there are loads of great printables.

Anyway - here is Joplin engrossed! He had to pick up a sleigh with a child's name and a map reference on it. He then looked on the chart to find the map reference on the grid - eg. Ryan is at D4. On each grid reference is a picture of a toy and on D4 is a train. Therefore Ryan's toy is a train. Joplin then had to write the child's name by the toy picture on a recording sheet.

It really kept him occupied for a while and he used his writing skill as well as leaning to read map grids. Great game and even better free!

Eden's afters!

Eden made afters today!!

He chopped the banana really well and put it in a bowl, then chopped the melon (after I had chopped off the skin and cut it into wedges) then peeled in an orange. He then spooned in yoghurt and then later dished it into bowls on the dinner table. It was actually pretty yummy!!

Shape matching

This was a really easy and fun activity for the boys put together in a couple of minutes and actually kept them entertained for a while!

Random objects were drawn around on a sheet of A4....

 ...then removed!

 The boys had great fun putting them back!

 Joplin wanted to make his own later in the day and chose the objects for me to draw around, then eventually drew around them himself.

Paper road.

Joplin is really enjoying cutting at the moment as he seems to have finally got the hang of scissors! I gave him some sticky back foam to cut shapes out of and stick to some black card, but he had other ideas! 

"I'm making a road"!

Good idea so I went with it! I showed him how to cut long strips out of the card and then we stuck them together. He then drew the road markings with chalk. 

 He then wanted to make signs for the road "oh like 'STOP?" I asked. "No - The M40!" Of course.

I thought a great suggestion would be cutting houses from the newspaper to line the roads to make it a proper street. He managed one before declaring the motorway doesn't have houses. Fair enough! What do I know!?

Cardboard TV

A real minute make but lots of fun! 

Two holes cut in a box (with Mum's bread knife!) then an on button cut out and taped on. A cardboard remote and then see what's on!

 The weather, traffic reports of course (a crash on the M40 if you must know!), a bit of Countdown and Bargain Hunt and a few songs on YouTube (The Jam and The Cure mainly).

 Oh and of course some Fireman Sam!!

Bird Feeders! Easy pre-school activity.

Quick and easy crafts are best in our house! This was a big hit with the boys and hopefully will prove a continued interest as the birds come to visit our garden and come for a feed. 

We basically took pinecones, tied the tops in string, smothered them in peanut butter, then rolled them in birdseed!

Gathering the ingredients was fun too as it involved a hunt for pinecones in the park, and a trip to the pet shop to see the bunnies!

They were made in about 10 minutes (about the attention span for crafts for my boys!) and then we went out to hang them on the branches.

With a little luck we shall soon have some feathered visitors - I'll keep you posted!

Your comments make my day! Do let me know what you think!

Archery Fun!!

Ever since I saw ikatbag's most awesome Archery party and fantastic tutorials I knew I had to have a go at making the boys and arrows! With a bit of a push from my friend Nic who beat me to it with her girls, I got myself off to Wicks and bought the PVC pipe, pipe insulation and other bits and bobs needed and then raided Dan's tool box! I had a fantastic morning and thoroughly enjoyed making 4 sets of bows each with 3 arrows. 

Then off to the park we went! We met some friends with older boys down there and that certainly helped as Joplin is very reluctant to take advice from him Mummy, but peer advice and another Mummy's help (thanks Marie!) gave results!

 Peter really got the hang of it and I'm glad the arrows were soft tipped as he has quite a good shot at people's bottoms!!!

The arrows certainly could fly!

 We finished off at the climbing tree (or was it Thunderbird 5!) .