stART ~ In My Backyard

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects. Be sure to check it out!! All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

We have been spending a lot of time outside in our backyard these past few weeks so when I saw In My Backyard, by Margriet Ruurs  at the library I knew Emily would enjoy it.  The beautiful folded paper illustrations led to many discussions about the creatures that you can find in the backyard throughout the different seasons.  I thought that they were the perfect complement to the simple text.  Emily also loved hunting for the little lady bug in each picture. 

This week I asked her what she wanted to make for her stART project after we read the book.  She said a bird so I cut out a template of a bird and gave her the do-a-dot markers, feathers, glue and a wiggly eye and let her make her bird.

Emily colored the bird in with the do-a-dot markers.

I cut out the body of the bird and then made a slit in the middle to put the wings through.

Then she asked for some glitter glue instead of the regular glue.

She added lots and lots of feathers

 

Emily’s Bird

Feather Fun

Emily was  recently working on a project that involved feathers and I thought that they would be a great sensory experience for Juliette.   

She loved  picking them up, feeling them, and being tickled by them too.  Of course since she loves sticking everything in her mouth I had to watch her like a hawk, but she did have a great time and it did take awhile for her to try putting them in her mouth.

Open Ended Art ~ Feathers

 Fun with Paint Feathers and Glue!!

This weeks Open Ended Art theme is Feathers.  Emily has enjoyed feather painting before so I gave her the choice of gluing or painting with feathers.  She said both!  So I mixed some glue into the paint and she went to work.

Emily picked green paint to paint with (it is her favorite color!!).

After she used the paintbrush to paint she started painting with the feathers.

She enjoyed painting on the feathers too!

    

Emily’s finished Feather Painting!

Our First Art Group Meeting

My friend Sarah started a Music Class over a year ago and Emily and I have really enjoyed all of the fun things she has done with the group. I love art and Sarah's Music Class motivated me to start an Art Group for the kids too.

Here is how our first Art Group went

1. We started with 15 minutes of play dough free play. I made a cinnamon scented play dough and I think all the Mommy's really enjoyed the scent. I plan on making a new batch of play dough to go with the seasons. To finish we sang "On Top of Spaghetti" while the kids practiced rolling a ball of play dough and smooshing it.

2. Next we did an open ended art project. This lasted about 10 - 15 minutes. This week we painted with feathers using fall colors. This activity is all about the process and not the product. Although I think they all looked amazing :0)

3. After we cleaned up we had a short interactive poem to introduce the craft that we would do next. We did this song about pumpkins. Each child got to hold one of the pumpkins and we sang about how their pumpkin was acting and feeling.

4. Finally we made a craft. This is a project that is supposed to look like something when it is finished. We made cute paper bag pumpkins. I found the idea for these here.

After we cleaned up the children had a snack and some play time.

We all had a great time and I am looking forward to planning more art activities for the kids!!

Unplugged Project ~ Feathers

Emily's Feather Painting

This weeks Unplugged Project theme is Feathers. I recently went to Joann Fabrics with my mom and she got Emily a huge bag of feathers. So I was all set for this weeks Unplugged Project, I just needed to figure out what to do with these feathers. Emily has been asking to do some painting so I thought it would be fun to try some feather painting. Emily actually enjoyed this and didn't ask for a brush or to use her hands, like she normally does. It looked like so much fun I joined her in this project too!

Emily painting with some feathers.

When we were all finished we decided to glue the feathers on to the paper.

Emily's finished feather painting

Mommy's finished feather painting