Recycle Every Day ~ stART

 

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too!

This week we have been talking about Earth Day and ways that we can help do good things for the Earth.  Emily and Juliette  really enjoyed Recycle Every Day!, by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.  This is a great story about a little bunny, Minna who needs to make aposter about recycling for school.  She wants her poster to be picked to be in the Community Recycling Calendar.  Her family helps her learn about the different things that they do to recycle each day of the week.  Finally, she is inspired to create her poster. 

I loved the theme of this book, because all of the different ways that Minna and her family recycled are things we can and in many cases already to in our home.  Emily liked seeing the bottle returns since we just recently took a huge bag to our recycling center.  We also use our tote bags when we go food shopping.  

I also love the illustrations in this book the last page has a list of the different recycled papers and materials that are used throughout the book.  We are working on collecting them so that we can use them to make our own pictures.

For today’s project we made a Puffy Paint Earth Day craft.  I got the idea for this project on Pinterest from Itsy Bitsy Learners.  

Emily’s Puffy Paint Earth

These were fun and easy to make, first I cute out the hearts for the girls, then the girls traced and cut out their handprints.  Emily traced hers and Juliette cut out one while I cut out the real ones (she likes to just cute everything into really small pieces, but it was still good practice in using the scissors!)

  Juliette’s Puffy Paint Earth

Next I gave them each a paper plate and some green and blue homemade puff paint.  First they painted the green on to look like the land and I microwaved it to make it puff up.  Then they painted the blue for the water and I microwaved it to make it dry and puff up.

Finally they glued on the hands and heart to show that they love the Earth.  This was a fun project and looks so cute hanging up for Earth Day!

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The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Also, be sure to check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

stART ~ What is Easter?

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

We read What Is Easter?, by Michelle Medlock Adams last year and really enjoyed it again this year.  I love how it talks about all the fun things that kids enjoy doing for Easter, like going on Easter Egg Hunts, getting Easter candy, but then  explains what Easter is really about! 

This year I read this book to my Sunday School class, and it captured their attention the whole time I was reading it.  Each page asks a question like,“Is Easter all about Jelly Beans and Chocolate bunnies?” and they would shout “NO!!!”  It was so much fun to read to them.

The last page is my favorite part of this book:

Okay, now I get it.
The Easter Bunny is okay,
And Easter eggs are fun.
But Easter's not about that stuff.
It's all about God's son.

I read the last line slowly and by the time I got to “It’s all about…” they finished the last line for me.  Even though this is a board book a group of 2 year olds to 10 year olds loved it!

(Juliette’s Cross)

To go with this book Emily and Juliette made marbled crosses.  When I think of Easter my favorite tradition is the Living Cross that my church creates on Easter Sunday.  Every person in the congregation gets a fresh flower to stick into a huge cross that is covered in chicken wire.  Once we are finished, a dull wooden cross is blooming with new life!  Our marbled crosses reminded me of  the beautiful colors of the Living Cross we make on Easter Sunday!

(Emily’s Cross)

Unfortunately, I was not able to get pictures of the girls working on this project.  My nephew work up from his nap early and did not want to be put down.  So I had him in one arm and was helping them with the other.  No extra hands to take pictures :(

It was still very easy to do.  We sprayed some shaving cream into a layer onto a baking sheet.  Then the girls used droppers to add drops of liquid watercolors on top of the shaving cream. Next they used a craft stick to mix the colors into the shaving cream.  But, just a little bit, so that you can still see the individual colors.  Then they took the paper that I cut out in the shape of a cross and gently pressed it onto the shaving cream after a few seconds they pulled it up and used the craft stick to wipe off the extra shaving cream, this is the best part because it looks all white and plain and as you pull the craft stick down and the shaving cream comes of of the paper the vibrant swirls off color are revealed. 

Thing we learned while doing this:

Make sure you do not saturate the shaving cream.  The more shaving cream you use, the more paint you can use.  If you add to much paint the colors blend together and the liquid dissolves the shaving cream.

Do not mix to much, you just want to use the craft stick to swirl the colors around not mix them all together.

Have fun, and be sure to have an extra can of shaving cream the girls were really disappointed when we ran out!!!

stART ~ Minerva Louise and the Colorful Eggs

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

 

This week we enjoyed reading Minerva Louise and the Colorful Eggs, by Janet Morgan Stoeke.  In this story, Minerva  finds an Easter Basket that she thinks is a hat for her to wear.  When she puts it on she notices an egg inside of it.  Minerva Louise does not want the egg to be cold so she sits on it to warm it with her fluffy feathers.  As she is looking for the egg’s mother she notices another egg and then another egg.  Soon she decided to tell her friends what is going on, when they come out all the eggs are gone.  They look for answers however the Chocolate Easter Bunny and Marshmallow Chicks are no help!  Finally they find one last colorful egg that is quickly snatched up by a little hand.  The other hens felt better that the “farmers” were doing a good job taking care of the eggs and left, but Minerva Louise, found a nice full Easer Basket for her nest.

The girls loved this book and especially how silly Minerva Louise is!  To go along with this book we made some of our own colorful eggs. When I saw the idea to use jell-o powder with glue like on Pinterest I knew that we had to try it and that it would work perfectly with this book.

I cut out egg shapes for each of the girls and placed them on a cookie sheet.  I also poured the powdered jell-o mix into  egg coloring cups, that I saved from last year, in corresponding colors.   The girls made designs with their glue and then spooned the jell-o over the glue like using glitter.  It was a lot of fun to watch the pale jell-o mix turn a vibrant color as it hit the glue. (The jell-o was a pale color, I picked up one great value one from Walmart and it was a dark red color to start so the effect was not as dramatic)  It also smelled amazing as they were working!

 

This project was fun for all of the kids!

 Emily’s Egg

Juliette’s Egg

stART ~ The Wind Blew

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART their and on Pinterest. 

This week we read The Wind Blew , by Pat Hutchins.  Emily read this book at school and said she liked it so much that we took it out of the library to read together.  This is a cute story about a big gust of wind that comes through and blows all of the peoples things up and then mixes them all up.  Then it drops them down and goes out to sea.  Emily’s favorite part is when all the things get blown around and then dropped back down.  We thought it was the perfect book to talk about a windy day!

To go along with this book Emily made a windsock to help watch the wind outside.

 

The top picture part of the windsock was colored in by Emily and then laminated.  Then they added green strips of a plastic tablecloth for the streamers at the bottom.  To hold it up is a piece of lanyard, so we can put it outside and the rain will not ruin it!

stART ~ 10 Little Rubber Ducks

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week I was the Special Reader for Emily’s Preschool class and I don’t know who was more excited about it, Emily or myself!   Emily and I picked out 10 Little Rubber Ducks, by Eric Carle to share with her class.  This book  was inspired by a real shipment of bathtub toys that fell off of a container ship and floated to various places.  In this story, 10 Little Rubber Ducks are made in a factory and packaged and shipped.  Then on their way over the water a fierce storm knocks a box overboard and into the ocean.  The 10 rubber ducks float in various directions until the 10th one finds a real duck and her ducklings.  I love the fun way that this book incorporates ordinal numbers, as well as directional words (over, under, north, south).  Emily, Juliette and I think Emily’s whole class LOVED the special squeaking sound that is on the last page of the book, it definitely adds a special touch especially when you are reading it to a group of kids!!

To go along with this book I set up a project for Emily to do when she came home from school.  I love Eric Carle’s illustrations so we made ducks in the ocean inspired by the cover of this book.

I gave the girls a  duck template (click on the picture above for a free download) that I drew on a piece of construction paper.  

First they glued on pieces of yellow tissue paper for the body and orange tissue paper for the beaks.

When they were finished the glued on a blue wiggly eye.

For the water Juliette decided to finger paint the piece of paper.  I gave them a few different shades of blue and some green to make it look like the picture on the cover.

Emily used the same colors, but she decided she wanted to use a brush.

When everything was dry the girls glued their ducks onto the water backgrounds.

Emily’s Little Rubber Duck

Juliette’s Little Rubber Duck

Juliette loved this project and was so proud of it, she asked if she could hang it in her room when it was ready!

stART ~ Lucky Tucker

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week we read Lucky Tucker, by Leslie McGuirk.  This is a cute book about a dog named Tucker who is not having a very good day, until he rolls around in a four-leaf clover patch that belongs to a leprechaun!

To go along with this book the girls made shamrock collages.  I gave them a piece of card stock in the shape of a shamrock and then set out markers, do a dot markers and all sorts of green collage materials like  pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, feathers, stickers straws, velcro, ribbon, pom poms for them to get creative with. 

Coloring with the green markers

Emily decided to use the green wiggly eyes to turn it into a Shamrock Person

Juliette took a picture of her Shamrock collage when she was all finished.

 

The girl’s Shamrock Collages, I love how different they are and how they each used the same materials in their own unique way!

Emily’s Shamrock

(5 years old)

Juliette’s Shamrock

(2.5 years old)

stART~Ten Black Dots

 

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week we read Ten Black Dots, by Donald Crews.  Emily enjoyed reading this book at school and at home.  This is a great picture book that shows the many different things that different amounts of black dots can become.  The rhyming text is fun to read and the girls loved seeing all of the different things that the dots became on each page.

To go along with this book Emily picked a number of black dots and then imagined what they could be.  Then she glued the black dots on the paper and used them as part of her picture.

Emily decided that four black dots can be the wheels on a car.

stART ~ If You Give a Pig a Party

Welcome to stART!  I am sorry I didn’t post last week, but we were all recovering from a horrible stomach virus and then preparing for Emily’s 5th Birthday Party.  We are back and 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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week we have been reading If You Give A Pig A Party, by Laura Numeroff.  The girls love all of the books in the “If You Give A…” series by Laura Numeroff.  This one was especially perfect since we have been busy celebrating Emily’s 5th (Oh my goodness how is she 5 already!!) birthday.  The story line is simple but very cute, it tells  about all the funny things that happen if you give a party for a pig. The book kept both Emily and Juliette engaged in the story and is also wonderful for teaching cause and effect.

For this story we thought it would be fun to make a big and since we had some pink balloons leftover from Emily’s Party we used them, the girls were so excited to do some crafting with a balloon!  It is always fun to see how they react to new or different craft/art supplies :)

  I drew the shapes for the pig on pink construction paper and the girls cut them out.

Then they colored them and added details with crayons.

Next, they taped the ears and snout on to the pink balloon.

 

Finally, and I think their favorite part was using the black marker to make the eyes and mouth.

Emily and Juliette’s Partying Balloon Pigs!!!