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 ~ Corduroy’s Halloween

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 is a work in progress so if you have participated and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know :0)

This week we read Corduroy's Halloween, by B. G. Hennessy.  This is a cute lift the flap book that tells the story of how a little bear named Corduroy prepares to celebrate Halloween.  Emily and Juliette love looking under the flaps to see the fun surprises underneath while we are reading the story.

Both Emily and Juliette liked the Jack-o-Lanterns that are in the story so we made our own out of paper.  To make them a little more special we made them sun-catcher Jack-o-lanterns.

I cut a pumpkin shape out of card stock paper and the girls picked which way they wanted to hold it so they could have a tall skinny pumpkin or a short squatty one.  Next,  Emily had fun drawing a face on hers.  Then I cut it out with an Exacto knife type of a cutter.   For Juliette I drew the face and cut it out.

Then they painted their pumpkins.

After they dried they glued yellow tissue paper to the back of the pumpkin over the holes for the eyes, mouth and nose.  Emily was determined to cover her entire back with tissue paper.

Finally they glued on the stem, leaf that was cut out of construction paper  and the vine which is a piece of pipe cleaner.

Emily’s Jack-o-Lantern

 

Juliette’s Jack-o-Lantern

 

I love how when the sun is shining it really lights up the Jack-o-Lanterns face!!

Now it is your turn!! Click below to link up a book you read and the project or activity that you did to go with it.

stART ~ A Day at the Apple Orchard

 

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.

This week we read A Day at the Apple Orchard, by Megan Faulkner and Adam Krawesky.  This is a great book that describes a child's trip to an apple orchard.  Emily was excited to see all the photographs and to talk about when we went apple picking last year with her little cousin.  I loved all the information that this book shared in a fun way.  At first I thought that it would be boring for her, but it actually held her attention as we discussed the information I read and things that were going on in the photographs.

After reading this book we made some cute apple sun catchers.  All you need is a clear plastic lid, paint brush, watered down glue, green craft foam and a brown pipe cleaner.  First, I punched a hole in the top of a clear plastic lid, then Emily glued red tissue paper on to the lid.  Once all the glue was dry she threaded a brown pipe cleaner through the hole in the lid and a green leaf that I cut out of craft foam.  To finish it she twisted the pipe cleaner together to make it look like a stem. 

Emily was very proud of her finished sun catcher!!

I scream, You scream…

…we all scream for ICE CREAM cones!!!

 

Emily has been enjoying the summer and especially getting ices from Ralph’s after dinner.  She also really loves ICE CREAM!!  I thought it would be fun to make our own ice cream cone project and Emily totally agreed.  We had a great time making this project with our art group friends!

We used pink, brown and white construction paper, brown and red paint, and all different colored tissue paper squares.

First, the girls painted the cone shape that I cut out for them brown with a small sponge.

Next, they glued on the ice cream scoops.  I cut out a pink, white and brown circle for each child.

After that, they used their thumb to make a red thumbprint cherry on top. Finally they glued tissue paper sprinkles all over their ice cream scoops, which looked really cute and was also great fine motor skills practice.

Yummy yummy!!! 

We are planning on making some homemade ice cream too, so stay tuned  :0)

stART ~ Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms

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.

 

This week we have been enjoying Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms, by Julia Rawlinson.  This is fun story about a fox that is having fun enjoying all the sights and sounds of springtime, until he discovers some unexpected snow.  He decides that he must warn all the animals to get ready for the snow.  Finally, Fletcher gets a wonderful springtime surprise, the snow is actually beautiful  blossoms falling from the trees.  This book is beautifully written and illustrated and we are both so glad that we found this book during our recent trip to the library.

After reading this book together, I pointed out the tree in front of our house that has beautiful pink blossoms.  Emily keeps asking me when they are going to fall down like in Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms.  I can’t wait till she gets to see it snowing pink blossoms in front of our house!  She has also been noticing all of the beautiful trees as we are driving.  She actually points to them and yells “Mommy look and the beautiful blossoms!”  so for our project I knew that Emily would love making her own springtime tree full of beautiful blossoms!

Emily’s Springtime Blossoms 

First I painted her hand and arm with brown paint to make the trunk and branches of her tree.  She loves having her hands painted and giggled the whole time.

While we waited for the tree trunk and branches to dry Emily painted half of a piece of paper with blue water color (I made this by putting water and food coloring into a muffin tin and it worked so well and was so inexpensive too!)

Then she painted the other half green, her favorite color :0)

While we waited for these to dry we went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather!

When we came back in I cut out Emily’s hand and arm print tree and she glued it onto the green and blue paper.

Emily glued pieces of pink and white tissue paper to the branches of her tree.  Notice our blossoms through the window in the background of the picture, Emily kept checking it outside while she was working on her project!

Emily’s Handprint Springtime Blossoms

 

        

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! 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.

This week we read What Is Easter, by Michelle Medlock Adams.  We have been getting ready for Easter and this is a great board book that explains to children the true meaning of Easter.  I love that it starts with all the fun things that we do around Easter, like having egg hunts, getting chocolate bunnies and  jelly beans and asks is this what Easter is?   Of course it isn’t!!  Then it goes on to tell the true meaning; that Easter is so much more special than all of that, that it is all about Jesus.

Emily made a beautiful stained glass cross art project at Mommy and Me that I think goes perfectly with this book.

 

This was a fun easy project that looks great in the window! 

To make it cut the black part out of construction paper.  Then cut a piece of contact paper in the shape of the outline of the stained glass window.  Tape the contact paper onto the table sticky side up and let your little one fill in the paper with colorful tissue paper squares.  When they are all finished press the black construction paper cross onto the contact paper and hang in the window!

Friday Art Group

Color Wheel Project ~ Yellow and Yellow Pasta Painting

The girls really seemed to enjoy the play dough this week.  They were rolling it out and using the cutters to make all different shapes.

Color Wheel Project ~ Yellow

We continued working on our color wheels for the Color Wheel Project at Mommies Little Artists.  For our projects the girls are making a color wheel collage.  I was so excited to see how they look with the next color added. 

The girls colored one of the pieces of the circle with yellow markers, and then glued on yellow pipe cleaners, tissue paper, foam, construction paper, ribbon, stickers and sequins. 

Yellow Pasta Painting

I have been wanting to try Spaghetti Painting for awhile now so thought that it would go very well with our YELLOW themed art group today.  I also added some different types of dried pasta to paint with too, since I wasn’t sure if all of the girls would like the feeling of the cooked pasta.  To my surprise it was Emily that was the most uninterested in it!!  She did try it at the end though. 

Painting with pasta is pretty cool!!!

Juliette watched the girls paint while I was holding her, but she did spend some time hanging out in her Jump-a-roo too!!