Paper Beads

One of the little boys I look after currently is very interested in threading, so I thought I could get the older children making paper beads that we could then use to make necklaces.  These are really easy to make.

 I used gummed paper, but these are equally easy to make with normal paper.  To make the beads:

1.  Cut out isosceles triangles from your sheet of paper (mine were 3cm wide and as long as the width of the paper).

2.  Starting with the widest end of the triangle roll them up around an object like a pen (great for small motor development!)

3. When you get near to the end of the triangle, wet down if using gummed paper, or spread glue onto the end of the paper and then continue to roll.  Once rolled, slide the bead carefully off of the pen.

We thought shiny beads would be fab, so painted ours with glitter gel.

The bead rolling, took lots of concentration!

But they looked really effective!

We then set about creating our necklaces.

We had to be careful not to squash them (but they were quite sturdy).

The children were really pleased with their necklaces.

As they found them quite easy to thread, I've made them some smaller beads to make necklaces with next week!

Butterflies - Eric Carle style - version 2!

No, I'm not totally obsessed with butterflies / Eric Carle!  I wanted a really simple activity I could do at the Childminding Group along this theme.  Although the butterflies we already created looked fab, they were never going to work with 20+ children ranging in age from 6m - 4 years in 2 hours.  So I decided to simplify the process and print straight onto the butterfly templates.  I got my guinea pigs (oops I mean children) to work! 

First I got them to pick a colour to paint the butterfly with.  I needed to restrict the amount of paint they used, otherwise I could predict our butterflies ending up that horrible purply brown colour.  So I thought one way of doing this might be to paint using our hands, which of course they were more than happy to oblige.  This generated lots of giggles as the paint was 'cold and tickly'. 

Once we had the majority of the butterfly covered, I got them to select another colour. Again the idea should be to select contrasting colours, but I wanted to allow the children as much freedom as possible during the activity.  This time they used their brushes to make big marks on the paper, again needing encouragement to avoid focusing only on the centre of the paper. 

They then got to pick the resource they would like to use for printing and selected another colour.  We stuck to the ones we had used for the other butterfly activity - stickle brick, duplo brick, carpet square and cardboard tube.

Here are our finished butterflies.  Hmmm not bad and much quicker to do!

Links to EYFS:
CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions)
CLL: Handwriting (making lines across the paper with the paint)
PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using equipment, developing hand / eye coordination)
CD: Exploring Media and Materials (differentiating colours, creating collages)

Hungry Caterpillar Style Butterflies

We thought we would join in the celebrations of Eric Carle's birthday (author of the Hungry Caterpillar) and create some butterflies this week.  We watched Eric's unique technique for painting on his website and decided to use the simplied version  Anna at The Imagination Tree had thought up.

Luckily we already had some very thick tissue paper. Thicker is better as it tends to tear whilst the children are trying to paint it.  Although the idea is to use contrasting colours, I didn't want to be too prescriptive and let the children select the colours they wished to use.  So we chose the colour of tissue paper we wanted and then the
first colour paint and made large brush marks across the paper. 




This took quite a lot of encouragement initially as the
children both seemed to want to colour in the centre
of the paper with lots and lots of paint! We then
selected another colour and made some more large
brush marks. 

Next was the part they enjoyed the most, stamping, evident in the big smiles!  They each selected an object to use, we used small squares of carpet, duplo bricks, sticklebricks and a small cardboard tube andstamped onto their card using another colour paint. 

We went on to create about 15 sheets of tissue paper (cooking lunch in the kitchen was a bit of a struggle!). 

While we waited for our masterpieces to dry, we created a butterfly template on the laptop, blew it up and printed it off.  Okay, so I did the butterfly and they raced round the garden like lunatics! (I think those creations required more concentration than I had realised!)

However, keen to be involved in every stage of this  project, I had two very willing volunteers to help me piece the 9 A4 sheets of black together, just like a giant jigsaw!  They also insisted on helping to stick it together, consequently this part took quite a long time and a lot of unsticking and repositioning!  We then used our template to cut out some butterflies from card.  

After resorting to the hairdrier, I cut up the  paintings   into small squares and triangles (with hindsight I probably cut ours a bit too small and they would have been more effective if they were larger) and the children stuck them onto their butterfly templates.

And here are our finished creations!

Links to EYFS:
CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions)
CLL: Handwriting (making lines across the paper with the paint)
PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using equipment, developing hand / eye coordination)
CD: Exploring Media and Materials (differentiating colours, creating collages)

Spaghetti Towers

We have been busy practising our threading skills this week.  All the children I look after enjoyed having a go at this activity, ranging in age from nearly 2, to 9.

Spaghetti, stood upright in playdough make a great frame for our threading.

I then gave the children pasta tubes, cut up straws, buttons and Cheerios to thread. 

The children were keen to join in and spend a long time selecting resources and threading them.

This little boy had fantastic concentration and threading skills considering  his age.

Others were keen to help him out at times, when he found it a bit tricky!

He even managed to simultaneously keep his balance on the stool he insisted on sitting on, whilst threading.  I think thats quite an achievement for a nearly 2 year old!

With the over 3's, to extend their learning, I drew their attention to the
 patterns the older children had made that morning and we worked hard to create our own.  Sometimes we had to say our pattern out loud to
work out what would come next.

And here are some of our creations.  Not sure how well they survived the journey home though!

I found some Pennoni Rigati pasta in Asda this morning which are huge compared to normal pasta tubes.  These, with straws, I thought would make a great version of this activity for even younger children.

 

Just need a bit of food colouring to make them more interesting!

Links to EYFS:

PSED: Making Relationships (working together and helping each other)

CLL: Handwriting (showing good control when positioning the straws / pasta on the spaghetti)
PSRN: Numbers as Labels and for Counting (counting / estimating how many objects have been threaded)

PSRN: Shape, Spaces, Measures ( Attempts at / recognition of patterns, ordering towers by height)

Spots n Stripes

We have been looking at patterns recently so thought the children would enjoy this activity.  It is very adult led (however it is the children's choice whether they wish to participate), so can't really be described as a creative activity but covers aspects of the EYFS such as mixing colours, following instructions etc.

The children were provided with various templates and photographs of animals and selected the animal template that they wanted to do first. 

They first had to identify which animal it was by looking at the photographs and then we discussed the colour and pattern of the animal.  The children selected the colour paint they needed.

  I purposefully gave the children a limited number of colours as I wanted them to mix the colours that were not available, which they proved to be surprisingly good at.

When mixing colours we talked about what colour were nearly like the colour we needed and encouraged the children to make suggestions and try mixing their suggestions together.  The children particularly enjoyed mixing colours so we will do more of this next week.

  

After the children had painted the animals we looked closely at their patterns, identifying whether they were spotty or stripey and also the colours of their spots and stripes. 

 

The children decided their thumbs would be best for making bigger spots and their finger for smaller spots

With the stripey animals, we also had to identify the direction of their stripes.

The children made all of these wonderful animals.

I then encouraged the children to make up some animals of their own.  The decided on the colours they would use and then carried out their plans.We ended up with red and orange giraffes, orange and blue striped zebras and yellow dogs with black spots!

Links to EYFS:

CLL: Language for Communication - Where children respond and follow instructions
KUW: Exploration and Investigation - Noticing and commenting on patterns.

CD: Exploring Media and Materials - Exploring and mixing colours.