January (week 4) - Potato Bird Prints

It was Bird Watch Week this week so thought this was a perfect themed craft piece to do.

The finished product - Potato bird prints

Thing you need to make the crafty potato bird prints:
/ Potatoes
/ Paper
/ PVA glue
/ Range of coloured paints and
/ Glitter
/ Sequins
/ Strips of cardboard

Potato bird printing prep

The steps to follow to make your potato bird prints are:
1/ Use green paint to paint a large, rough circle in the middle of the paper (this will be the tree), then leave to dry
2/ Paint the edge of a strip of cardboard with dark paint and drag it across the paper (this will be the trunk and some branches)
3/ Cut the potatoes in half and shape to a basic shape that resembles a bird body, I used the simple shape of a comma
4/ Paint the freshly cut side of the potato in any bright colours and press onto paper in bird like places
6/ Sprinkle glitter on to the wet paint for the bird bodies
5/ Use felt tip pens to draw a beak, feet and possibly tail feathers on to your bird bodies
6/ Once dry, use stick on sequins for eyes

NOTE: our toddlers found this quite a hard craft piece so I would suggest starting with the potato printing and decoration, leaving the creation of the tree for older children

Some of the potato bird prints created by our craft toddlers

January (week 3) - Lion heads

Create a fun and hand sized lion head for your crafty toddlers. Takes about 10 mins to create (not inc preparation time).

The finished product - hand sized lion head

To make your crafty lion head you will need:
- Coffee stirrer
- Cardboard circle
- Felt tip pen
- Yellow paint
- Glitter
- Gogglie eyes
- Cello tape
- Pipe cleaner

Hand sized lion head prep

Here are the steps to make lion heads with your crafty toddlers:
1/ draw your lion face on the advocated circle
2/ paint the lions main
3/ add glitter to lion main
4/ once dry, stick on eyes with a dab of PVA glues and stick to stirrer with cellotape
5/ wrap pipe cleaner around stirrer

Deciding on a lion face and cutting out the outline

Hand sized lion head before decoration

Hand sized lion head after decoration

January (week 2) - Thank you cards

Our first art and craft session at toddler group in 2013 was to make some Thank you cards.

Finished product - Thank you card

To make these cards you will need:
 - A5 cards (can be bought or make your own by cutting A4 card in to two equal parts and then fold in half)
 - A5 envelopes (bought)
 - Glue
 - Paint
 - Glitter
 - Sharpie pen
 - Thank you message (cut out of A4 paper). Make sure this is written with perminant marker to stop any smudging / running when it is painted

Thank you card prep kit

Steps to make your Thank you card:
1/ Use Sharpie pen to write the full message on the inside of the card (inside)
2/ Use paint to do some hand or feet imprints on the card (front, back and inside)
3/ Paint or glitter the Thank you message
4/ Apply a smear of glue to different parts of the card and sprinkle glitter (front and back)
5/ Glue thank you message to front of card
6/ Leave to dry

 Here is an array of some of the other cards made at toddler group today:

Some of the Thank you cards created by our craft toddlers

A hand print to sign the Thank you card

Arts and crafts schedule (Jan - Mar)

Being organised and planning some months in advance is a good tip. I have created a 3 month schedule which means that I can plan ahead and buy in the supplies that we need with minimal stress.

Here is a draft schedule from Jan to March. Over the next weeks I will document the craft creations that our toddlers make during the art and craft sessions at our toddler group.

Toddler craft ideas for January:
7th jan - thank you cards
14th jan -  spoon heads (wooden spoons)
21st jan - bird watch (potato paining)
28th jan - news paper fish


Toddler craft ideas for February:
4th feb - Chinese new year
11th feb - Shrove Tuesday - pancake day OR valentines day cards
18th feb - painted snakes
25th feb - Purim (Jewish festival) OR Fair Trade Fortnight

Toddler craft ideas for March:
4th mar - Mothering sunday (10th March)
11th mar - comic relief (red nose day) OR St Patrick's Day (17th March)
18th mar -  Holi (27th March) Hindu celebration
25th mar - Easter Sunday (painted eggs)

other ideas:
pirate hats
door signs
potatoe painting spring scene
paper monsters
blow painted monsters

Crafty inspiration

These are the places that I have looked for inspiration for out toddler arts and crafts:

For a calendar of events through each month, check out:
http://www.kinderart.com/seasons/
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/resources/r/resourcecalendar/january.asp?strReferringChannel=resources&strReferringPageID=tcm:4-671956-64

Blogs:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/

Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/thinkliz/toddler-crafts/
http://pinterest.com/akstrauss/crafts-for-toddlers/

Getting Started

Having recently agreed to take on the role of Arts & Crafts organiser at our local toddler playgroup - I thought I might document the things we make so that anyone else in a similar position has a base that they could use if they wished.

My aim is to document the crafty activities that we do and also give some guidance to the equipment and supplies needed for each crafty creation.

Our toddler group is called 'Little Stars' and it is in Ashtead, Surrey, every Monday from 10am at St Georges Church hall (term time). It is run by mums for mums for toddlers up to 3 year.