October - Halloween Bats

Halloween is nearly here and we needed something simple and fun for our crafty toddlers to after some thinking and research we decided to make these lovely Halloween Bats. The prep time is minimal but the black paint can get messy so be prepared for some messy crafty fun!!!

A finished Halloween Bat

To make these cute Halloween Bats you will need the following:
/ Toilet roll tube (approx. 1.5 rolls per bat)
/ Black paint
/ Boggolie eyes
/ White paper (cut in to teeth shape)
/ PVA glue
/ Glitter and pompoms (optional)

Prep kit for the Halloween Bats

To make your Halloween Bats with your crafty toddlers follow these steps:
1/ Cut out your bat wings by folding a toilet roll in half, and cutting out one wing, leaving the wide edge of the fold untouched.

TOP TIP: If you have a kitchen roll then you can cut multiple wings from one roll

2/ Paint both an untouched toilet roll and a set of wings in black paint and leave to dry
3/ Stick on boggolie eyes and teeth
4/ Stick wings on the back on the toilet roll
5/ Apply some glue and sprinkle glitter and add pompoms if required!

TOP TIP: If your crafty toddler is enjoying themselves why not create a cloud of bats, some short, some tall, some with noses etc.

Halloween Bats

Halloween Bats

July - Apple Tree Orchard

The apple trees are normally beginning to sprout apples at this time of year, so how better to teach little ones about this process than making their very own apple tree and if you have enough apple trees you can make an orchard! This crafty toddler activity does take more prep time than usual - say 20 mins but the result is great.

The beginnings of our apple tree orchard

Here are the things that you will need to make your apple trees:
/ A4 paper, cut out to look like a round, puffy cloud
/ Green paint
/ Green, pink and red tissue paper torn in to squares
/ Glitter
/ PVA glue
/ Card board strips (about 10-15cm long by 5cm wide)
/ Scissors

Apple tree prep kit

Follow these steps to make your crafty toddler apple trees:
1/ Mix some PVA glue in with the green paint then paint the paper
2/ Whilst the paint is still wet, adorn with glitter and pieces of craft paper. roll up the pink/red pieces of craft paper
3/ Leave to dry

Top Tip: Some of our trees got a bit scrunched up as they were drying but this turned out to be to their benefit as they look more authentic when you put them on their trunks

4/ Fold the strip of card in half then, on the bend, use a scissors to make a cut about 2cm long
5/ Once the tree top is dry slot it in to the cut on the tree trunk and gently stand it up.

Our apple trees in progress

A scrunched up apple tree

The apple tree orchard

Little Stars Toddler Group, Ashtead, Surrey

For those of you that might be interested in joining our toddler group, this is what it looks like. It is run by mums for mums. We have loads of nice toys, soft toys for little ones, arts & crafts (obviously), singing and dancing, juice and biscuits, tea and coffee. Lovely!

Little Stars Toddler Group, Ashtead, Surrey

June - Butterfly Rolls

These butterfly rolls are gigantic fun as once they are finished they are bigger than life and make great hand held puppets. Prep time is short and the crafty toddlers can paint / decorate to their hearts content...

 

Here is a list of things that you need to make your Butterfly Rolls:

/ Toilet roll inner

/ Paper or card

/ Paints

/ PVA glue

/ Glitter

/ Sequins

/ Stapler

/ Pipe cleaner.

 

Follow these steps with your crafty toddler to make these butterfly rolls:

1/ Cut out the basic shape of a butterfly wings. Best way to do this is to fold  you paper in half draw a big, rounded 'm' along the fold line, make sure one part of the 'm' is smaller than the other

Top tip: we found that 80gm paper was a bit flimsy for this activity, causing our wings to sag, so suggest using some think paper or card (say 120gsm)

2/ Paint and decorate the butterfly wings and toilet roll, leave to dry

Top tip: add some PVA glue to the paint to help glitter and sequins stick, save on separate glue activity

/ Staple the wings on to the toilet roll, make sure the arms of the staples are secure

/ Bend the pipe cleaner in bald and then staple to the toilet roll again make sure the arms of the staples are secure.

Top tip:  I find putting a strip of cellotape over the top of any staples used avoids any cuts or scrapes

Finished Butterfly Roll

Finished Butterfly Roll

Air your Art

Here is a nice, cheap way to display your crafty toddler art. All you need are some dolly pegs, washing line and some 3m command hooks. And voila a lovely art washing line! 

Air your art - simple and cheap crafty toddler art display

June - "I love you... this much... Daddy"

This is a really neat present for a parent or grandparent. Our little man made this at nursery but I thought it was so cute it was worth a mention.

It's basically two hand prints with the words 'I love you' and 'Daddy. Love Huwie', then when you open the hands up a painted, paper accordion expands to read 'this much'. It came tied together with a ribbon. Cute!

May - Summer Skies

This crafty idea of creating a summer sky is really simple, it has loads of bright colours and sensory pieces too. It requires very little preparation time all you really need are some bits and bobs that you find around the garden.

Summer Skies

Here are the materials that you could use to make your craft summer skies:
A4 paper
Yellow paint
Cotton wool
Coloured tissue paper
PVA glue
Assortment of things from the garden (grass, leaves, petals)

Follow these simple steps to create your craft summer skies:
1/ Use the yellow paint to make a circle (sun) of hand prints on the A4 paper
2/ Stick randon puffs of cotton wool on to the paper (clouds)
3/ Go mad sticking all the bits and bobs on that you found around the garden
4/ Leave to dry and your  summer skies are done!

Here are a range of our summer skies created at toddler group

Here is my favorite summer sky

April (week 12) - Spring animal prints

Spring animal prints are fun and easy to do, prep time is about 10 mins and you can create multiple backgrounds for different spring scenes.

Spring animal prints

Things that you will need to create your spring animal prints are:
/ Farmyard animal sponges
/ A4 paper
/ Felt tip pen
/ Paints and brushes
/ Glitter

Spring animal prints - preparation kit

To create your spring animal prints with your crafty toddlers, follow these steps:
/ Draw the background on to the paper - the spring scenes that we used were duck ponds, cow shed, rabbit hutch and fenced field.
/ Help your crafty toddler to paint the sponges then squish the sponge on the paper.

Top tip: don't be shy with the paint on the sponge as more paint makes for better prints

/ Use paint brushes to add some splashes of colour to the background scene
/ Add glitter for the finishing touch!

Top Tip: using different coloured paint on a sponge can produce some really colorful prints

Spring animal printing in progress

Spring animal print

Spring animal print

Spring animal print

Our spring animal print family

March (week 9) - Finger Monsters

Finger monsters are a really fun thing to make with your crafty toddler. Prep time only takes 3-5 mins and the craft fun can keep going until you have more finger monsters than you can handle!

The finished product - finger monster

Things you will need to create your crafty finger monsters are:
/ Cardboard (from breakfast cereal boxes is good for this too)
/ Scissors
/ Paints & brushes or sponges
/ PVA glue
/ Sequins
/ Glitter
/ Dark felt tip pen
/ Bogglie eyes

Finger monster prep kit

To make your crafty finger monsters follow these steps:
/ Draw the outline of your monster on the cardboard and cut out (any shape is fine, think about adding some hair or a hat or horns to the outline).
/ Mark and cut out the areas for your or your toddlers fingers.
/ Get decorating with paints, sequins, pompoms or glitter - whatever takes your fancy!
/ Leave to dry.
/ Stick on your bogglie eyes.
/ Draw on a mouth (smiles or mouths with goofy teeth work well).

Here are some of the finger monsters that our craft toddlers made!

Our finger monster family

Finger monster close up

March (week 8) - Mother's Day Cards

Making a Mother's Day card is a lovely gesture and with it only taking a few minutes for both the prep and creation - its a win win!

The finished Mother's Day Cards

Here is what you will need to create your Mother's Day card:
/ Blank greetings cards (or a sheet of card that you can fold in half)
/ Felp tip pen
/ Glue
/ Glitter (girlie colours)
/ Sequins
/ Stick on hearts
/ Paints & brushes
/ Craft pompoms

Mother's Day Card prep

 

Follow these simple steps to make your toddler art and craft Mother's Day card:
/ Draw a large heart on the front of the card with the felt tip pen.
/ I think that a nice touch is to write the name of the person that you are giving the card to below the heart (such as mummy, nannie, granny, grandma).
/ Decorate the heart and the card to your toddlers content
            - use sequins to outline the heart then use glitter or paint to fill in the middle of the heart
            - use the stick on hearts to create a pattern
            - paint the heart and then decorate with pompoms
            - another nice idea is to put a hand print on the inside or on the back of the card.

Top tip: write your message in the card before decorating it, that way you will have a finished card that will just need to dry and no awkward writing with pompoms getting in the way!

More examples of the Mother's Day cards created

February (week 6) - 'I love ewe' valentines card

Seems as it is lambing season and valentines day, I though that making a sheepy a valentines card that the toddlers could give to a loved one could be an interesting craft combination. Preparation takes about 10 mins.

I LOVE EWE valentines card

To make your 'I love ewe' valentines card you will need:
/ Toilet roll inners
/ PVA glue
/ Thick card for legs, neck and head
/ Stapler
/ Felp tip pens (black or navy)
/ Cotton wool
/ White tissue paper
/ Glitter
/ Heart shaped stickers

I LOVE EWE prep

Steps to make your 'I love ewe' valentines cards are as follows:
1/ Crinkle up the white tissue, then flatten out and roll around the toilet roll inner, staple in place.
2/ Draw and cut out your sheep face, attach to a 'L' shaped piece of card board and then staple to inside of sheep body.
3/ Cut out 2x 1cm think strips of card for the legs. Attach to the under side of the sheep body by stapling in the middle of the strip of card. Fold the legs either side of the staple so the sheep can stand on its own feet.
4/ Write your valentines message on the body of the tissue using the felt tip pen.
5/ Apply some glue to different areas of the body, including the sheep fringe and stick on some cotton wool.
6/ Sprinkle on some glitter and stick on some heart stickers.

There you have it a cute 'I love ewe' valentines day card to give to someone special.

I LOVE EWE's created by our crafty toddlers

I LOVE EWE's created by our crafty toddlers

February (week 5) - Newspaper Fish

Newspaper fish is a great craft piece for both adults and toddlers alike. Preparation takes about 10 mins and the crafty fun can carry on for as long as the crafty toddlers are interested.

The finished product - News paper fish

Thing you will need to make your newspaper fish craft are:
/ Newspaper
/ A4 white paper
/ A4 blue paper
/ PVA glue
/ Sequins
/ Black felt tip pens

News paper fish prep

The steps to make your crafty toddlers newspaper fish are as follows:
/ Draw some fish, shark, octopuses, nessy monsters on a newspaper and cut out (tip: try to cut through as many sheets as you can to save you cutting out the same shape over and over).
/ Take a piece of blue A4 paper and rip a wavy line across the long side of the paper, about 10cm from the top. Discard the smaller ripped off piece.
/ Crumple up the large piece of blue paper and then flatten out and stick on top of the white A4 using glue.
/ Now the fun begins... select your sea animals and stick on in any place or direction that you like.
/ Use a felt tip pen to draw faces, bow ties, hair, teeth, gills on to the sea animals.
/ Stick opn some sequins for eyes of the sea animals
/ Apply some glue to certain areas of the craft (e.g. the top of the sea, around the sea animals) and then use some glitter to jazz the sea scene up
/ Use a felt tip pen to draw some seaguls and boats above the ocean.

And voila! A lovely sea animals scene!!

News paper fish created by our crafty toddlers

News paper fish created by our crafty toddlers

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