Another Shape Monster

After seeing Liam's Shape Monsters yesterday Neevah really wanted one of her own but not a circle or a diamond and defiantly not a rectangle ....

Her Requested Monster
Red
Square
No Smile
Big Teeth
Little bit of Spiky Hair

So this afternoon we made her requested Monster I cut out all the pieces and she glued it together

Sticking on the no smile mouth

Watching TV with Pup the Monster

Shape Monsters

I had no little crafters to help me today they both had super long naps! Shape Monsters are super easy to make after the initial cutting out and definitely doable for little kids along with some sneaky shape learning.

You will need
Bright coloured paper
Black paper
Scissors
Glue

To Make
1 .Cut out large shapes from the coloured paper - I choose a Rectangle, Circle and Diamond
2 .Cut out lots of eyes, teeth, mouths, arms, legs or anything else you think might be fun to make monsters
3 .Glue them all together

These shape monsters are funky and fun. They look great on Liams bedroom door giving it a little bit of a Halloween feel especially since Neevah has her Marble Painting Spiderweb & Spider hanging on her door I couldn't have the little man feeling left out.

We Play - Bird Mask

Don't forget to stop by Childhood 101 We Play where you can find lots of other great play ideas....

One of the best parts of Halloween has to be dressing up and I really like the idea of homemade costumes. This bird mask was super easy to make ..... 1/2 a paper plate, coloured paper, marker pen, elastic, glue and scissors is all you need to make this bird mask. I love how our mask turned out very Phoenix like but how about changing the colours .... Brown and Yellow could make a neat owl ... Green, Blue and Teal could make a fantastic peacock ..... Or how about lots of different colours and make you very own Rainbow bird.

Can you hear that? It is a bird calling me

Flapping her pretend bird wings

Checking the mail as all kids love to do

Marble Painting Spiderweb & Spider

We had quite a bit of fun crafting spiders a few months ago and our spider pops and spider hat where a hit. On the back of their past success we thought we would try another spider craft but something a little messy this time

You will need
Black Paper
White Paint
Marble
Shallow Container
Cake Tin / Tray or similar
Ribbon
Wiggly Eyes
Scissors
Glue

To Make
1 .Cut a circle from the black paper and put it in the bottom of an old cake tin or something similar that will contain the marble
2 .Put the white paint into the shallow contain and drop the marble into the paint
3 .Place the marble onto the black paper and tip the cake tin around so it paints lines across the black paper
4 .Let Dry
5 .Trace around both your childs hands on the black paper (you don't need to include the thumb)
6 .Cut out the hands
7 .Glue them together fingers facing away from each other
8 .Glue on Wiggly Eyes
9 .Make a hole in the bottom of the web and i the spider
10. Thread the ribbon through the hole in the spider and then through the hole in the web and knot both ends - I did this step as Neevah had lost interested and moved on to play with yesterdays playdough11 . Display the creepy crawly creation - Neevah's is proudly displayed on her bedroom door

Playdough Monsters

When I saw this post a month or two ago on mama smiles I immediately thought of Halloween and knew we needed to try it. We made our own playdough in Blue, Orange and Green and the kids added wiggly eyes with coloured eyelids. This activity was great for keeping the kids occupied while dinner was cooking and what surprised me the most was Neevah sorted the eyes into colours and each of her monsters had it's own coloured eyes.


Playdough Recipe
2 cups of plain flour
2 tbs Cream of Tartar
2 tbs Cooking Oil
1 cup Salt
2 cups of Water
Food Colouring

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan (except food colouring) stir over medium heat for 3 - 5 mins or until the mixture congeals. Once cool add food colouring.

Neevah adding eyes to the playdough

two very cute playdough monsters

Footprint Corn

I love Handprint and Footprint crafts they usually turn out so cute and this one was simple to make. Inspiration for this craft can be found here

You will need:
Yellow Paint
White Paper
Green Paper
Green Crayon
Glue
Scissors

To Make
1 . Paint your childs foot yellow and print it onto the white paper twice (you may need to add more paint before the 2nd printing)
2 .Let it dry
3 .Cut out the footprints
4 .Cut out corn leaves from the green paper and a stem
5 .Colour the corn leaves with a green crayon
6 .Glue the leaves onto the footprint
7 .Display the cute corn - I did this by taping the stem and corn to our pantry door

Box Dinosaur Hat

We love Dinosaurs! Roaring like a dinosaur, Stomping like a dinosaur, Dancing like a dinosaur, Playing with dinosaur figures and Reading dinosaur books.

You Will Need
Small Box it fit on your childs head
Green Paper
Black Paper
White Paper
White Cardboard
Glue
Scissors

To Make
1 .Cut up pieces of green paper
2 .Glue the pieces of green paper onto the box - we did this over 2 days - or you could paint the box instead
3 .Make the eyes by cutting 2 arch shapes from the white cardboard and 2 circles from the black paper. Fold the bottom of the arch over to form a flap (this will be where the eyes are glued to the box) then glue on the black circles
4 .Cut out 2 ovals from the black paper for nostrils and 4 triangles from the white paper for teeth
5 .Glue on the eyes
6 .Glue on the teeth
7 .Glue on the nostrils
8 .Once the glue drys the hat is ready to wear ..... put it on and run around like a crazy dinosaur!

Liam Roars Like a Dinosaur

This craft was inspired by our new favourite bedtime story
I Want My Mummy by Mij Kelly
This book is so fun to read it covers simple colours which is great for Liam and Neevah loves its repetitive nature so she can join in as I read it. The story is about the day a baby blue egg came out to play. First came one leg, then came another, then it yelled I want my mother! The other dinosaurs are happy to help the baby blue egg find his mother as long as it stops making so much noise .... don't wake up the scary thing!

Name Sprinkle Art

Neevah starts Preschool in 3 weeks so we have been doing a few activities related to name recognition and I have to say Name sprinkle art was a huge success. Mess factor could be quite high depending on the ages involved ... Liam joined us for art time today he thoroughly enjoyed himself and made a much bigger mess than Neevah did.

You Will Need
Zip Lock Bag(s)
Salt
Food Colouring
Paper
Glue

To Make
1 .Pour salt into the zip lock bag and add a few drops of food colouring close the bag and let your child mix the colour through the salt. You may need to add more food colouring depending on how much salt is in the bag.
2 .Lay the salt out on a piece of newspaper or similar and let dry for roughly 15 mins - we skipped this step and the colour bleed when it was put on the glue so had to wait for the salt to dry a little and try again
3 .Write your childs name in glue on a piece of paper
4 .Let them cover the glue in coloured salt
5 .Shake of the excess salt
6 .Let Dry - you may want to keep it flat to start with

A few tips:
- Make sure you space out the letters when writing them with the glue the first time I got a few letters a little close together and they sort of merged once the salt was added
- Have a few extra sheets of paper on hand as it is great to let them make their own creations as well as their name
- While the mess is pretty easy to clean up maybe try doing this on a baking tray it make keep the salt a little more contained

Liams sprinkle art

We did start out with Blue and Orange salt but once they shook the salt off their art a few times it all mixed in together .... for this age group I think one colour would be adequate unless they are good at keeping them separate

We Play - Shape Crayon Rubbings

Don't forget to stop by Childhood 101 We Play where you can find lots of other great play ideas....

While Neevah knows most of her basic shapes Liam is still learning them .... this idea works well for both of them and could easily be used for most shapes.

You will need
Cardboard - we used an old nappy box
Hot Glue or you could try school glue
Marker Pen
Paper
Crayons
Sticky Tape

To Make
1 . On the cardboard draw the shapes with marker pen - the first time I tried this I just free handed the shapes with hot glue this didn't really work and I had some very wonky shapes!
2 . Go around the shapes with hot glue
3 . Tape the cardboard to your table so it doesn't move around when they are doing the crayon rubbings you may also like to tape the paper over the cardboard for the same reason
4 . Grab the crayons and let them at it

Start rubbing

Look a circle

Rubbing fast is fun

I found a star

Magic Colour Drinks

I saw this neat idea while blog hopping a few months ago (I can't find the link for it now) they had used it as part of a Harry Potter Birthday Party which I thought was fantastic! We first tried this idea as part of a playdate and the kids loved it

You Will Need
Clear Cups
Food Colouring
Water or Lemonade
Ice (optional)

To Make
1 .Put a small drop of food colouring into the bottom of each cup and let dry overnight
2 .Just before serving add a few cubes of ice to the cup - this step is optional for littles as they don't really notice the small flecks of colour in the bottom of the cup but for older kids who are more observant you may need the ice to hide the colour in the bottom of the cup
3 .In front of the kids add water to the cup and watch it magically become coloured water!
4 .Enjoy your magic drink

This is not the first time we have made these drinks and the excitement level was not quite the same the 2nd time around. I wish I had taken photos the first time around as some of the faces were priceless