Fall painting fun

Today, I just felt like it was time to make a mess! Getting dirty is fun for kids! And of course, what a great sensory experience! Today, our choice was finger paint- and LOTS of it (I have no idea when these will be dry!)

When you are going to use a ton of paint in one project, make sure you have thick enough paper! We used finger paint paper! 

This is fun, easy and makes a beautiful picture- you can do it for any season/holiday with those certain colours. Because it is fall, and we are enjoying watching the leaves change on the trees, and fall to the ground- we made our final project into a tree! 

Like I said- EASY! I gave each child a piece of finger paint paper, and some fall coloured finger paints! Then they went to work! 

While they worked, I cut out the tree trunk. (you can do this with their hand prints- but, we were already messy, so we just did cut outs!)

Once the kids were done painting all over the sheet, we folded the paper in half and pressed down- giving it a bit of "layers" with the colours, and also a neat "texture".  Then, wait until they are dry enough to cut out. 

We cut these into tree shapes and then glued the trunk on the front of the painting! (and then again, wait until they are completely dry!)

Fabulous Fall Fun! 

The other day, we also made these Halloween Decorations- with our feet and hands! 

Ghosts at night

This craft takes a couple steps. But, the kids love doing all of it! I got the idea from a friend of mine, who saw a picture of it on www.pinterest.com I added a couple things to ours, so the kids would have more to glue on. 

First, you will have to paint the kids feet and hand, this will need time to dry before you do the next step. You will need brown paint, white paint, paper (any colour) and paint brushes. I also have wipes handy so I can just wipe their hands and feet clean after! 

 I started with their hands and arm, paint those brown and press onto the paper. Then do each of their feet, one at a time, white! 

 After those dry, you can cut them out and draw a face on each foot (the heel is the head of the ghost). 

Then gather the rest of the stuff you will need for the craft- black paper, glue, sparkles (or glitter glue). We also cut out a paper moon, and an orange pumpkin out of foam. 

 Have the kids glue the ghosts (feet), tree (hand), pumpkin, and moon onto the black paper. 

 Then add more glue and put the sparkles on (stars).

 Then we have ghosts at night! 

Ghosts

Halloween crafts are so much fun to make, and you can do them in many different ways. Today, we made wind sock ghosts. 

First I collected everything that we needed. I cut the bottoms out of paper bags, cut up some toile, put some white finger paint out. And then we drew some faces on the bags. We also had some string to hang them with, tape to stick the toile in, and scissors to cut the toile. 

 The kids first got to make a huge mess finger painting the whole paper bag! 

 Then we taped the toile into the bags, and cut the ends into strips so it waves in the wind. 

 After they dried, we hung them outside on the trees! 

Happy Halloween! 

Halloween fun

I finally have a second, so I thought I would add in our two newest Halloween crafts. 

Handprint spiders were first on the agenda. To get everything ready, you need to start by tracing the kids hands. Only do the 4 fingers, and have the palms over lap! We just used markers to colour our spiders, and then attached a piece of string (web) and some tape. 

 Then we coloured our spiders. 

 We tried to draw webs around them, but went the web/string route. 

 After they were done, we decided to cut them out and tape a piece of string on for the web. Some of the kids added a bug at the end- for the spider's lunch! 

Then we did a simple sticker collage. I collected a bunch of Halloween stickers, and cut out a witch hat shape to stick them on. You could also add a band around it to make it actually a hat for the kids, but we just went the simple route! 

 Then I let the kids stick the stickers to the hat! 

 And Done! 

Witches and Bats for Halloween

Starting off our Halloween theme, we made some paper bag witch puppets! The kids enjoyed talking about Halloween, making the puppets and then putting on a puppet show. 

First I collected what we would need- markers, paper bags, glue, and the witch pieces cut out of white paper. I also added some glitter glue because the kids love that stuff! 

 The kids went to work colouring their witches! 

 Then they put the pieces together on their paper bag. We fan folded the legs and arms as well. 

 Then we added glitter glue to the hat! 

 Ready for a puppet show! 

 Today we made footprint ghosts. First we traced each child's foot- have the heels overlap each other. Then draw a half circle on top and cut them out. I cut out ears, fangs, and got some eye shapes ready. Then we decided we would paint with paper towel- so I scrunched up some paper towel and held it together with a clothes pin. To make the paint shiny, I mixed liquid tempra paint with white glue. 

 Then I let the kids get to work! 

 Once they were done painting, they started applying the face to their bat. The good thing with mixing the paint and glue is that we didn't need to bring the glue out too! 

 There we have it! Nice Halloween bats made out of our feet!