Recycle Every Day ~ stART

 

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too!

This week we have been talking about Earth Day and ways that we can help do good things for the Earth.  Emily and Juliette  really enjoyed Recycle Every Day!, by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.  This is a great story about a little bunny, Minna who needs to make aposter about recycling for school.  She wants her poster to be picked to be in the Community Recycling Calendar.  Her family helps her learn about the different things that they do to recycle each day of the week.  Finally, she is inspired to create her poster. 

I loved the theme of this book, because all of the different ways that Minna and her family recycled are things we can and in many cases already to in our home.  Emily liked seeing the bottle returns since we just recently took a huge bag to our recycling center.  We also use our tote bags when we go food shopping.  

I also love the illustrations in this book the last page has a list of the different recycled papers and materials that are used throughout the book.  We are working on collecting them so that we can use them to make our own pictures.

For today’s project we made a Puffy Paint Earth Day craft.  I got the idea for this project on Pinterest from Itsy Bitsy Learners.  

Emily’s Puffy Paint Earth

These were fun and easy to make, first I cute out the hearts for the girls, then the girls traced and cut out their handprints.  Emily traced hers and Juliette cut out one while I cut out the real ones (she likes to just cute everything into really small pieces, but it was still good practice in using the scissors!)

  Juliette’s Puffy Paint Earth

Next I gave them each a paper plate and some green and blue homemade puff paint.  First they painted the green on to look like the land and I microwaved it to make it puff up.  Then they painted the blue for the water and I microwaved it to make it dry and puff up.

Finally they glued on the hands and heart to show that they love the Earth.  This was a fun project and looks so cute hanging up for Earth Day!

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The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Also, be sure to check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

Number Fun

Today I am posting over at Totally Tots, check out my Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s post to see what fun the girls are having with these numbers :)

Paper Plate Easter Basket

 

Emily’s Basket ~ I love the Empty Tomb that she decided to draw all on her own!

We made these cute paper plate Easter Baskets with Emily and Juliette’s Sunday School Class for their Easter Party.  We wanted something that was easy to make and that would hold the treats that they found inside their Easter Eggs after the Easter Egg Hunt.

Juliette’s Basket ~ She loved the stickers and Emily was very proud of how she blended the colors at the bottom to make a great design :)

To make them I cut out all of the paper plates ahead of time.  You will need 2 paper plates per child.  Cut one paper plate in half.  Then cut a half circle out of the inside of the second paper plate, this will be the handle.

We gave the kids crayons, markers and stickers for them to decorate the paper plates with.   Make sure they decorate the back(side that would normally touch the table) of the half paper plate because you are going to staple it to the second paper plate so that they are facing each other.  We had a few kids decorate the front (side that the food goes on) so we couldn’t see their design.    Then staple the half paper plate onto the bottom of the other paper plate to make a pouch.  This was a perfect little Easter Basket for the kids to hold all the candy they found after our Easter Egg Hunt!

stART ~ What is Easter?

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

We read What Is Easter?, by Michelle Medlock Adams last year and really enjoyed it again this year.  I love how it talks about all the fun things that kids enjoy doing for Easter, like going on Easter Egg Hunts, getting Easter candy, but then  explains what Easter is really about! 

This year I read this book to my Sunday School class, and it captured their attention the whole time I was reading it.  Each page asks a question like,“Is Easter all about Jelly Beans and Chocolate bunnies?” and they would shout “NO!!!”  It was so much fun to read to them.

The last page is my favorite part of this book:

Okay, now I get it.
The Easter Bunny is okay,
And Easter eggs are fun.
But Easter's not about that stuff.
It's all about God's son.

I read the last line slowly and by the time I got to “It’s all about…” they finished the last line for me.  Even though this is a board book a group of 2 year olds to 10 year olds loved it!

(Juliette’s Cross)

To go with this book Emily and Juliette made marbled crosses.  When I think of Easter my favorite tradition is the Living Cross that my church creates on Easter Sunday.  Every person in the congregation gets a fresh flower to stick into a huge cross that is covered in chicken wire.  Once we are finished, a dull wooden cross is blooming with new life!  Our marbled crosses reminded me of  the beautiful colors of the Living Cross we make on Easter Sunday!

(Emily’s Cross)

Unfortunately, I was not able to get pictures of the girls working on this project.  My nephew work up from his nap early and did not want to be put down.  So I had him in one arm and was helping them with the other.  No extra hands to take pictures :(

It was still very easy to do.  We sprayed some shaving cream into a layer onto a baking sheet.  Then the girls used droppers to add drops of liquid watercolors on top of the shaving cream. Next they used a craft stick to mix the colors into the shaving cream.  But, just a little bit, so that you can still see the individual colors.  Then they took the paper that I cut out in the shape of a cross and gently pressed it onto the shaving cream after a few seconds they pulled it up and used the craft stick to wipe off the extra shaving cream, this is the best part because it looks all white and plain and as you pull the craft stick down and the shaving cream comes of of the paper the vibrant swirls off color are revealed. 

Thing we learned while doing this:

Make sure you do not saturate the shaving cream.  The more shaving cream you use, the more paint you can use.  If you add to much paint the colors blend together and the liquid dissolves the shaving cream.

Do not mix to much, you just want to use the craft stick to swirl the colors around not mix them all together.

Have fun, and be sure to have an extra can of shaving cream the girls were really disappointed when we ran out!!!

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Easter Bunny Fun

We usually have simple Muffin Tin Monday meals each week even though I don’t always get to blog about them.  This week when I was getting ready to make lunch I thought I would make it a little more special and do a theme.  It has been so long since I have actually done something out of the ordinary with, so Emily and Juliette were beyond excited. 

I originally planned on making an ordinary peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the shape of a bunny, but after I spread the peanut butter on one side of the bread I remembered that we had a jar of fluff in the pantry.  I have never had a peanut butter and fluff sandwich, but thought the fluff would look perfect as the fur of the bunny.  Emily and Juliette were just excited to get to eat the fluff for lunch!  I spread the fluff over the peanut butter then we decided it needed an M&M eye, pink sugar ears  and a fluffy marshmallow tail.

In our muffin cups I put some crinkle cut cucumbers (these remind me of Easter since I usually make cucumber salad on Easter), Blueberry Yogurt with Easter Sprinkles and Julienned Carrots, since Easter bunnies love carrots. 

  This little Peanut Butter and Fluff Bunny was a big hit with the girls. I had to make them each another one after they finished everything else!