Happy Chinese New Year!

I hope you enjoyed another New Year's celebration with your family. My girls and I had a wonderful time celebrating the year of the Dragon at my daughter's school and did a craft or two on our own.

Chinese New Year celebrates the beginning of a new year according to the lunar calendar. This year is the year of the Dragon. The Dragon signifies good fortune for yourself and your family. So many blessings to you all. My nephew happens to be a dragon in the chinese zodiac so I expect he'll have a wonderful year times two. Lucky little guy. For the rest of us we'll just have to learn to be content with plain old good fortune.

At my daughter's school she was served sweet, sticky rice, orange slices, popcorn, a fortune cookie and an almond cookie. To my understanding these are common things given during this time all symbolising good fortune. They also had a parade where they carried their dragon in one hand and their dragon mask in the other. The younger siblings where allowed to follow behind with tamborines. We made our rounds through the school wishing everyone a happy new year. 

Why am I telling you all this? Because there is more to life than crafting. You can explore the world with your children in other ways as well. For ethnic holidays serve traditional foods. Read them books related to the subject matter from the library. If people have a parade get some of your friends and their kids together and have one yourself. Get into it. Really get to know other cultures and you will find that not only are you spending quality time with your child but you're teaching them tolerance not to mention introducing new foods, teaching them geography, maybe language (if you choose to learn a few native words), etc. 

A craft my girls and I did do at home were paper bag dragons. They're simple and you most likely have all the materials at home.  You'll need the following:
A paper grocery bag
Paint
Paintbrushes
Scissors
Tissue paper/Streamers
Glue

Take the paper bag (get a plain one if you can) and cut the front of the bag in half. Then cut the sides on a diagonal. Next you'll make eye holes for your little one. After it's all set up go ahead and let them decorate it. We used paint but markers or stickers work just as well. Once they're done cut up the tissue paper length wise and glue them to the back as streamers.

Okay, so our dragon looks a bit on the lack luster side. Nonetheless the girls had a blast running around the house growling at everyone.

Besides what the school did and this craft we did get to do one more activity. Although we were set to make frames at our local library today we ended up making kites. Apparently the Chinese were the first to make them and they were originally used during wars. There's a little something for you. This craft was also super easy and fun. You'll need a plastic store bag, skewers (or some straight sticks), tape, string, and scissors.

Start by laying your plastic bag flat. Now cut across the bottom so that way it opens from either end. Next, you'll cut only one side completely from top to bottom so it can be laid open and flat. Place your sticks in the center just like any other kite. One horizontal and one vertical. Don't lay the horizontal one directly in the middle though. Lay it down a bit towards the top. Tape them in place. Take your string and tape one end to the top of your stick. Tape it again on the next point and so on. You want to reinforce the shape of a diamond by taping the string to each point of your stick/skewer. Cut off any excess. Now that you have the diamond shape take your scissors and cut around your diamond leaving only about an inch all the way around. Save the excess plastic. Fold over the sides and tape them down in the shape of a diamond. Cut the excess plastic into long strips them tie them together end to end. That will be your kites tail. Attach it to the bottom of your kite with the tape. My girls taped a photo to the front of their kites. You can do the same. The finished project should look something like this.

Hopefully you were able to follow all my directions and have a wonderful time making your own kites and dragons. And although the big Chinese New Year celebration has passed you can still enjoy these crafts. As my husband says "It's a new year, all year".

 Happy New Year, and happy crafting!

I Have A Dream

Many years ago a very wonderful man made a very powerful speech. It touched many people then and still touches us now.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day was yesterday and although I am sorry I did not have my girls craft sooner so I could post it for you I will post it now. I look at it this way, any day can be Martin Luther King Jr. Day as long as we remember his message of love, peace, and acceptance. So try out this craft. Do a little research with your children about him. And on the powerful message he once gave us to pass down to another generation.

What you'll need for this craft:
A computer and printer
Paper
Scissors
Glue
Crayons (or any kind of coloring medium)

Copy and paste the following link http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/martinlutherking.html  and it will take you to the page where you'll find the I Have A Dream craft. The rest is self explanatory. I used white paper to print out the craft but you could jazz it up a little by using colred paper if you like. You could also give them stickers or anything else to adhere to the finished project just for fun. Here is what the activity looks like. 

Have your kids color the people before they cut them out. Then simply cut and paste. There is a quote on the bottom of the page that did not come out in the photo. It reads as follows "I have a dream that one day...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."

While my daughters worked on coloring and cutting I told them a little about Martin Luther King Jr. Depending on the age of your child will depend on how you explain to them who he was and what he did. I kept it simple letting them know that many years ago our country was very different. How we didn't treat everyone the same due to the color of our skin. I gave some basic examples such as not serving certain people at restaurants. Not sharing water fountains or swimming pools, etc. And how not everyone believed it was right. Again, keep it simple. You just want to get the lesson of being kind to everyone across. After all that was done we had a finished project.

And there you have it. One more holiday down. One more lesson taught and one more reason to feel good about being a parent. Because you have someone to teach the beauty of love and friendship to.

We will be working on Chinese New Year next and hopefully give you plenty of time to complete that one at home, or wherever you are. You can also look forward to our nature birdhouses, Valentine's Day, and health blog.

                                      
                                                               

Felt and More Felt

Here we are ready to tackle felt boards. And after having to re-felt my felt board I realized that even the simplest task can be made more difficult. But after a bit more patience and perserverence I finally finished my board and 5 Little Snowflakes story. To make this a part of your educational collection you'll need the supplies shown below. A foam board, felt, glue gun, glue sticks, scissors, colored felt for characters, and puffy paint or markers (to give your characters a face).

Next, you'll need to visit one of my favorite web sites:   

     http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/m5snowflakes.htm 

where you will find the story and templates necessary to complete this activity.  Below is a picture of my finished project.        

         

Of course, you can make your sun and snowflakes any way you like. I just find it faster for me to use the templates. Once you've got your felt board squared away you'll be able to build on it by occassionally adding new stories.

Now that we've talked a bit about our felt board we can now review some more activities we received over the holidays. Below is a cardboard house which is made white so it can be colored.

These houses seemed to be advertised everywhere this Christmas so it was only a matter of time when my oldest asked for one. Wouldn't you know it? Santa heard the request. So although this house is made more for my three year old, due to its size, they both had a blast helping me put it together then coloring it. It wasn't that hard to put it up and just as easy to store it back into its original box. So I give it 5 stars.

We also received some art sets, which I am always a fan of. Below is my little ones finished water color.

 

This is an oversized water color book based on the Nick Jr. characters. I'm not normally a fan of children and water colors. I just find that the colors all end up black and used up by about the second use. But ultimately my feeling that all children should be exposed to art overuled my thoughts of wasted art supplies. And she did me proud. Her paper was bright and the colors still look in tact.

My oldest received a travel art easel with acrylic paints, canvases, and brushes. Here she choose to paint a knight. Although it wasn't completed I thought I'd post it anyway.

The best thing about these kinds of activities is that children can truly learn to express themselves through all kinds of mediums. So if paint is not your thing try clay, or oil pastels, or colored pencils, etc. You and your childs options are limitless.

On my next blog we will revisit our Christmas gift crafts and then work on our bird houses. All you'll need for this craft is one small bird house, glue, glue dots, paint (if desired), and a basket/bag. This will be more about getting outdoors with your child than about being in the house so be ready with your walking shoes and camera.

Happy New Year! Happy Crafting!

Happy New Year, parents! To kick off such a wonderful occassion my girls and I thought we'd work on a craft we received at Christmas. Pictured below is a felt sewing craft. These are perfect for children ages 3 and up. What you usually find in these kits is felt for the design, thread, a craft needle, and stuffing. You may need scissors and glue as well before beginning.

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As a side note, make sure your thread is untangled before beginning. I had the girls all set to go and ended up taking about 15 minutes to get the thread sorted out. With younger children I recommend starting the craft for them then letting them take over. You may need to do the end of the craft as well. They can become bored of all the sewing. The gluing and sticking should be all them, though. Here is the finished craft that my youngest completed. My oldest decided to read instead of waiting for mommy to figure out  the thread.

So there you have it, Mr. Frog, as he is so affectionately named. Let your felt dry for 30 minutes to an hour before handing it over to your little one. And make sure they play gently with them. Although a craft like this is meant to work motor skills and helps with learning patience the small, decorative pieces, are not likely to stand up to rough play.

The next craft we will be working on will be our felt boards. Just to get you prepared for this one let me give you the list of supplies now. As we will be working off of a winter snowflake poem you will need the following: a foam board (any color), a large package of felt (enough to cover the board and then some), a hot glue gun, glue sticks, colored felt pieces (you choose the colors), puffy paint, and printouts from the following web site                                          

 http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/m5snowflakes.htm

Make sure you read through the web site so you can decide what color felt pieces you'd like to purchase and what color puffy paint you'd like to use as accents for the felt characters.

May the New Year find you all in great health and spirits. I look forward to the next few blogs on kids crafting and parent health. Remember, we can't be at our best for our children if we're not at our best for our selves.