Body Tracing
This activity called for butcher paper, but we used a roll of packing paper that I got at Wal-Mart. It was much cheaper ($4) and thicker so it could withstand Samir's abuse :)
I had Samir lay down and I traced around him. Here he is trying to trace around himself. He got such a kick out of being traced that I probably could have traced him four or five more times!
We've been working on learning body parts, so that's the direction I went with this. Samir told me what they were and I labeled them. For the younger set, you could just let them scribble on it (Samir did some of that too) and older kids could label the body themselves. I drew shorts on Samir's tracing, but he said he didn't want a shirt. To each his own I guess!
Stepping Stone
I bought Plaster of Paris and we mixed it according to package instructions....well, not really. We used warm water to make it melt faster which also made it dry faster. That was good for us impatient types :) You can use any plastic container you have, any shape. Just remember you won't use it again for food items.
There's the colored pasta we made! I let Samir drop in until his heart's content and then I used the alphabet pasta to put his name in the top.
After it dried, we painted it. It will find a home in our yard soon.
Pasta Pictures
Samir was so thrilled with the pasta when we were making the stepping that I decided to let him make a pasta picture. Simple. He squirted glue all over the paper then dropped pasta on top.
Finished product
Air dry clay
We cheated and used the store bought kind, but I have used this recipe http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/recipes/air_dry_clay2.htm with my students. You can make it and paint it after it dries or you can add food coloring. Be prepared though, if you want bright colors you will need a lot of food coloring.
Our creations. I made a rose (thank you cake decorating class). Samir made what I thought was a whale, but he corrected me and told me it was an "elly-funt". He also made a ball.
Beach picture
We have an abundance of sand in our yard and I had some sea animals stickers, so I came up with this on the fly.
First we painted a sheet of paper with blue water colors. Samir also got some green in there....seaweed maybe?
After it dried, we took it outside and smeared glue on half of it. Then we put sand on top of the glue.
I don't have a finished product picture because the glue was still drying at the end of the day. The plan is to go back and put our sea animal stickers on it.
There's those sea animal stickers! I let Samir use them to decorate a visor I found at Michael's for $1 (I love that store!) Samir is a little obsessed with hats.
Roller Painting
I didn't take pictures this day. Not sure why, but I think I just forgot! Nonetheless, we used rollers to paint with. Super simple, but excellent for coordination practice. I bought some textured rollers from my friend Maureen at our garage sale, but you could use any old rollers you have. Michael's (of course) has the ones I used for about $5 and they are reusable.