A plastic ball covered with electric tape. Stick on Eyes and mouth cut from card or sparkly felt or similar. Then just a piece of muslin or cheesecloth. Simple but effective.
Crazy Art
Yesterday I placed an easel outside Jumble House. On it was an example of art produced by blowing paint with a straw. A technique enjoyed by generations of children.
It’s also one of the methods I used to create the illustrations in my book, ‘Roo’s Magic Colours’. This is the story of Rupert (Roo) who loves painting and, through his art , finds a way to make the ‘boring’ everyday tasks like walking the dog and tidying his bedroom a lot more fun! The book links with a playlist by the same name on my channel containing videos showing how to create these pictures.
Today I will replace this illustration with another example from my book, using a different technique.
Here is the link:
Make a Jumble Dragon
Quick, easy, effective. A ‘Jumbles’ Dragon made as all the Jumbles are from 100denier tights, elastic bands and the stuffing from inside a pillow!
The only remotely tricky part is making the wings.
I’ve used a tie dye method to colour the fabric from the cover of the pillow but you can use a scarf or similar.
If making the wings looks too complicated then a couple of bought lightweight fans would do the job just fine!
Learning about Snails for Young Children
Gardeners don’t like Snails for obvious reasons but kids are fascinated by them AND they are incredibly interesting creatures AND very gymnastic AND make very good pets!
CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO ON SNAILS
Looking at them through the eyes of a child they are quite incredible creatures with their slippery silver trails and waving tentacles. What other creature carries its house on its back! It’s the stuff of fairy tales.
In the video Lizzie finds a snail eating her plants and decides to find out how she can stop this happening without hurting the snail. There is also an investigation for parents or teachers to carry out with their children.
This is the first of two programmes. In the second programme Lizzie will be looking inside the snail shell and exploring spiral shapes in nature and buildings. Click on the link below for a programme on spirals.
Making dyes from onion skins
Adult supervision required.
Easter is close and everyone is busy with the usual Easter crafts. Coloured eggs is one of the most popular but very predictable!
Today we made our own dyes by boiling onion skins. We used red skins and predicted that the egg shells would be red. They came out more purple but maybe they would have been red if we had used eggs with white shells. That’s something you can find out!
We cracked the shells of some of the eggs before putting them in the dye to make ‘spider man’ eggs. Again our prediction was that we would have a network of spidery red lines but that wasn’t the case!
There was dye left over so we used it to tie dye a white handkerchief.
Then we tried dying pieces of other material to see which took up the dye, always predicting first what we thought would happen.
Last but not least we looked at some pieces of onion skin through a magnifying glass.
Some very interesting discussion arose from the questions asked during all this work with eggs.
Why do chickens come out of some eggs but not others?
Why do we give eggs at Easter?
Why are eggs and chicks symbolic of springtime?
Why do eggs have shells shells?
Why don’t we lay eggs?
It’s fun trying something new!
Georgie and the Pagoda
Georgie is in Singapore.
Yesterday she visited the Chinese Gardens .
The gardens are beautiful. Perfect for walks and picnics. A green oasis.
Georgie really liked going up to the top of this very tall Pagoda.
Follow the video link to see what it was like.
Learning about Rain. Art meets Science
Make a rainy day fun by finding out more about rain.
What is rain? What shape do raindrops make in puddles? Why do wet pebbles look shiny?
There are so many questions to find the answers to and so many art and craft projects to continue the theme and explorations.
Follow the link below and watch the short video with your child. Then start to look, to listen, to investigate.
It’s Raining. Art meets Science
Simple answers to those difficult questions:
What is rain?
Rain falls from clouds. Clouds are made from lots and lots of tiny water droplets. These droplets move around and bump into each other They stick together into clumps that get bigger and heavier. Eventually they get so big and heavy they can’t float any more and they fall to the ground as rain.
Why are wet stones and pebbles shiny and darker than dry ones?
The water coats the stone giving it a smooth surface. Light reflects off this surface just like it does in a lake or in the sea.
What shape do raindrops make on puddles?
Rain drops make concentric circles. That is one circle inside another. You can illustrate this by putting a very small plate on a slightly larger one and that on top of a larger one still.
Why do raindrops stay on top of leaves?
Leaves are covered with a kind of waxy coat. Some leaves are more waxy than others. This makes them waterproof and so the raindrops stay on the surface..
Why do raindrops on a window always go down and never up?
its all to do with the pull of gravity. Gravity is like a great big magnet pulling everything down towards the ground. Without gravity we would float in the air and so would all the cars and buses! When raindrops land on the window they are pulled downwards by gravity. As they travel down the window they bump into other drops and be one heavier. The heavier they become the faster they move.,
For related art and craft projects please see the previous two posts. Or search for raindrops and Concentric circles.
Learning Fun with Concentric Shapes
We tend to associated the term ‘concentric’ with circles and raindrops falling on puddles are a good example.but any shape, as shown below, can be concentric.
So here are some more early learning ideas based on the Concentric theme..
Link to programme on circles for children .
Make a Spider Toy
Unfortunately. Not many people love spiders which is a pity because they work very hard keeping down the pesky insect population. Try looking at them differently and begin with making a fun one for Halloween. It will only take about ten minutes and the kids can help.
Click on this link to make your own Jumble Spider
Above: A ‘Cup and Saucer’ web
Flower Power
Play dough, bought or homemade, is a great creative medium. Modelling with the dough also strengthens little muscles thus improving fine motor skills.
Introduce different skills like:
- Kneading
- Squeezing
- Rolling a long sausage on the table first with one hand and then both
- Rolling into a ball between the palms of both hands.
- Breaking the play dough-pulling it apart using a tripod grip.
- Squashing balls on the table with the thumb and then each finger in turn.
- Building a tower or balls starting with the largest at the bottom.
I drew patterns and pictures in indelible marker on clear plastic to encourage my kids to use different skills to make different shapes with the playdough. (See above)
Follow the link below to see Maisie Jumble , inspired by the fibreglass sculptures by Ana Tzaievi , making her own from play dough.
Video link below:
Creative Learning for Young Children 