MONDAY INVITATION - DRAWING or WRITING PROMPT
Today I had a very simple offering for the kids when they returned from school. I printed out a few copies of these sticker story templates, and set them beside our bucket of assorted stickers. We've done sticker stories many times before, sometimes during our themed units. We once used Easter stickers on pieces of construction paper, and Honey Pot told the story aloud as she placed the stickers down. Another time we used camping stickers to create a fun story in her nature journal. It's always a fun activity, and requires no setup whatsoever!
I was surprised that Little M&M grabbed his pencil and started writing. I thought I would have to transcribe his story for him, but he was an eager little writer! He asked how to spell words, and soon had written, "First there was a rainbow." And despite the clutter of alphabet stickers on there, he also made mention of a butterfly somewhere in there.
Honey Pot wrote a wonderful story that began, "It was a sunny day at the castle. And all the princesses are playing." Once they completed their stories, they each started a second one, but with those they only told the stories aloud instead of writing them. It was great fun!
WEDNESDAY INVITATION - ART or CRAFT
I had been seeing a lot of bleeding tissue paper crafts on Pinterest recently, and finally made the splurge to purchase a pack of them. For today's art project, I offered our new selection of bleeding tissue paper, a piece of cardstock/watercolor paper, a white crayon and a spray bottle full of water.
First the kids drew a picture with the white crayon.
Then they tore pieces of the tissue paper and arranged the pieces onto their pages.
And finally, they sprayed the tissue paper with lots of water!
We removed the paper scraps after just a minute or two, and noticed lots and lots of color! (In the future, we'll perhaps leave this job to just one person...a person wearing rubber gloves because it really stains your hands for a whole day afterward lol.)
We noticed the very lightest tissue paper colors didn't bleed well, so we then stuck to the really bright ones. The kids decided to layer on more tissue paper for a more brilliant effect! They repeated the process three or four times.
Here they are when they had nearly dried. Beautiful!
Little M&M enjoyed this so much he made a second work of art:
FRIDAY INVITATION - SENSORY OR STEM (science, technology, engineering, math)
We have enjoyed this activity before, but I recently saw the addition of beads from the Artful Parent, and just loved the extra challenge and appearance of it! So in today's invitation: mini marshmallows, two sizes of toothpicks and a container of assorted beads!
The kids got right to work (after a brief sampling of the marshmallows). Honey Pot started with a 3D structure:
Little M&M began with pattern-making:
We really loved using the beads, for example with this rainbow 3D square and a 3D triangle with a pretty pattern!
The play continued for a while.
And things became more elaborate.
But the sweetest part of this activity was when they decided to use their creations as houses for small characters.
Another successful week at the creative table!
