The Very Hungry Caterpillar (StArt)

We  have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The children have enjoyed this book numerous of readings so I thought a craft would be fitting to extend our book fun.

All you need is butterfly wings and Do A Dot Art markers and the fun begins.

                                                                                                                                                          

What I liked most about this craft is how differently the children decorated their wings. Here are their wings completed.

 Our youngest was still busy working on her wings and finished a hour later with great focused attention. Got to love those markers!

By the way it just so happened that only girls were present when we did this activity.

To see other art projects done by children inspired by stories please visit A Mommys' Adventures.
                                                                        
                                                                 

                                                                        

                                                 
                                                                        
                                                                    

Let's Go Rock Collecting (StArt)

                                          
                                                                             
Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans was a fun book for the kiddos. They loved the text and the pictures. At first I thought I would have to read this book in its entirety at different times, but no they wanted to finish reading it in one sitting. The book tells how the oldest things you can collect are rocks, rocks cover the whole earth and no matter where you live, you live on a rock. The illustrations are wonderful. The kids love the pictures of the volcanoe, and the different kinds of rocks. They wanted to collect rocks themselves. We are in Michigan where the weather is very cold, going outside collecting rocks under snow is not an option so using our rock/ shell sort tray the children found their very own special rock.

After the children collected their rocks. We painted them blue for water and green for land to represent our planet Earth. We have painted a lot here, but I have never witnessed the concentration the children had while completing this activity. Our rocks weren't big at all, they took a whole hour just painting their rocks. I loved every minute watching them absorbed in their work.

                                                   Close ups of the process.

 Another thing that the children did that they don't normally do is that they were very watchful  for the paint to dry. I knew that this art activity was a simple one, but I didn't expect to receive all these great responses from the children.

                                                             
To see more children doing art projects inspired by stories please visit StArt hosted by A Mommy's Adventures.  

Whose Tools Are These? (StArt)

Whose Tools Are These? is written by Sharon Katz Cooper. It is a wonderful story that introduces children to different jobs that use different kinds of tools. It shows the picture of the tool on one page, the child guesses who they think uses the tool, then the child discovers the answer on the next page with a picture of  a person who uses the tool. The book also describes exactly what the worker uses the tools for.


                                                   The cover of the book.

                                                 Our Project

               First they cut their piece of yellow cellophane into smaller pieces.

                                                                
  This is JD's second day here with us. He was so exciting about using scissors that he didn't want to stop.
                                                    

                                                                                
                            Then they glued the pieces onto their hats.

                                                                   
          I stapled the hats to fit their heads and then they colored their hammers.

                                                                 
                                            Construction Workers

To see more art work done by children inspired by stories please visit StArt hosted by A Mommy's Adventures.

.                                                                                                                                                     

              
                                                                                                                                                                                                         

We Got Mail! (StArt)

This week we have been learning about the job of a Mail Carrier. We read How it Happens at the Post Office by Dawn Federick. The book is really wordy for the preschool child but the illustrations are fantastic. We browsed through the book and discussed the various machines and people that involved in getting the mail to our homes. The children enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit of information. I think this book does a great job of getting the childrens' interest in the process of mail and is the best book I came across explaining what happens at the post office if you can't actually take a field trip there.

                                                        The cover.

  The supplies. Looking back on the photos I realized I didn't take the pictures I wanted to show the step by step process of their craft.

                               Pictures of community helpers they colored and cut.

                                               The back of the cards.

       The mail bag. The child laces the bag and then I staple the blue ribbon.

                                                                         

                                                       At  Work

    To see more projects inspired by stories done by children please visit StArt hosted by A Mommy's Adventures
                                                                           

The Night Before Christmas (StArt)

This week our art project was inspired by the classic story The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Douglas Gorsline. The pictures are really captivating and the children really loved this story.


                                            The Night Before Christmas

                                                               Our Project

                                Using a rectangle sponge to resemble bricks with red paint.

                                                       Coloring stocking shapes.

Wrapping tissue paper around a log to add the look of fire to their work.

 "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would there".
                                     

To see more art projects created by kids that were inspired by stories pop over to A Mommy Adventures.                                                                         

The First Snowfall (StArt)

The First Snowfall by Anne and Harlow Rockwell was a perfect read for us yesterday. Yesterday we had our first snowfall, the kids entered their classroom full of excitement about the snow. The First Snowfall is a story about a girl and her adventures in enjoying her first snowfall of the season. The girl first finds all her winter items to help her keep warm; a hat, mittens, scarf, and boots. Then she goes outside and sees the snowplow. She shovels, and builds a snowman. Her family go on an outing where they go sledding, and skiing. When the family comes back home the girl has a cup of hot cocoa and goes back outside to play in the snow again. Well we didn't get enough snow to make a snowman outside so for our craft we made our very own snowman inside.

 This is the cover of the book. You may notice it is worn a bit, this is because it is one of my favorite winter books  I have had this book for years.

                                                           Our Snowman Craft

                                  Drawing on a face.

                                   
                                Gluing on sticks for hands.

 
    Using a paintbrush to put glue on the snowman so he can sprinkle gliitter on it.

                                 Dressing the snowman.

                                               Their final product.

To see other children creating art inspired by stories please visit  A Mommy's Adventures for more StArt projects.