I have a wonderful project to share with you today which combines literacy and art ideas to create magical Incy Wincy books.

We’ve been at the GobbleDEEbook Children’s Literature Festival in Chester this week, having a fabulous time. One of the workshops we attended was run by Becky Adams, an artist who explores the links between narratives . . . → Read More: Incy Wincy books with artist Becky Adams]]>

I have a wonderful project to share with you today which combines literacy and art ideas to create magical Incy Wincy books.

We’ve been at the GobbleDEEbook Children’s Literature Festival in Chester this week, having a fabulous time. One of the workshops we attended was run by Becky Adams, an artist who explores the links between narratives and textiles. She guided a room full of children and parents through the workshop, resulting in everyone producing their very own, unique Incy Wincy book.

How to make an Incy Wincy book

Each of the matchboxes above contain a special Incy Wincy book, telling a tale with an extra secret inside.

We all began with a plain piece of paper 9.5cm x 12.5cm – the perfect size to make a book which fits inside a matchbox.

Becky showed everyone how to use a French fold to turn their piece of paper into an Incy Wincy book. (Follow that link for a great video showing you how to fold your paper.)

Becky asked everyone to think of a tiny main character for their book. We opened up our folded paper and drew our character on the inside page. Here’s B’s dragonfly. Every character was to have a super power. B’s dragonfly can breath fire.

Once the book was re-folded our super-powered heroes were hidden inside the pages and only we knew they were there.

Then everyone began writing their stories. Becky had lots of ideas for adding interesting extras to the narrative, such as stamping some of the text, or using an old-fashioned typewriter.
B decided to add some fabric to her text, to show the colour of the fire.

The whole room was buzzing with creativity. Everyone seemed to know immediately how their story would be told. L has all of a sudden come  alive with writing and drawing and was very clear about how her butterfly was going to whiz off to a secret land and meet a fairy.
 To complete the books we decorated our matchboxes, some with fabric, some with paper, some with musical scores. Handles were made using split pins, some plain, some decorative and some with added beads. Everyone left with a mini masterpiece in their pocket: a wonderful combination of literacy and art ideas.

Many thanks to Becky for so kindly letting me share her ideas with you all. I hope if you make some with your children you’ll share a photo with us.

Love these Incy Wincy books?

Discover more beautiful works from Becky Adams.

Find out more about the GobbleDEEbook Children’s Literature Festival.

See more of our ideas to get children writing.

happily shared with it’s playtime and  show and tell and today’s creative blog and  monday madness and made by little hands monday and made by you monday and  link and learn and craft schooling sunday and  the sunday showcase

First we had a blast of ideas for all the things we might find on our . . . → Read More: Autumn sensory scavenger hunt]]>
Remember the easy sewing project from yesterday, showing how to make a bag? It was a fun project for little fingers but we turned it into a springboard for another activity too, by making a scavenger hunt on the reverse side.

First we had a blast of ideas for all the things we might find on our nature walk . The children shouted them out and we put all the ideas down on some stickers. Some wrote them down, some drew pictures and I scribed the others. Here a some of the things they came up with:

leaves, sticks, twigs, branches, trees, feathers, pinecones, grass, acorns, conkers, squirrels, cobwebs, bark

Then I asked them to think what colours, shapes and textures we might find:

hard, cold, smooth, spiky, soft, sticky, floaty, pointy, round, scratchy, tall, long

Once we’d captured all the ideas, we stuck our stickers all over one side of the bag – we put them on the side without the child’s initial on, and added the stickers before we laminated the paper. This became the reverse side to our scavenger hunt bag. Then we set off on our nature walk to see how many things we could find  to match the words we’d thought of.

Having a bag for each child encourages everyone to join in and gives everyone a turn to find treasures. It also means I’m not the only one carrying everything – and collects a great variety of items to explore in the other activities we have planned for this week.

The list of ideas on the bag is a prompt to invite the children to explore the shape and feel of everything they find, and to use their eyes and ears to seek out lots of different items. The bag design makes it easy for the children to carry the list with them, and the initials on the flip side lets each child locate their bag of goodies.

Come back tomorrow to see what we did with all the things we found.

And hop back to yesterday’s post if you’d like all the instructions for how to make a bag.

 happily shared with nature connections and sunday showcase and  friday’s nature table and  it’s playtime

Our easel is set up in the kitchen where the children can’t help but notice it and has lots of fun pens and pencils with it for them to use. Every . . . → Read More: Pirate map literacy fun]]>

Literacy and maps

We’ve been using our easel to try out lots of literacy ideas recently and our latest one was to try out a pirate map.

Our easel is set up in the kitchen where the children can’t help but notice it and has lots of fun pens and pencils with it for them to use. Every week or so I’ve been setting up an invitation to write on it – something I think might act as springboard into some writing or conversation or storytelling.

This week I drew the basic outline of a pirate map, just enough detail for the children to get a clue about where we might be heading, but with plenty of scope for them to make it their own. And look what happened…

We have characters, we have a journey, we have danger and adventure.

:: The easel is in the kitchen were we spend a lot of time together – so it’s ready whenever the children have an idea to add

:: There’s nearly always someone else in the room to chat with about what you’re drawing, so lots of chatter and discussion takes place

:: A map is all about going somewhere or finding something, so it’s a natural invitation to add people and places and adventures, creating a natural story telling. (I love that the two characters are holding hands)

:: A map also very easily becomes something to play with – tear it off the easel and now you’re the pirate, off to role-play a treasure hunt or sail away in your sofa boat.

For more ideas using an easel try:

Maps and literacy

What can you make with these circles

Use the force: Star Wars and literacy

Take literacy outside

For more pirate fun try:

Let’s play pirates

Junk model galleons

I’ve written before about making writing irresistible so children are encouraged to pick up a pencil and start writing and in my last post this week from the Just So Festival I thought you’d like to see their wonderful way to invite all the children to send someone a letter: a pixie post office provided by . . . → Read More: Create a Pixie Post Office]]>

I’ve written before about making writing irresistible so children are encouraged to pick up a pencil and start writing and in my last post this week from the Just So Festival I thought you’d like to see their wonderful way to invite all the children to send someone a letter: a pixie post office provided by the FairyLand Trust.

Which child wouldn’t want to pop inside this tent to discover what was on offer inside?

To make a pixie post office at home or school

:: create a special area for your post office: a tent, a huge cardboard box, under the kitchen table, a small table and chairs in the corner of a room.

:: red and white paint, with some potatoes or carrots for stamping dots could transform anything into pixie land. How about making some red envelopes with white spots? Or a pixie postbox from a shoe box?

:: make some stars from cardboard and fasten them on to the end of pencils (with pipe cleaners twisted round the pencil) to make magic writing wands

:: have the pixies write back to your children overnight, so there’s an exciting letter waiting for them the next morning

What else would you add to a pixie post office?

Read our other Just So Festival posts:

:: take your art outside

:: exciting outdoor play spaces

:: Green Man tree gargoyles

And if you like the sound of the festival you can book tickets for the 2012 Just So festival.

Disclosure:our tickets were free but all opinions are our own 

happily shared with ABCand123  link and learn and sunday showcase preschool corner and for the kids friday

We used our favourite easy no cook playdough recipe and added the black colouring and plenty of glitter.

L said it looked like a planet from outer space – so we searched . . . → Read More: Outer Space Playdough]]>
Running low on supplies, the only food colouring in the cupboard for our playdough recipe today was: black. Hmm… what could we make with black playdough?

We used our favourite easy no cook playdough recipe and added the black colouring and plenty of glitter.

L said it looked like a planet from outer space – so we searched out some other alien items to play with.

Tin foil, silver balls, icing nozzles.

Bubble wrap, tin foil and drinking straws.

Playdough is a wonderful play resource all round and today’s play showed how great it is for language play. ‘Look at my playdough Mummy – it’s got a tale to tell.’

‘This alien is called Pooter and she lives on this planet. She is very shy.’

‘This is the king with his tribe.’

‘Pooter likes to rest in the shade of the pooli pooli trees.’

You can find all our favourite recipes, including this easy no  cook playdough, together with a year’s worth of playdough play ideas in our free ebook Let’s Play Dough.

happily shared with kids get crafty and todays  creative blog made by you monday and  made by little hands monday and sunday showcase and link and learn and craft schooling sunday and  Friday’s nature table and  preschool corner and  for the kids friday and  it’s playtime