Here’s a fantastic outdoor art idea that’s perfect for forest school. We’re using natural materials found in the forest to make clay faces on tree trunks.
Art Explorers: nature art for kids
Our Art Explorers project is back and we’re inviting you to join in with us and try something new with your children this month.
Art Explorers is all about investigating what art you can create with different materials. We love to see how things turn out, but the main focus is on enjoying the process of exploring new materials, combining things in different ways and simply seeing how your kids’ creativity and imagination flows.
In the past the Art Explorers have tried yarn art, going paper free and painting with anything apart from a paint brush. Are you up for this month’s challenge? [Read more…]
55 joyful kids painting ideas
We’ve been painting today. Huge pieces of paper, any paint colours we wanted, inside and outside. The sun shone, the children daydreamed and ideas appeared on paper.
If you’re wondering what you might do with your children this weekend: paint! It’s joyful, colourful, uplifting, relaxing, inspiring and such a pleasure. Here are my three golden rules for happy children’s painting, and 55 ideas you could try to give your painting a boost this week. [Read more…]
The Museum of Turnupstuffing: celebrating found art treasures
We are very fond of Pippi Longstocking in our house and her inspiration is seen in lots of different ways – from her encouragement to climb trees, through the idea that fun and creativity is rarely tidy to our latest passion: turnupstuffing.
Do you know Pippi? She’s nine years old, lives by herself and doesn’t go to school. Her mother has died and her father is a Cannibal King. And she’s celebrated in a series of books by Astrid Lindgren. She is also an expert at turnupstuffing – and so are my kids!
What’s a turnupstuffer? [Read more…]
How to make a weather station
When she wakes up in the morning L likes to check the weather app on my phone to see what’s forecast for the day. I think she likes the animated visual of the rain or the shining sun but she’s also interested in the temperature. We haven’t had such a cold winter this year but there have been a few days when the temperature has dipped below zero and L is fascinated that something can be less than nothing.
We decided we’d investigate further and try to make our own weather station to check if the weather forecasters on the phone get it right. There are few different ways the children can be involved in setting this up and you can decide whether you want to looking at the sky, the wind, the temperature or the rain. A weather station project also gives you lots of scope to include many different aspects of learning: observation, recording data, graphing, guessing and estimating, taking notes and translating results in to real-life consequences.
Our project is part of the Weather Blog Hop which is linking many kid blogs around the world to bring you all sorts of weather ideas you can use with your children – science, art, games, activities, you name it, we’ve got it! Have a browse through the links at the end of this post for lots of ideas. If you have a weather idea you would like to share please feel free to add it to the linky too.
How to make a weather station [Read more…]
How to make a jungle
After the great pocket money debate, over the summer holiday the girls have started to earn a little money. A very exciting new thing for them, which meant on our recent trip to the zoo they had some of their own money to spend on a treat. So, we now have a family of wild animals in need of a home. On our return we transformed a humble cardboard box into not just a jungle, but a savanna and watering hole too. The hippo is very happy in her new home – and the play scene is giving the girls the chance for lots of imaginary play and chat.