stART: It Looked Like Spilt Milk

Last week, E and I went to a FANTASTIC playdate at a friend's house.  I get such a kick out of watching her play - it seems like all of her friends are little 2 and 3 year old boys.  They were running around like wild things and E just stood there watching them for the longest time, wondering what in the world they were making so much noise for!  But, anyhow, I digress.

We got to do a lovely story and art project that I didn't have to plan!  It was great!  First, we read It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw.  This is a really neat book about . . . . clouds, of all things!  Specifically, how clouds can look like other things: spilt milk, a squirrel, a pig, whatever.

Then we got to the art project.  We were provided with blue paper and white paint in squeeze bottles.  The kiddos squirted paint all over their paper . . .

folded the paper in half and smooshed it real good . . .

and then opened it up to see what they had created!  E thought hers looked like a crab.

Here are some of the other children's masterpieces!

stART: Rainbow Fish

E just loves the Rainbow Fish books.  So this morning, we did a sparkly rainbow fish craft!  I used the fish stamp I made, and she stamped glue fishes all over the paper.  Then we used all different colors of glitter to make the fish sparkle just like Rainbow Fish.  The result doesn't really look like fish, but E had a great time and loves her picture anyhow.  :)  It's all about the process, right??

stART: Dawdle Duckling

This morning, for playdate, we read one of E's favorite stories: Dawdle Duckling by Toni Buzzeo.  When the story was finished, we made these cute ducks out of paper plates.  I saw this craft on someone's blog, but I can't find it anymore!  If it was yours, thanks for the idea!!

First we painted the paper plates yellow.

Then we glued on a feather for the wing.

Next came the head, eyes, and beak.

Finally we glued on two little feet.

stART: Swimmy

I've been watching Michelle's blog, A Mommy's Adventures, for a while now. I always love her stART projects and ideas. I've been waiting for some fantastic idea to cross my mind so we can participate. Sometimes, I just want to come up with things on my own, instead of copying from other people. It's so much more satisfying.

One of the books we are reading this week is Swimmy by Leo Lionni. I love the artwork in his books! Swimmy is the story of a little black fish who lives with a school of little red fish. One day, all the little red fish get eaten by a bigger fish, and only Swimmy escapes. He swims through the ocean, seeing lots of new things, and finally finds another school of little red fish. He wants to show them everything he's seen, but they're afraid they will get eaten. So Swimmy teaches them to swim together like one big fish, and they scare the bigger fish away.

I love the look of the little red fish. They look like they were stamped onto the paper. So I took some craft foam, double stick tape, and a peanut butter jar lid, and made a fish stamp.
We used red paint to make our little red fish.

I let E stamp the fish all over the paper. I helped too, stamping is fun!

Then we let it dry. Later in the day, I cut it out and we mounted it on plain blue paper. Maybe the next time we read the story, we'll make an ocean scene with a seaweed forest stencilled from doilies like the author does. I had no doilies available this time, so plain blue it was. E also colored an eye black. I decided not to get out more paint for her to make a black Swimmy eye, I'm pretty sure our red fish would have turned completely black.

To see more stART projects, check out Michelle's blog here.