Sous la mer week 6 - handprint crabs

Somehow last week whizzed by and I didn't have time to update the blog, so a quick run through of last week's activity now and then over the next day or 2 I will aim to get yesterday's activity added :0)

For the final week of our "sous la mer" theme we got the paints out again.  I had planned to make egg carton starfish - in fact I have been saving egg cartons in preparation for this craft for a few weeks - but despite the simplicity of the craft according to the post I read about it, I found myself unable to cut a starfish shape and wasted 2 whole egg cartons trying!! If anyone can explain in VERY simple step-by-step terms how to do it please add a comment as I can't let this defeat me!!  Anyway, I suddenly found myself in need of a painting craft at the last minute and remembered making handprint crabs with my older children in the past so decided we would give it a go.

You will need:

Blue, yellow, red and orange paints (mix the red and orange to get a nice crabby colour)

Googly eyes 

A toddler that likes getting their hands covered in paint!

First let your toddler paint the sea and sand on the paper - they could use brushes, sponges, rollers, textured stampers etc - our little ones used a combination of the above.

Then let them get their palms and fingers covered in the red/orange mixture.  They will need to print one hand at a time onto the paper sideways on with their thumb upwards.  Make the second hand overlap the first so that the thumb prints form the crab's eye stalks (or whatever the technical term is!).  Then add two googly eyes or eye stickers.

If you want to you can decorate your painting further by adding seaweed, fish etc in the sea.  Our starfish sponge proved a popular addition.

Here are our fabulous crab paintings:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Joyeuses Pâques week 1 - Pom Pom painting

Last week was the first of our two Easter themed weeks.  The songs and rhymes I chose for this mini topic were: poussin poussinet, lapin pistache, saute petit lapin (a French version of sleepy bunnies), deux petits lapins (an Easter version of 2 petits oiseaux), le printemps and lapin de pâques (like nounours nounours but an Easter bunny version I made up).

For our craft I took my inspiration from Pinterest and decided we would paint Easter egg pictures with pom-poms.

First we drew the outline of the eggs onto craft paper, the children then had a variety of different coloured paints and different sized pom-poms to use for their painting.  They used pegs to pick up the pom-poms and dip them in the paint and then printed onto the paper with them.  Once dry you can either display as they are or cut out the eggs and glue onto Easter cards.

Here are some of our eggs, sadly I got distracted and didn't manage to photograph them all.

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

L'hiver week 4 - snowflake paintings

After a week off with a poorly Little Imp, our toddler French group was back on Friday to continue our wintery theme.  

I had printed out some snowflake shapes on card and cut these out for the toddlers to use on their paintings.  There were lots of colours of paint to choose from and a variety of painting tools - bristle brushes, foam brushes, rollers, stamps with a range of different textures, sponges, etc.

The idea was to place a few snowflakes on the paper and then go crazy with the paint all over the top.  Once you peel off the snowflake templates you are left with bright white snowflakes jumping out from the brightly coloured background.

Here are our fantastic snowflake paintings:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Noël week 2 - handprint Christmas tree canvases

This week we again sang our selection of Christmas songs and I decided it would be nice to make a proper keepsake craft either for our toddlers to keep or to give as a Christmas gift.  Little Imp has decided that she would like to give hers to her grandparents and so it is now wrapped and under the tree :0)

Obviously you can buy special acrylic paints to use on canvases but these don't really mix well with toddlers so we just used our usual washable poster paints in a variety of colours.  Our toddlers used their handprints to make the tree itself and fingerprints for the baubles.  They then added the trunk, star and a pot if they wanted on using a bristle or foam brush.  

I think the results are fab and there will definitely be one delighted set of grandparents in our house on Christmas Day :0)

We have one more Christmassy toddler session to go before the big day arrives but until then Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Enroulez le fil...

Little Imp is crazy about the song "Wind the bobbin" and has been for a little while, so I was thrilled when I happened across a French version of the song and quickly put my mind to coming up with a bobbin related craft.  After a few weeks of cotton reel collecting, we were ready to go ahead and introduce the song to the toddler group the other Friday.

In case any of you are unfamiliar with the song in English, here are the lyrics:

Wind the bobbin up,
Wind the bobbin up,
pull, pull,
clap, clap, clap.

Wind it back again,
Wind it back again,
pull, pull,
clap, clap, clap.

Point to the ceiling,
Point to the floor,
Point to the window,
Point to the door.
Put your hands together,
one, two, three,
Put your hands upon your knees.

The French version is not a direct translation but rather a similar themed song.  The lyrics, and translation, are as follows:

Enroulez le fil                             (Wind the bobbin)
Deroulez le fil                             (Unwind the bobbin)
Et tire, et tire                               (and pull, and pull)
Et tape, tape, tape.                     (and clap, clap, clap)

La la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la.

Enroulez le fil                             (Wind the bobbin)
Deroulez le fil                             (Unwind the bobbin)
Et tire, et tire                               (and pull, and pull)
Et tape, tape, tape.                     (and clap, clap, clap)

The children enjoyed winding the bobbin up and back and especially getting faster and faster through the "la la la" section.

Our accompanying craft was cotton reel printing, although I did get out the other stamps as well for a bit of variety.

The children had access to cotton reels and stamps and a lot of paint and came up with their own original and colourful print paintings - some also rolled the cotton reels through the paint and over the paper for a change.

Here are their fantastic paintings:

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

Les petits poissons...

As we haven't had the paints out for a while, I decided on a song that I had a great painty craft activity in mind for.

The new song is called "les petits poissons" the little fish and there are a few different versions out there. The one I settled on has 3 verses the first about little fish, the second about little birds and the third about little children. I chose this version as I felt it gave us the most options to dance around and do some actions during our sing song :0)

The lyrics are as follows:

Les petits poissons dans l'eau

Nagent, nagent, nagent, nagent, nagent.

Les petits poissons dans l'eau

Nagent, nagent bien que les gros!

Les petits oiseaux là-haut

Volent, volent, volent, volent, volent.

Les petits oiseaux là-haut

Volent, volent bien que les gros!

Les petits enfants charmants,

Dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent.

Les petits enfants charmants,

Dansent, dansent bien que les gros!

So, as I said, the craft to accompany this song was a nice messy painty craft of the little fish in the sea. Before all the children arrived I had covered the table with bubble wrap and put out blue, green, white and sparkly blue paints with an assortment of brushes, rollers and sponges.  The children all looked very impressed when I told them they had to cover all the bubble wrap with the paint any way they wished to make a nice sea colour :0)

Once the bubble wrap was well and truly covered in paint, I gave each child an a3 sheet of white paper to print the sea background onto. In my mind this was going to give us a beautiful bubbly sea effect and I was not disappointed, the prints looked great! :0)

Whilst the backgrounds were drying. Little, the children got washed up and I got rid of the painty bubble wrap. The table was then ready for part 2 of the craft, making little fish out of craft foam to then glue onto the prints.  We then had fantastic pictures of little fish swimming in the water - just like the song - and here they are:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)