I am excited to share a series of guest posts with you by other Artful Parents and teachers while I step back from the blog a bit this month! I hope you enjoy the new perspectives, different ideas, and fresh energy that each brings to this space. And I encourage you to leave a comment to continue the discussion, add your own viewpoint, or simply say thanks!
Guest Post by Kristina Buskirk
Hi I'm Kristina from Toddler Approved and I am excited to share one of our favorite book-themed winter art creations with you today. I love Jean's blog and her posts are constantly inspiring me to be a more creative mom. I find as winter begins and we all get a little stir-crazy indoors, I need a gazillion ideas to keep myself (and the kiddos) from getting too bored. I hope this ends up being a fun one you decide to try.
I have a toddler and a preschooler and like to come up with art experiences that we can all have together... otherwise the baby is wreaking havoc all over.
We love Jan Brett's book The Mitten, so we decided to create some of our own mittens and then use them to play a game inspired by the book.
To create the mittens we used two different painting techniques: crayon resist painting and baggie painting. The baggie painting technique is perfect for little toddlers who might not be too trustworthy with paint yet (mine eats it).
Materials Needed:
- cardstock
- watercolor paint (or watered down tempera)
- pencil
- pen
- scissors
- crayons
- ziploc baggies
- paint brush
- cup of water
- two copies of Jan Brett's Mitten animals template (shrunk)
Directions for the Jan Brett-Inspired Winter Art Activity:
1. Trace your child's hands several times to make mittens. We made 8 mitten sets since there are 8 animals in The Mitten.
2. Trace over your mittens with a marker (optional) and then cut them out.
3. Cover some of the mittens with crayons and then paint on top of them.
4. Put paint in a ziploc bag and put some of the paper mittens inside. Close the bag and then let your little one move the paint around to cover the mittens.
5. Take the mittens out after a minute of "painting" and let them dry (if you leave them in too long they get too moist and start ripping).
6. Once all the mitten pairs are dry, read Jan Brett's book The Mitten and write the names of each animal on the back of one pair and glue the picture of the animal on the other pair.
7. Have your little ones hide the mittens all around your house and then work together to try and find them all!
8. Match the pairs as you find them! We loved talking about colors, animal names, letters, and trying to "read" the animal names by looking at the beginning and ending letters.
This activity provided hours of fun for us on a rainy day.
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I’m Kristina, a mom of two (a preschooler and a toddler) and a former Special Education teacher for children with communication disabilities. I write about our creative explorations over at Toddler Approved. I blog alongside one of my best friends and we love sharing ideas with each other and our readers. My main interest is to find ways to make life a little more fun and creative. I also love to embed language learning into everything that we do.
