When crafting with my children, my goal is to provide them a wide range of experiences.

I want them to know there is no wrong way to do craft.

It is building, expressing and observing. It’s about exploring materials and techniques, rather than to simply complete projects.

Gather the materials for your paper fort:

• Electrical tape, assorted colours;
• Scissors;
• Coloured prism board paper, assorted colours, cut into squares.

Explore:

• Make stripe cards by sticking electrical tape on the paper squares.
• Experiment with different lines. Try some diagonal, vertical or horizontal lines. Place them the same distance apart or varying distances. Try overlapping some lines.
• Try different colours and observe how background makes a difference. Which combinations have the best contrast? Let your child explain which colour combination is their favourite and why they chose it.

Build your paper craft fort:

• At each side of the square; cut a 1cm line in the middle.
• Using these small incisions, slide the cards into one another to build your paper fort.

 N & M: 4 years
June 2012

The post Paper Craft: Forts by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

Just last week, my boys were keen to make something; an uncommon event which caught me unprepared. My eyes scoured around for something to work with. Our huge family sized bag of uncoloured pasta presented itself. I needed something quick to make the pasta snazzy. So, instead of coating our pasta with food colouring, we dressed them up in tin foil.

Materials to source: Tin foil, penne pasta

Set the stage for play:  Cut up small pieces of tin foil just large enough to just wrap around the edges of the penne. Roll up individual pieces of penne. (My preschool sons enjoyed helping me roll up the penne in the foil. My toddler was determined, but his fingers didn’t seem to be on the same page as his determination). Press firmly around the edges and grooves of the penne for more definition. Place a combination of plain penne and tin foil penne in a large tray with some bowls and pipe cleaners.

We sorted, poured and threaded pasta. My toddler enjoyed threading the pasta immensely.

I extended the activity for my preschoolers to some simple sequencing of plain and tin foil pasta.

Tin foil pasta. A snazzy way to dress up pasta for play and crafts and here’s my favourite part: no drying time required.

N & M: 4 years
E: 1 year, 11 months
June 2012

The post Tin Foil Pasta by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.