Design a Shirt with Fabric Markers

Posted in Craft, Free by teachingeveryday

Need a last minute valentine t-shirt? Or a shirt with a certain color on it for “color day” at school? Or a special shirt for a birthday or any other holiday? Just grab some fabric markers and an old t-shirt and let your kid do the rest! They will be so proud to wear a shirt that they made themselves!

Put a piece of cardboard inside the t-shirt, so the markers won’t bleed through. An unfolded cereal box works nicely for most kid shirts.
If your child is a perfectionist, they might want to draw some trial designs on paper first. When they are happy with their design, they can copy it onto the shirt.
Hold the t-shirt while they draw so it doesn’t move around so much.
Heat set the t-shirt by ironing the reverse side of the design for 5 minutes or put it in the dryer for 30 minutes on the hottest setting.
If they want to add more later, no problem! They can fill the whole shirt with pictures, patterns, and words! Just remember to heat set the t-shirt again before you wash it.

Materials:

fabric markers
t-shirt
cardboard

Time investment: 5 minutes or as long as they want to spend on it

Difficulty: Babies can do it. If you let them have markers. And if they have a flair for design.

23Dec2013

Reindeer Handprint Craft

Posted in Holiday by teachingeveryday

Here is an easy last minute holiday craft that is perfect gift for grandparents. Who doesn’t love little handprints?

Step 1: Paint your little one’s hand with brown (washable!) paint and make two handprints at the top of the paper. Then immediately wash those hands!

Step 2: Trace your kiddo’s foot on brown paper and cut out. Then glue between the handprints (with the heel at te bottom of the page.)

Step 3: Cut out one red circle and two white circles. Draw smaller black circles on the white paper to make eyes. Glue on the brown paper to make eyes and nose.

I did this reindeer with my two-year-old. I did all the cutting and she did the gluing. Older kids can do the cutting, too. My four year old wanted to draw her eyes on with marker instead of using white paper.

Materials:

red, green, brown, and white construction paper
scissors
glue stick
brown paint
paintbrush
black marker

Time investment: 10 minutes

Difficulty: Easy as long as you can keep those brown handprints on the paper and not around your house!

10Dec2013

Shape Christmas Tree

Posted in Colors, Holiday, Projects, Shapes by teachingeveryday

Here’s an easy Christmas craft…and a great way to practice shapes and colors, too! This would work great at a preschool/kindergarten holiday party. I did the first two steps myself because my girls aren’t great with scissors.

1. Cut out 5 green triangles. Start with a small one and get gradually bigger. My smallest is about 3 inches across the largest is about 8 inches.

2. Cut out shapes in different colors. I stuck with circle, triangle, square, and rectangle, but you could get all fancy with hexagons, ovals, and trapezoids for older kiddos.

3. Get your crafty kiddos and talk about how triangles could make a tree. Have them arrange the triangles from largest to smallest.

4. Glue the top couple inches of the biggest triangle and place the next biggest triangle on top of it. Continue until all triangles are glued together.

5. Glue on the shape ornaments. I found it is easier for kids to make a dot with the glue stick directly on the tree, then stick the ornament on the dot.

6. Have fun decorating the tree with shapes! Identify the shape and color of the ornament when they pick it up or ask them to identify. See if they want to make a pattern.

Here’s my four-year-old’s masterpiece glued on red paper. She is so proud that it is now part of our Christmas decorations!

Materials:

colored construction paper
scissors
glue stick

Time investment: 10 minutes for adult cutting prep and 10-15 minutes for kids to glue craft

Difficulty: The only difficult part is cleaning up all those extra shapes that will scattered on the floor. 🙂

6Dec2013

Christmas Handprint Wreath

Posted in Projects by teachingeveryday

Big Sis has been BEGGING me to make holiday crafts. I pulled out the old tried and true handprint wreath. Gotta love it. First I cut a circle out of a cereal box for a sturdy backing.

Then I traced her hand on green paper. Meanwhile she was making this masterpiece with green markers and crayons.

When she was finished, I traced handprints on that paper, too. Hint: fold the paper so you only have to cut one time. I got four hands out of one sheet of paper. Then we glued the handprints to the cardboard and stuck on some red circles (berries) and ribbon for good measure. A four-year-old did the placement and gluing, so it isn’t quite Pinterest worthy but I like it.

You can vary your involvement depending on the age and abilities of your kiddo. Toddlers could do the scribbing, and you do the rest. Or an older kid would be able to the whole project by themselves.

Materials: