Crafts: Bear Figure

 

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Our daughter loves arts and crafts. This has always been one of her favorite parts of the homeschool day. So I love thinking of different crafts for us to create together using common household items and other materials we have on hand. 

While spending time learning about black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, and more, I designed several different crafts including a collage, a paper bag puppet, and this bear figure. We also included some lessons from SchoolhouseTeachers.com as well as some favorite childhood books to read. 

Materials 

• Construction paper
• Paper towel or toilet paper roll 
• Scissors
• Tape
• Glue (glue stick or white glue) 
• Pencil or crayons 

Steps 

1. Gather all your materials. 

2. Cut out the pieces for your bear figure. You will need a large brown circle for the head, two small brown circles for the ears, one small orange, oval-like shape for the muzzle, one brown shape for the back legs, and two brown shapes for the arms. 

3. After the pieces are cut out, draw a face on the large circle. 

4. Draw a nose on the orange piece. 

5. Glue the orange muzzle on the large circle. 

6. Attach the large circle to the toilet paper roll. 

7. Attach the ears to the circle. 

8. Attach the back legs. 

9. Attach the front legs. 

10. After the glue dries, the bear figures are ready to play with! 

Looking for a Great Resource? 

As the fall season progresses, I love including seasonal content in our homeschool lessons. One of my favorite places to go to look for seasonal lessons is SchoolhouseTeachers.com. After clicking on their holiday and seasonal content, I go look through lessons, games, and more that fit into several different categories, including: 

• Christmas 
• Summer
• Easter
• Fall 
• Holiday/Seasonal (New Year's Day, President's Day, Mother's Day, Fourth of July, and many more!)  

For this season, I am looking at the Nature and Outdoors Homeschool Science Course for our daughter. There are units on owls and acorns that will we focus upon first. There are instructions for a nature journal and, since she likes her Bible Notebook which is part of the My Father's World Curriculum, I think this might be a hit with her, as well.

Family Fun: Fall Crafts and Activities

The Autumn season is upon us...even if the official start of Fall isn't until later in September. Seasonal items are appearing on the shelves in stores to help us celebrate Autumn and Halloween. If you are looking for sunscreen or pool towels for a late holiday, you may be hard-pressed to find them in stores.

Over the years we have shared our fall crafts and activities at A Mom's Quest to Teach. In order to help find those posts, I am sharing them again in one convenient place – right here!

Fall Crafts 

Paper Plate Scarecrow 

Corn Sun Catchers 

Owl Puppet Craft 

Pumpkin Coffee Filter Sun Catchers 

Corn Shaker 

Fall Activities 

Pumpkin Picking 

I linked up with Timberdoodle's Hello, Fall! Blog Hop. Please visit the other posts for some fun fall ideas!

Fall Crafts: Scarecrow

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With the autumn weather, comes pumpkin picking, Halloween projects, and fall crafts. There are so many cute ideas on Pinterest and Facebook, it is sometimes easy to be overwhelmed by all the choices.  This year we made a simple paper plate scarecrow to decorate our front door.

Materials 

• paper plates
• yellow construction paper
• red construction paper
• white construction paper
• black construction paper
• orange construction paper 
• brown construction paper 
• markers or paint and paint brushes
• glue or glue sticks
• tape 
• scrapbook paper 
• scissors 

Steps 

1. Gather materials. (If your children are handy with scissors, have them help out.)

2. Color the paper plate.

3. Glue on the eyes, nose, and mouth.

4. Glue on the hair.

5. Glue on the hat.

6. Glue on the bow-tie.

Both my children enjoyed decorating and creating their own unique scarecrows. If you and your children make any, I would love to see them.  You can share them with me on Instagram or Facebook. Tag my page or use #momquesttoteach on Instagram. 

My son's scarecrow 

Resources 

Crafts for Preschooler's Scarecrow 

Original Scarecrow inspiration 

Crafty Morning's Popsicle Stick Scarecrow

No Time For Flash Card's Scarecrow 

Crafts: Leaf Turkey

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Materials 

• Construction Paper
• Glue
• Googly Eyes
• Leaves 
• clear contact paper (optional) 

Steps 

1. Collect leaves.
2. Draw turkey shapes. 
3. Cut out turkey shapes. 
4. Glue on leaves. 
5. Glue on turkey shapes and eyes. 
6. Let dry. 
7. Optional, seal with clear contact paper. 

We collected leaves and other items in October for some other activities and I still had the bag hanging up to ready to use for our November crafts.

I pre-cut the turkey's body, beak, snood, and feet.  If your child is skilled with scissors you can draw the shape and have them cut it out.  Or you can have them draw and cut out the shapes if they are older.

We glued all the pieces onto a large piece of construction paper.  I would recommend using newly collected leaves so they don't crumble.  Another idea is to use clear contact paper to seal the leaves for a fresh look.  You could also use leaf clip art instead of real leaves.

A quick search also leads me to recommend craft leaves or craft feathers or even purchasing a kit for your children to create their own turkey.  (affiliate links)

I joined up with the Timberdoodle Blog Hop this week! 

Crafts: Corn Sun Catcher

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Materials

• Bubble Wrap
• Paint (yellow, red, brown, orange) 
• Sponge brushes 
• Construction Paper
• Glue

Steps

1. Create corn and leaf templates of desired sizes.

2. Trace the leaves from templates with the corn. Cut two leaves for each project (front and back).

They can be a little uneven because it creates a nice overlapping effect.

3. Paint the bubble wrap (if you haven't painted it for another craft). 

4. After the bubble wrap dries, cut out using your corn templates. 

5. Glue the corn and leaves together and allow to dry.
OR you can laminate them or use clear covering contact paper. 

There is a lot of prep work for a three year old.  Another child could do many of the steps themselves: tracing, cutting, etc.

I recommend creating different sizes if you intend on using them all in one window as decorations.

We did two laminated and I left two un-laminated.  Part of the reason why I wanted to laminate them was because the paint was chipping off the bubble wrap as I cut them.

When putting through the laminator, the picture makes a very satisfying pop-pop noise which sounds like popcorn popping.  If you do choose to use thermal laminating pouches, only use one pouch per ear of corn.  Do not include other images with it because they will not laminate perfectly.  Warning! Also keep in mind that the laminator may be damaged because you are putting through an item that is rather thick. Using contact paper may be a safer way to create a lasting craft project.

This idea was inspired by Fall Craft - Corn Sun Catchers.

Fall Crafts for Toddlers 

Crafts: Corn Shaker

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To help celebrate the fall, we  made our own music shakers! 

Materials 

• Pringles Container (other other similar container)
• Popcorn Kernels 
• Paint (yellow, orange, red, brown) 
• Sponge brushes
• Construction Paper
• Bubble wrap
• Glue 

Steps

1. Paint the bubble wrap. 
2. Put paper on the bubble wrap and press down. 
3. While your child is painting, eat the Pringles chips. Or share them with the whole family at snack time on a previous day. 
4. Clean out the container.  I rinsed with water and let it dry. 
5. Put corn kernels in container. This is great practice for your little's fine motor development. You can use as much or as little as you like. You can also have your child put the lid on and take the lid off to see what type of sound he/she wants to create with it. 
6. Tape the end of paper you won't see onto container. 
7. Glue the rest of the paper onto the container. 
8. You can attach tape to both ends of the paper if you like for added security.
9. You can also attach tape onto the lid to keep it on when your child shakes it.  (I imagined corn kernels going EVERYWHERE!) 

My very first reaction to the completed project was that it was very loud as my son shook it.  As the popcorn kernels hit the metal bottom and then the plastic lid, it created a satisfying, but loud, sound that my son loved.

We painted the bubble wrap to create a 'corn' stamp.  I provided him with paint and sponge brushes and he decided to paint in straight lines on the bubble wrap.  He definitely was not interested in mixing the paint at all.  We used the bubble wrap on our corn sun catchers craft.

It did take about a day for the paper to dry (it will depend on how much paint your child uses for the craft).

Other ideas

You could also add pictures or stickers to the outside of the shaker for Halloween (if you do this craft in October), Autumn, or Thanksgiving.  Or your child could draw a face onto the shaker or glue on googly eyes and draw a mouth.

This idea was inspired by Music Crafts for Kids - Making Corn Shakers.

 

Crafts: Monster Painting

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I adapted Danya Banya's Sponge Monsters so we could do it this week with the materials I had available.  I gathered a variety of items for my 3 year old to use to paint his own monsters.

He used the egg cartoon and pool noodle equally, creating big and small circular shapes.  I didn't tell him we would be making them monsters when they dried because I wanted him to just have fun with the painting.

He really enjoyed using the Halloween stamps once I added them to the mix.  The pipe cleaners and pom poms held by clothespins he used like paint brushes.  (I also had a fun time creating my own picture.)

        
Materials

• paint 
• construction paper
• egg cartons
• pipe cleaners
• pom-poms
• clothespins 
• cut up pool noodle
• tray (for paint) 
• Halloween stamps (optional) 

Our completed projects without adding anything.

 

Our projects when we added eyes, noses, and hair.  

my son's picture

my picture 

  

I am indebted to Danya Banya's Blog: Creative Activities for Kids and Mum for this idea.