3 Totoro Crafts

Have you seen the movie Totoro?  We recently checked it out from the library and have already watched it a dozen times!  Totoro is a large, furry forest spirit who helps two sisters adjust to their new home.  My  preschool son loves it because there are no bad guys, the sisters have a really sweet relationship, and Totoro is extremely cute.  So today I'm  sharing 3 Totoro crafts in honor of this great Miyazaki anime!

3 Easy Totoro Kids Crafts  

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Squirt Squirt Ocean Art!

If there's anything in the world that will brighten up a preschooler's day.... it's water play.  Water is seriously magical.  Give a kid a bucket of water, a pool, a water gun, or a hose...  and bam!  Laughter and good times are bound to be in your future!

Today 4 other creative preschool bloggers and I are sharing some really easy and engaging water activities.  You can find the entire list at the bottom of this post!

In our home, we've really loved making Ocean Crafts and rainy day process art. So I thought it would be fun to combine the two with this fun Ocean Process Art Activity!  We got a chance to use a whole bunch of art materials (including water guns) to create some ocean-inspired artwork.

Squirt, Squirt Ocean Process Art!

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Make Lego Prints with Kids

I'm always looking for ways to encourage my preschooler to make art with me.  Lately he's been infatuated with Lego and Transformers.  One day, after building a good-guy hideout from Lego, I was struck by how pretty our design looked.  So we grabbed some paint and made some Lego prints to capture all the details of our lovely design!

Make Lego Prints with Kids!

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Fire Truck Number Hunt Game

Lately Chuck's been enjoying playing number games with me.   One of our favorite ways to learn math together is playing this Fire Truck Number Game. 

To find out how we play this game, check out PBS Adventures in Learning  today!

Easy Spin Art With Kids (No machine required!)

Looking for an art activity that's sure to entertain kids of all ages?  Then salad spinner spin art is just the activity for you!  My husband, son, and I spent hours having fun making some colorful psychedelic artwork!

Easy Salad Spinner Spin Art!

Easy, Giant DIY Scratchboard Art!

Have you ever tried making scratch art  (affiliate links)?   It's seriously addictive.  We recently bought a set of scratch art boards from our local toy store and had a BLAST doodling, tracing, and scratching.  So after we used up all our boards....I got thinking.  Why use tiny scratch boards...... when GIANT SCRATCH BOARDS could do?

(Muah Ha ha.  Insert crazy, crafter laughter here.)

Super Easy, Giant, Homemade Scratchboards!

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Make Origami Faces

This past weekend I spent a bit of time figuring out how to make some adorable origami faces.   After several failed attempts, I shortened the directions... and voila!  I love how they turned out! Sculptural and modern, they are so fun to make and uber cool to display!

Paper Sculptures- Making Origami Faces with Kids!  

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Pie Plate Solar System

We love space themed crafts!  Do you?  Today's Creative Preschool Collaborators theme is space.  This means that 4 other bloggers and I will share 5 super fun solar system crafts!  So be sure to scroll down to the bottom of this post to see everyone's ideas!

We've been studying how the earth revolves around the sun.  So we made this pie plate solar system game!

Pie Plate Solar System

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Calder-Inspired Sculptures (and our 20+ favorite art books!)

As a child I really loved Alexander Calder's sculptures.  Whimsical and colorful, they let me see that art can be fun too!  Today I'm sharing a really simple paper sculpture project inspired by Calder's large scale metal ones.  They take only minutes to whip up and certainly would also make for fun scissor practice with younger kids as well!

Kids Calder-Inspired Art Sculptures  

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How to Make Tissue Paper flowers

Are you looking to create gorgeous, realistic tissue paper flowers with the kids?  Then this is the tutorial for you!  These flowers are beautiful and super easy to make.  Just grab a bunch of tissue paper, pipe cleaners, and scissors and you're all set to make a colorful bouquet for someone special!

How to Make Tissue Paper Flowers

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Pizza Box Car Garage

The next time you get some take-out pizza, ask them for an extra clean pizza box.  Why?  So you and the kids can make a pizza box car garage, of course!

Recycled Pizza Box Car Garage

Slinky Rainbow Garland

Are you looking for an easy, fun, and colorful kids craft?  Well, then today's slinky rainbow garland is just up your alley.  I've been digging rainbow crafts lately.  They're just so fun and happy! And these rainbow garlands are totally rocking my world.  I was inspired by Minieco's folded rainbow paper garlands and decided to make some of my own!  Chuck loves playing them like an accordion and watching them wiggle around. (Ok, I kinda do too. They're mesmerizing!)

Slinky Rainbow Paper Garland

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Flower and Star Clay Ring Bowls

Have you ever worked with clay?  I'm a clay novice and I always get slightly nervous thinking that we need a kiln.  But I was totally wrong! There are lots of great, affordable air dry clay options out there.  Since my son loves play dough, working with clay has been a really great activity for us to do together.  With Mother's Day right around the corner, here are some super easy DIY flower and starry night clay ring bowls that you can whip up with your children!

DIY Flower and Starry Night Clay Ring Bowls

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Toilet Roll Mermaid and Hula Girl

We've done dozens of toilet paper roll crafts over here, but this one seriously takes the cake for cutest yet.  Tada!

Toilet Roll Mermaid and her best gal pal, Hula Girl

You can check out the full tutorial for these two super cute toilet roll crafts over at MollyMoo Crafts!

Let's Keep In Contact!

You can always find  fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts!  (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.)

Make a Colorful Paper Garland

For some reason Spring seems to bring in parties galore.  Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, boy, oh boy, it seems like every week we're celebrating something new.  Is it that way for you too?  Spring is definitely a happy season for us.  So with that in mind, I came up with this super simple paper garland that you and the kids can easily whip up within minutes!  Tape them up and then poof, instant party!

We're currently digging rainbow crafts over here, so of course I had to make one of every color!

Colorful Paper Garland

Make Pasta Frames with Kids!

Ah, pasta.  It's cheap, always in your cupboards, yummy...and a GREAT crafting material!  Today I'm super excited because my fellow Rockin' Art Moms and I came up with 14 super fun, beautiful, and easy pasta art projects that you can make with your kids!

And... *drum roll please* we want to see YOUR pasta creations and we're also hosting a GIVEAWAY too.  Yippee! So definitely check out the bottom of the post to see the giveaway details and all the other ladies' awesome posts.

Chuck and I decided to use our pasta to decorate painted picture frames!

Make Pasta Frames With Kids!

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How to Make Colorful Kirigami Flowers

Spring is here! La la la! Although our current grey skies don't exactly scream "warm, sunny, bursting-with-new-life weather," today's kirigami flower craft certainly does!

How to Fold and Cut Kirigami Flowers

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Now, I had a lot of trouble naming this craft.  These flowers kinda felt like origami... and yet they weren't quite origami because I used scissors to make the designs too.  Luckily Mr. Google taught me the term kirigami.  It's a Japanese term that basically describes origami that also involves paper cutting too.  Bingo!  So cool right?

By the way, if you love these flowers, you'll also love these

• AWESOME paper stars  
• Lego Snowflakes! 

Mathy Mother's Day Jewelry

Mother's Day is coming up!  So of course, fun kid-made gifts have been on my mind!  Last week we made these darling egg carton flower pins.  I thought they would go great with some lovely kid-made jewelry.  But of course, there had to be a twist!  (A math twist that is!)

Let's Make Mathy Mother's Day Jewelry!  

Glue Suncatchers

Awhile back I made this lovely apple faux stained glass using black glue as the "lead" and tinted clear glue (affiliate link) to paint colorful panels.  Ever since making that craft, I kept wondering if there was a way to adapt it for preschoolers.  So I came up with this super easy kids glue sun catcher activity.   It takes only 2 ingredients to make the "paint" and you probably already have all the materials on hand!

Super Easy Glue Sun catcher Art with Kids  

Egg Carton Flower Pins

I love seeing kids' homemade gifts.  Don't you?  There's something beautiful about receiving a gift made by tiny hands.  Today several kid-craft loving bloggers and I took on an egg carton craft challenge.  We came up with different ways to craft with  egg cartons.  Since Mother's day is coming up next month, I thought it would be great to make some egg carton flower pins!  Like our styrofoam mosaic tile picture frames, this craft turns "junk" into lovely gifted treasures.

Egg Carton Flower Pins

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Tape Resist Ant Art!

Are you going buggy over spring?  Well, then today the preschool collaborators and I have 5 preschool bug activities that you'll absolutely love.  We've been digging ants lately, so I thought it would be fun to combine art and science to make some tape resist ant art!  

(And if you're looking for even more bug crafts, check out these egg carton bugs and my
fluttering butterfly craft!)

Tape Resist Ant Art!

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Build a Funicular Train

Did you know there were such things as funicular trains?  I learned about them from a train book that my son and I read together.  Apparently these trains are used to move people up and down steep cliffs. Two cars are attached via a cable and one car moves up the mountain as another moves down.  Now of course, you know me.... I just had to try making a funicular train for our lego minifigures.... especially after we enjoyed playing with our cardboard conveyor belt so much!

Let's Build a Funicular Train!

Shiny Foil Process Art

While I love making crafts with my preschooler, sometimes it's just nice doing process art activities with him.  We don't worry about the results.  We just dig in, throw everything into the pot, and see what comes up.  It's kind of freeing really to not worry about the product.

Awhile back we made some rainy day process art,  tissue paper canvas art and Matisse murals together.   Since we really enjoyed those activities, this time I pulled out our aluminum foil and we tried our hand at making some shiny foil process art.

SHINY FOIL PROCESS ART

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Kid Science: Studying Bird Beaks

Now that it's spring, I feel a severe kick in the bum to start doing more nature and science themed activities with Chuck.   There's something really cool about seeing blossoms, birds, bees, and bugs (whoa- bs!) all around.  We recently visited our nearby natural history museum and Chuck spent quite a bit of time playing with a bird beak activity.  It was so simple and fun that I had to share it here!

Kid Science:  Studying Bird Beaks with Kids

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5 Flower + Plant Activities for Preschoolers!

Spring is here! Spring is here!  In honor of this lovely season, here are 5 flower and plant activities that are just perfect for preschoolers!

5 Preschool Flower + Plant Activities

Cardboard Mail Carrier Bag

Chuck recently became interested in letter writing and sending letters through the mail.  So I whipped up this cute mail carrier bag to help encourage his pretend play!

Become a Mail Carrier in Minutes!

How to Fold and Cut Origami Stars

Lately I've just been digging Origami projects.  There's just something so relaxing about folding paper to create lovely things.    For today's post I wanted to share a recent origami project- these folded and cut origami stars.  They are really, really beautiful and of course, super simple to make!  (I'm an origami newbie, so if I say it's easy... it's totally doable!)

How to Fold and Cut Origami Stars

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So keep reading to see how I made them.

Oh yeah.  Guess what?  I took the plunge and actually shot videos of me folding the paper and explaining my process.  I know, I know.  Video is a completely new medium to me and I still have a lot of kinks to work out (like how to make things brighter!)  But, I think the videos explain the process better than the photos.  So I've included them in the post.

How to make Woven Easter Baskets

Easter is tomorrow! And if you're looking for a super easy and cute kids Easter craft.... this is it!  Check out these woven Easter Baskets! 

How to make Woven Easter Baskets

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A friend left her strawberry baskets at our place the other day.  I kept meaning to return them to her, but never got a chance.  Oops.  So they just kept staring at me this past week... whispering, "Craft with me, craft with me."  Well, of course I had to obey their siren calls.

With all their open holes, I knew they would be perfect to practice weaving on!

(By the way- we've done so many weaving crafts over here that this was a nice one to add to the collection:

• Woven Paint Chip Easter Eggs
• Yarn Cup Weaving
• Spring Flower Weaving) 

Painted Tin Can Succulent Pots

Spring has sprung!  Are you enjoying all the lovely blooms popping up around your neighborhood? In honor of Spring, today's Creative Preschool theme is.... plants!  So I wanted to share how we painted and repotted these tin can succulents.

Because this is part of the Preschool Collaborators Series, there are links at the bottom of the post to 4 other bloggers' great ideas for teaching preschoolers about flowers and plants!  (So scroll down to the bottom of the post to check those out!)

How to Repot Succulents in Painted Tin Cans 

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How to make a Conveyor Belt

Does your child like machines?  Then you'll love today's quick craft.  It's a super simple milk carton conveyor belt!

Make a Conveyor Belt

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Woven Paint Chip Easter Egg Banner

Last Friday we held an early Easter get-together at our place.  I wanted to "spring-ify" our place up, but didn't want to spend a fortune to do it.  So during a trip to our local hardware store, I picked up a couple  oh let's be honest, A WHOLE LOT of paint chips.  (I can't help it! The colors... the colors!!!)  And then I wove myself a colorful Easter garland.  :)

Woven Easter Egg Banner

I love how the eggs are just so colorful and modern looking!

So if you want to make this simple and FREE Easter decor, visit DIY Candy for my woven Easter Egg Garland tutorial today!  Plus, you can always find other easy Easter crafts on the blog too! 

Let's keep in Contact!

Check out other fun and easy ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts!  (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.)

Happy creating, friends!