Fairy Land: Building with Recycled Materials on the Light Table

Our preschooler constructed a fairy land on the light table using recycled materials! The magical and girly pretend play sparked her imagination and mine.

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The Benefits of Creative Collage for Kids

We made a large scale scarecrow collage out of recycled materials to decorate for Fall! As our preschooler was working on her artistic creation I was realizing all of the benefits of creating collages for kids.

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Plastic Bottle Water Tower for Kids

We have been having so much fun playing with water this summer from our homemade water wall to gross motor color mixing. Our latest creation was a water funneling tower made from recycled plastic bottles!

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Winter Inspired Tinker Tray

Are you frozen with anticipation about how you'll keep your kids busy all winter long? We've recently introduced our kids to tinker trays for open ended and creating STEM learning. This icy themed invitation to explore is sure to melt away boredom in a flash!

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Plastic Lid Planets

Inspired by our plastic lid Earth craft we created a solar system of recycled plastic lid planets! We've just launched our solar system and space preschool science unit and we love to craft with recycled materials.

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Five Little Pumpkins on the Light Table

Five Little Pumpkins is a favorite Halloween poem to retell in our house! We've already shared our Fine Motor Five Little Pumpkins so for this activity we used recycled materials to make dry erase jack-o-lanterns for the light table.

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Recycled Egg Carton Acorn Ornaments

We love to use recycled materials in our crafts.  For fall we wanted a seasonal ornament that we could hang up so we painted acorns from recycled egg cartons.

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Frog Life Cycle Craft for Kids

A frog's life cycle is fascinating especially to preschoolers. This recycled craft is perfect for reviewing a frog's life cycle with kids. It is easy for the children to transform the tadpole into a frog as they retell the process in their own words. This is perfect for a preschool unit on spring!

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Hickory Dickory Dock Clock Craft & Time Telling Activity for Kids

I'm excited to share our Hickory Dickory Dock craft as part of Sugar Aunts' Nursery Rhymes Crafts & Activities Series. Our clock craft featured so many elements that are pivotal to the learning invitations we create: It's a fine motor activity that is created with recycled materials. It incorporates literacy and math that is adaptable to many ability levels allowing the activity to grow with your child or be available for a whole classroom of children with different ability levels. The best part is our preschooler created it and she loves it for play!

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Lancaster Creative Reuse Center

Lancaster Creative Reuse is a glittered gem of creativity in our community.  They are a project of the Keystone Art & Culture Center non-profit out of Lancaster.  I first discovered the LCR when a friend liked them on Facebook.  I had never heard of a reuse center, so I had to dig a bit deeper to see what they were all about.

The more I discovered, the more I fell in love.  The store meets several of our needs:

- It's a place to go to search for, find, and purchase creative craft and project items.  Inventory is an eclectic mix of traditional craft supplies, recycled materials, and other excess products from building companies and classrooms, for example.

- We can donate items to be used for projects.  I have a hard time parting with anything that I imagine can be useful with a bit of creativity, even if I myself do not currently possess the needed skills or time to transform the item into something artistic. Now I put items in a box for the LCR and I drop off the goodies the next time we stop by.  If you'd like to donate, please check the donations tab on their website to read what they currently do and do not accept!

- For $2 E (and I) can create to her heart's content at the open craft table.  They have many more supplies than we could ever contain at home and they are sorted in the most organized way.  This is the perfect spot for a artsy play date.  Bring your child to complete home and public school projects without having to gather materials around your house.  (Psst, all summer long, the craft table is free on Fridays from 10 am - 2pm.)  There is also a small kitchen play set next to the craft table for younger siblings or for when attention wanes.

- LCR's inspiring ideas reminds me that we need to return soon for a shopping/crafting session!  They are full of great crafty ideas on their Pinterest page.  They regularly update their Facebook page showcasing interesting supplies complete with clever captions. When you head over to like them, please post a note to let them know that SPS sent you!

- Many cute incidents happened during our visit:

An volunteer's son (who was a bit older than E) helped her browse for something to transform into a coffee coaster for Mr. SPS for Father's Day.  Their back and forth conversation was darling, including a debate about the logistics of using textured tile to securely hold his coffee mug and what type of markers E should use to personalize the gift.

When I asked if there was a private room for me to nurse a much distracted D, they suggested I use their staff break room.  Upon hearing that I was headed that way, a charming gentleman volunteer explained that he needed to get his tea out of the room first.  "I'm still nursing too," he joked, "but there is a bit more sugar in mine."  I stumbled into a breastfeeding friendly facility with staff that made us feel so welcome!

We will be visiting again regularly.  We can't recommend the Lancaster Creative Reuse Center enough!

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Creating Beside Your Child - Recycled Flower Art

I had a whole post ready to write about spring, flowers, Earth Day, and recycling. Yet, when I sat down to do this project with E, I ended up learning so much.

When we had new cookware shipped to us, I saw these packing pieces.  I knew I had to keep them to make something out of them, but what?  Spring = flowers of course!

Here was my dilemma:  I always strive to provide E with activities that are so fun that they engage my attention as well, because then I know that they are sure to be a hit with her!  So I was super tempted to create one of these flowers myself.

At first, I felt a bit silly and selfish to be taking her materials to make my own art.  But then I thought, we encourage parents all the time to play along side their children.  We are advised to eat dinner together, read together, do everything together.  Why not create together?  Splat Studio advertises that their preschool classes allow parents to have materials to work along with their child, which was a huge draw for me.  I decided to make a flower, too.

While we were working something happened.  I was using Do-a-Dot stampers while E chose paint.  She started mimicking my stamping motions on her flower.

If I would have suggested she try that, her two year old stubborn streak probably would have resisted.  I would never have taken her materials to "show" her how to do it on her own flower because that feels like disrespect to her as an individual and artist.

Yet, by creating beside her, she had the freedom to make the decision to do it like Momma or in her own way, neither of which was wrong or right.

I was talking to my mom about this on the phone and she brought up how this is the way animals learn how to behave in nature.  The mother chimpanzee doesn't take something from its baby, say "No," and show it the proper way to do something.  Instead, the mother performs an activity as she's always done and the baby follows her lead and imitates her.  It's such a natural way to learn!

So I want to encourage you to create art beside your child.  Get messy with him, buy extra materials for yourself so you both have your own space, and have fun creating masterpieces but also memories.  You can also ask your child if you can work on one project together, but respect their answer.  Collaboration is a choice.

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Recycled Cardboard Rainbow Craft

We love to craft using free recycled materials! Can you guess what we used for the base of our 3D rainbow craft sculpture?

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Fine Motor Printmaking for Kids

Have you ever tried printmaking with kids? All you need is a golf tee, paper, paint, and one recycled material!

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Nursery Rhyme Retelling Slides on the Light Table

Nursery rhymes are a great way to practice story sequencing which is an important reading skill. We used recycled materials to create our own retelling slides for familiar nursery rhymes that we know and love. 

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Comparing Homemade Volcano Recipes

My daughter's fear and fascination with volcanoes continues. We decided to test homemade volcano recipes and compare the reactions! Which volcano recipe works best? 

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Color Sorting Ideas for Kids

We love to work with colors and rainbows! Fine motor practice is even more fun when it's bright, brilliant, and beautiful color sorting activities for kids!

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Egg Carton Pumpkins & Jack-o-Lanterns

We are on a roll using recycled materials to create fall themed crafts!  Our latest creation can be for fall or Halloween. 

and/or

You'll need an egg carton, orange paint, a black marker, and small sticks.  An adult should cut and fold two egg carton cups to nestle inside each other as we did with our egg carton acorns.  Next, take the cups apart again so your child can paint them orange.  Once dry, an adult can carefully punch a hole in the top of one cup to insert a small stick for a stem.  We didn't use any glue in this craft, but you could secure the pieces if you'd like.

To make jack-o-lanterns, your child can use a black marker to draw a face on the pumpkin.  I reminded my daughter E that a face has two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  She added the "eyebrows" all on her own.  We used this time to discuss the shapes people might use when creating a jack-o-lantern face. I like that we can turn the jack-o-lanterns' faces around to display the pumpkin side after Halloween to keep them up for Thanksgiving!

 

The jack-o-lanterns look great with a decorated pumpkin (and the artist)!   They also enjoy keeping our toilet paper roll scarecrow company!

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This post was first published as a guest post for Lebanon Macaroni Kid.

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Sensory Fall Colors Water Mixing

Autumn colors are all around us! Red, orange, yellow, green, and even brown are so pretty and fall festive.

We explored autumn color mixing with water for seasonal sensory fine motor practice. 

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Egg Carton and Cupcake Liner Dinosaur Craft

Aren't all kids crazy about dinosaurs? This craft idea would be perfect for a preschool dinosaur theme unit! We read the book Dinosaurumpus then made a Triceratops using recycled items including egg cartons and cupcake liners for this month's Book Club Play Date!

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Earth Day Crafts, Projects, and Ideas for Kids

If you are celebrating Earth Day or learning about our planet these Earth projects for kids teach so much about our home. We have the best Earth crafts and ideas for you to try with your children!

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