In memory...

These are pictures of a plaque that I made for a tree in front of Holladay Magnet School in Tucson, AZ.  Rafe was a fellow parent who was suddenly hit and killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike near his work at Bioshere 2.  He was a very special person and was doing so much good for our world.  He was taken away too soon, it's all just so very sad.

Shrinky Dink Necklaces

I have a day off, so I thought I would place around with shrink plastic.  Here is what I made today!

The last one is actually a memento for an alter for a friend that passed away.  He was a marine biologist and was especially found of the octopus.  His wife told me that he always likes when the animal prevails over mankind.  Which is what is happening here.

And since life is a circle, I will close with this necklace.  In celebration of a new beautiful being that was born, named Juniper.

Laura Numeroff

Here are some of the crafts that I made with the afternoon class around children's book author Laura Numeroff.  She is know best for her If you Give a Mouse a Cookie collection.

We mostly centered around Give a Pig a Party.  Everyone needs balloons at their party, even a pig.  The also children helped give the pig a party dress, which is a large coffee filter decorated with watercolors.

Our balloons are aluminum foil, painted on with Biocolor.

We also made cupcakes for our party, because who doesn't love a cupcake?  The kids had so much fun making these, but warning they take at least 3 days to dry!  The puffy paint is made with equal parts glue and shaving cream.

 

As you can see our poor pig lost all but one of her balloons!  Packaging tape doesn't stick to the semi-gloss paint on our walls.  But she has lots of cupcakes, so she's good.

Collage

Our second week of summer session was based on collage and books that are illustrated through collage.  Eric Carle, Leo Lionni, Lois Ehlert, etc.

Here are some of the art projects we did in the afternoon.

Hungry Caterpillar fingerprint paintings. These are mini canvases on mini easels.  I used Biolocolor as paint.  The children used their fingers to make the caterpillars, then when they were dry they added the details with sharpie.

Spray art.  Mister Seahorse was cut out and the children sprayed him with watercolors.  This was a very popular activity and great to strengthen their finger muscles.  It was also very messy! 

White crayon resist rooster, from Rooster's Off to See the World by Eric Carle.

Color changing chameleon.  Kids painted paper plates using different colors.  Then we placed another plate on top with chameleon cut out and fastened it in the middle.  When you turn the plate the chameleon changes colors.

 Boat collage.  This was a multi step process.  But the outcome was beautiful!

First we painted large pieces of paper blues and green using different items, scrapers, brushes, anything we found.

Then we ripper them on the long side.

The next day we painted the background and collaged the boat whith shells.

The background was painted with yellow and orange watercolors.

The following day we assembled our collages.  We put the sea down first then placed the boats, sails, and moon.  We talked about the different parts of the boat as we glued it down.  It would be fun to get more words and dictate a story about were they were sailing.

Dr. Seuss!

Pin the hat on the cat game.  I drew the Cat in the Hat and his fish on poster board.  The hats are printed using a color printer.  Then they were laminated.

I think they are waiting for rain?

Photo board.  Oh, the places they'll go!

Hat matching game.

 Different puzzles made on Popsicle sticks.  This on is The Lorax (obviously).  

Painting truffla trees with truffla trees!

A random door..

Ms. Corinne's truffla forest and her supper cute Horton Hears a Who puppets (complete with clovers!)

And my necklace that I made just for the occasion.

There were a lot of other activities and games that I missed getting pictures of.  I'm especially bummed that I didn't get a picture of Ms. Molly and I in our bright yellow matching Star Belly Sneetches shirts!  Drats!!!