Pin-it Online Scavenger Hunt 5/14/2012: Patriotic Snacks for the July 4th

Join the fun and find great classroom curriculum on Pinterest: Patriotic Fruit Kabobs and More.

Have you checked out our Pin it Online Scavenger Hunt on Pinterest yet? It is full of fun ideas for preschool activities or ways to celebrate holidays and special events. The Patriotic Fruit Kabobs for Independence Day and Salt and Flour Paint were a big hit!

Winner is always chosen by you: The pin with the most re-pins is showcased here each week and the ORIGINAL pinner wins! 

And the Winner is (5/07)... Carole M. and Jennifer O. tied for the most pins at 25. Remember to allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Please send address info to the hollyjollyone@yahoo.com.  

Wanna join? Leave a comment on Pinterest to be added to the board as a collaborative pinner (under the purple tack). Or here ~Below this post is a divider bar, on the left side you will see the words, "Tell us your two cents" click here to comment and get your invite to join the game! Any comment on any post will do, just let us know you'd like to join the hunt :-)

Most pinned (25 repins) pinned by Jennifer O. on the blog, TinkerLab (Creative Experiments for Kids), Salt and Flour Paint.

How to make paint with salt, flour, and food coloring from TinkerLab.

Most Pins, pinned by Carole M. (25 repins) from the blog, Giggles Galore, Patriotic Fruit Kabobs.

Patriotic Fruit Kabobs for the Fourth of July from Pinterest.

Recommended Reading:


Firework Safety for Independence Day

Festive Fruit and Frozen Yogurt Kabobs

4th of July Recipes*

History for Kids: The Fourth of July for Kids - The Incredible Story of Independence Day - Including an Interactive Fourth of July QUIZ! (History for Children)*

Slurpin' for Worms Birthday Party Game for Kids and Moms on a Budget

Birthday's on a Budget: Party Game Ideas

No matter how much we would like to, most parents just aren't able to throw that ultra-expensive birthday party for kids every year, but that doesn’t mean your BIRTHDAY still can't be fun! Here is a great, cheap birthday game activity. You can switch up the theme. We went with Gummi Candy Worms, but you can use Gummy Bears too. Enjoy, this worm birthday game for kids!

This post contains affiliate links.

You might also like to Paint with Worms (Spaghetti).

What you Need: 

Fun Paper Plates
Canned Whipped Cream
Albanese Gummi Worms or other small Gummy Candies 

*Please be mindful of small children and choking hazards.

Easy Kid's Game for Birthday Party: Worm Party Game.

How to Play Worm Birthday Game: 

• You can play one at a time or all at once as a race- we have done both.
• Place the same amount of objects on a paper plate for each participant. (10 kids = 10 plates)
• Cover the items completely with whipped cream. (Try to make each plate exactly the same.)
• Each player gets a whipped cream-covered plate and an empty plate.
• Hands are placed behind your back and on "Go," players use only mouths to find items on plate, one at a time, and spit them onto empty plate.
• The first player to find them all wins!
• (If playing one at a time, the person with the quickest time wins.)

This is a great game for Summer Camp too.


Recommended Reading:

Group Games for All Ages

Worms! 

Worm Birthday Party Favors

Worm in Apple Healthy Party Snack

Sensory Spaghetti Painting (Feels like worms).

Follow us on Instagram for Daily Fun!

Easy Fun Teen Birthday Party Game: Slurpin' for Worms.

Melted Crayons in Chocolate and Soap Molds

How to make Fun Crayon Shapes in Molds

Crayon fun for Preschoolers. Have your crayons and make them too using cookie, cake, or soap molds! What could be more fun than coloring with a dinosaur? Coloring with a dinosaur crayon. Enjoy!

Use a muffin tin and mix up melted crayon pieces
 for fun chunky crayons.

How to make play dough at home and 12 Fun Things to do with Play Dough

Looking for fun things to Make at Home?

Maybe you need an easy recipe for how to make dough or you're wondering how do I make play dough at home? How to make clay dough for older kids Here are fun clay and dough recipes to make at home with kids of all ages.

How to make play dough recipe:                                                         
2 c. corn starch, 1 c. salt, 1 1/2 c. boiling water, 2 tbs. cream of tartar, 2 tbs  oil (vegetable oil to keep it edible or baby oil to make it fun and a pleasant scent) Mix all ingredients together, then add a couple drops of your favorite food coloring. You can also separate into individual baggies, add a different drop of food color to each bag, and knead to mix. Let the kids do this for extra sensory play! You can make it without cream of tar tar too; the oil will fill the void it just might not stay fresh as long :)

 Sensory Guest Post from Krissy Sherman Bonning, Mama of 3, and Blogger  at B.Inspired, Mama!  (Connecting moms with kid-friendly arts & crafts, easy recipes, and preschool learning fun.) Hop over to Krissy's blog and check out all of the cool  fun from a Mommy with a Master's degree in Art Education.

I found an exciting feature on her blog, she accepts Submissions from other bloggers! Get your fun ideas posted and earn yourself some much deserved recognition.

Fun things to do with Playdough at home.

My kids’ go-to sensory activity is definitely play dough.  The ways you can play with it are endless.  And adding unusual objects and art supplies to it make it even more fun.  Here are some of our favorites:

1. Stencils – Use them to place on the play dough and trace around, press into the play dough to make impressions, and for imaginative play, too. 
2. Recycled Bottles – Next time you drink something out of a plastic bottle, check out the bottom.  It will probably make a really cool flower-like impression in play dough.  (from B-Inspired Mama)
3. Cardboard Boxes – Play dough details can turn boxes into buildings and even an entire city.  (from Inspiration Surrounds, Creativity Abounds)
4. Muffin Cups – Silicone muffin cups are perfect for making pretend cupcakes and muffins for an impromptu Birthday party or picnic.  (from B-Inspired Mama)
5. Fake Flowers – Plant them in play dough to make a beautiful flower garden for imaginative gardening fun. (from The Imagination Tree)
6. Animals – Green play dough makes the perfect jungle for little animal friends. (from Picklebums)
7. Googly Eyes – Bright your play dough to life and make silly monsters with lots of googly eyes. (from Pink and Green Mama)
8. Candy Molds – Use chocolate play dough to make pretend candies and fun shapes with candy molds.  (from Learning 4 Kids)
9. Laminated Play Dough Mats – Laminate images and learning worksheets for kids to add play dough details, letters, and snakes to.  (from Planet of the Apels)
10. Alphabet Cookie Cutters – Make play dough fun a learning opportunity by adding letter cookie cutters.  (from No Time for Flash Cards)
11. Glitter – Add lots of glitter to turn play dough into a glistening glob for galaxy fun.  (from Poppytalk)
12. Trucks & Cars – Play dough makes fun hills for driving over and tires on toy vehicles make awesome impressions.  (from B-Inspired Mama)

Do your kids like playing with play dough? Have you ever used anything unusual to make it more fun?

Recommended Reading:

Fun-tastic Clay Critters to Make

Modeling Clay Animals

Sensory Play Dough Recipe

Craft Fail: Kid's Science Celery Experiment

Celery Experiment: How do plants drink water? 

Good question. We never found out! This celery science experiment for kids is easy and educational if you do it right. It proves why it is important to carefully follow instructions. So, how do plants drink water?  Enjoy!

Celery Science Experiment: 
Grab a glass of water, insert a few drops of food coloring.

Stick in the celery and wait twenty-four hours.

My fellow Kid-Bloggers have been posting those beautiful colored carnations and various plants soaking the water up through their stems and coloring the tips of their leaves or petals.

First, ours started to die and turned brown. Then, I moved it to the window-sill. We've watched it everyday for three weeks. Along the celery stalk you can see very faint purple lines that stop long before reaching the leaves. I added more water. This celery is going to sprout roots before the leaves take color.

We'll keep it going until it rots or colors. Science or BUST. 

TIP: Wanna know why we failed?  

Yep, I didn't follow the instructions and cut legs in my celery. Do that first!

Recommended Reading:

How to color celery science experiment for science success.

Scientific Explorer My First Mind Blowing Science Kit*

Pass the Celery, Ellery!*

Pass the Celery.

This Earth Day, Grow a Memory: Activity for Preschoolers

Easy Activity to Celebrate Earth Day with Preschoolers

As a little girl, trips to McDonald's were rare. Today, it seems to be a staple in the little's diet. I wonder if they will remember their favorite Happy Meal prizes as I do.

Once upon a time, Mickey D's gave out tiny little peat pots and sunflower seeds; the gift that kept on giving. My Dad and I went home, planted those seeds, and later transplanted them into our backyard garden. For years, we had a row of giant sunflowers. I even entered them in a 4-H contest. Sweet memories... you can make yourself. Enjoy!

Just add soil, water, sunlight, and love.

This is a great project to pair with our Daisy-Head Mayzie Activities.

Recommended:

Daisy the Donut Fairy*

Rodale's Basic Organic Gardening: A Beginner's Guide to Starting a Healthy Garden*

Earth Day Recipes

Daisy Hat Craft

Sensory Activities: Edible Straw Painting for Toddlers ~ Yum!

Edible Painting with Straws is Fun, Sensory Activity for Toddlers

Toddlers love to play with straws. One of the first milestones is learning to drink out of a straw. Blowing through a straw if also a fun, sensory experience for toddlers. This activity uses both. It is fun to watch them practice. Grab a cottonball to teach them to blow through the straw and then mix up some edible paint to make these cool, colorful blot pictures.

Our paint isn't just edible; it is yummy too!

Neon food color, maple syrup, milk, and cornstarch. Mix in three equal parts syrup, milk, and starch. Add one or two drops of color.

Little ones learn to blow thru the straw vs. sucking ~ not as easy as it seems.

It makes great finger-paint too.

Recommended Reading:

Marshmallow Sensory Game for Toddlers

Crafty Kids: Fun Projects for You and Your Toddler

Pin it! and Win it ~ Online Scavenger Hunt 3/5/2012

~ Join us on Pinterest to Pin it! and Win it ~

Winner for 2/27 is Jess Ziegler

Spring Break Activities, Earth Day Crafts, Things to do with Milk Jugs, Birthday Cakes, Buggy Crafts

Contest Pinning ends Sunday at Midnight, EST.

Contest Drawing is announced Monday at Noon, EST.

My Favorite Pin from 2/27:
Pinned by Living at the Whitehead's Zoo

Most Re-pinned from 2/27:  
April Fool's Day Prank from Martha Stewart (61 pins)

Pinned by Deb at Country Fun

Find it and pin it ~ LEAVE A COMMENT and we'll add you ~ Pin it to win it! ~ 

YOU MUST LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TO ENTER THE CONTEST

Benefits: 

• Pin an awesome pin and gain followers.
• Give fellow bloggers a boost by driving new traffic to their crafty posts 
• (Try to always pin straight from the blog source, rather than repinning).
• The weekly contest winner's pin  is showcased on our blog for 1-week
• (We'll add your button too, if you have one).
• In addition to the winner, I choose my favorite pin to showcase each week.
• Enter for a chance to win the weekly prize.

It's win, win, ~win~ 
To enter the weekly contest you must pin all 5 keyword topics, return to our blog, and leave a comment. We've had an increase in contestants and pinning making it  nearly impossible to keep track of everyone.

Please always try to do a Google or browser image search, click to the blog,  and pin the url to the contest page on Pinterest.  This helps boost the blogger's klout in search engines.

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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss - Daisy-Head Mayzie Activities and Craft

Daisy Head Mayzie Crafts and Activities

Today's Companion Craft and Story is themed on Dr. Seuss' book, Daisy-Head Mayzie not Maisy. We have lots of Dr. Seuss activities. You might Also like Dr. Seuss's Sue Snue and a fake cake messy play craft to celebrate his birthday! This is a fun project to do with Daisy Girl Scouts. Enjoy!

Scrappy Leprechaun Shamrock Stick Puppet Saint Patrick Day Craft Preschool Activity

Easy Leprechaun Stick Puppet

Grab a box of scrap paper, some knick-knacks, and pipecleaners, and create this Leprechaun stick puppet or use him as a magical bookmark for Saint Patrick Day. He's made of mostly recycled items. So, pull out the scrap box and Enjoy!

This silly leprechaun is all scrap. Just add a stick to make a fun puppet or go big and make a mask to hold over your face during a St. Patrick's Day Parade around the hallways of Preschool. After the parade, he serves double duty as a bookmark for your favorite leprechaun story.

Easy Leprechaun Stick Puppet.

Plan ahead by cutting the scraps into triangles, circles, half-moons, trapezoids, and shamrocks for a quick Shape Lesson for preschoolers.



Recommended:


More St. Patrick's Day Crafts

ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

Edible Art: Sensory Play Paint with Spaghetti with Toddlers and Preschoolers

From our Sensory Play Messy Class for Preschoolers and Toddlers: Worm Painting with Spaghetti and Edible Paint Art

Sensory Play is a great way to help preschoolers learn. It also helps with disorders of the Autism spectrum when the child is allowed to explore the subject matter on their own without being pushed. This activity is messy, squishy, fun, and even edible! Enjoy!

Getting Started with Cooked Spaghetti

Inspired Modern Art. Worm Painting?

Spaghetti Painting for Edible Art and Sensory Play feels like worms.

How to Make Spaghetti for Sensory Paint Play

• Cook up a batch of Spaghetti
• Strain it and pat it dry
• Mix some Edible Paint (Vanilla Pudding Paint with Gel food coloring works best with the Noodles but you can also try kool-aid paint and  milk paint for other projects.)
• Prepare to get Messy!
• Swirl the Spaghetti in the paint, then onto your paper.

Since most in the class are toddlers, I paraphrase the words to get thru it quickly, paying a lot of attention to the photos and asking, "What is that?".  We paired this with the Children's Book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Books about Spaghetti.

Next, I gave each child a spaghetti noodle to study. Then, we stood up pretending we were squigly spaghetti noodles. Oops, spaghetti can't stand up, so we fell to the floor and squirmed like worms. We finished up with a game of Duck, Duck, Goose but why not try Worm, Worm, Catepillar?

Painting was a huge success. The sticky spaghetti is so fun, enjoy!

Recommended Reading:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Worm Birthday Party Favors

Healthy Spaghetti Recipe

Worm Birthday Party Activity

Valentine Blog Hop: Join The Fun!

 

Toddler Lost a Glove? Make a Fun Penguin Finger Puppet Play

Recycle your lost gloves into a Penguin Finger Puppet Show

Are your kids constantly losing a glove? Turn that frown upside down and recycle the lonely glove into a handful of fun. Grab a shoe box, decorate it with a green cloth, and you have an instant puppet studio. Enjoy!

Easy Finger Puppets from Kid's Glove.

Kids can design each finger to go with a story or write their own script. Our puppets include a foamy, Halloween spider, a fun ladybug, a cute penguin, a starry night, and a giant snowflake. Imagine the possibilities.

Tip: 
Grab a copy of Goodnight Moon and make a bunny puppet, a moon, bears in chairs, or kittens with mittens.

You might also like: Moon Theme Fun Day


Recommended Reading:

Gingerbread House with Popcorn Snow

Bear Stays Up for Christmas Book

Valentine's Day Ladybug Activity for Preschoolers: Tic-Tac Toe Game

Cute Ladybug Craft for Valentine's Day for Preschoolers

This adorable ladybug paper craft was made by Mama Mia (she no longer blogs). It is a fun paper project to make with preschoolers or a buggy Valentine to make for your little ones. Get them involved in the process for some hands on learning and fine motor skills. Enjoy!

Ladybug Valentine Paper Craft for Preschool Kindergarten.

Companion Lesson

Draw one heart and one square to use as a template. Have preschoolers trace squares and hearts and then let them cut them out. This focuses on hand eye coordination and fine motor skills.

As the children glue the legs on, discuss the differences between spiders and insects. How many legs does a ladybug have?

How to Make Ladybug Tic Tac Toe Game

2 large sheets of red construction paper (or craft foam).
1 large sheet of black construction paper (or craft foam).
1 scrap or half sheet of pink construction paper (or craft foam).
2 googly eyes
1 glue stick

Cut 2 tiny hearts for  the antennae
Cut 5 pink and 5 red hearts for game pieces
Cut 6 long strips of black for legs. Cut these straight and then fold as shown above.
Cut 2 long strips of black for the antennae.
Cut 9 Squares for game board.
Cut 1 half moon from black paper for head.


Recommended Reading:

Ladybug Girl Party Ideas

Preschool Circle Time Ideas

The Grouchy Ladybug*

Ladybugs by Gail Gibbons*













ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

Five Fab Classroom Valentine's Day Crafts for kids to exchange

Valentine list of Classroom Valentine's Day Crafts for Kids from some very Crafty Bloggers.

Does this make you so happy you want to bake a Valentine's Cake? I love to celebrate Valentine's Day with crafts. Here are 5 fun ideas for Kids' Valentines from Pinterest. Enjoy!

It's Rolo Candy Rolls Bomb from Make it Do blog.

Scrappy Thumb Print Valentine from Simply Kierste blog.

Thumbprint Roses from All Free Crafts.

Butterfly Buggy Lollipop Valentines from Momma Bee Partyz blog.

Candy Hearts Ipod/MP3 Player with Reece's Cups from Studio5.KSL.

Happy Valentine's Crafting! 

You might also like Recycled Christmas Classroom Valentine and 10 Valentine Cartoon Clip Art Images.   



Recommended Reading:

Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day Is Cool*

Snowy Valentine*

OLIVIA and the Perfect Valentine (Olivia TV Tie-in)*


















ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)