Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

We have A LOT of plastic lids. We have been collecting them for all kinds of projects. (One of the biggest ones is the gigantic murals project we have under construction for our outdoor fence!)   Unlike our murals, this project utilizes clear lids.  We used 2 types this time around, the ones from baby food containers (rectangular)  and some from Crystal Light containers (oval) , but any plastic lid will do! The whole purpose in this activity is to work on strengthening the muscles in the hand. - So in preparation I filled our glue bottles up and added some liquid watercolor to them.  The children helped to decide what colors to make.  (After you add a bit of the liquid watercolor to the bottle, shake it up good! You can add a marble to the bottle to help if you need.) This project is very much process based. Our ornaments are made by filling the lid with glue and then adding gems and sequins. You don't need to add the gems and sequins- the dried colored glue is sufficient-but the c...

I have so many different recipes for home made art supplies. This is one of my favorite for an air drying clay. I like it better than salt dough, and we have used it to make all kinds of sculptures, beads, and ornaments in the past.  This year, we have been making ornaments for the 4C of the UP, Great Start Regional Child Care Resource Center's Christmas Tree. The clay is a lot of fun to play with. most of the children were more interested in playing with the clay rather than sculpting with it.... So we played..... we rolled it, and we squished it.... and then when the children didn't want to play any more... I molded the dough into round shapes. roll the clay into a ball squish the ball with a cup You will have an almost perfect circle.... to make it perfect, I used the other side of the cup like a cookie cutter. Then you will get a circle that has a small ridge I used a straw to make a round hole in each circle ornament This clay will air dry quite nicely. I wanted to spee...

We have been crafting! The Great Start Regional Child Care Resource Center has requested some ornaments to help decorate their tree, so we have been busy creating ornaments for them. One of our favorites this year has been our milkweed pods! I am often asked how I manage to allow children the opportunity to participate in various activities when I work with so many mixed ages. This little painting tote set up works well when I have some infants and toddlers. We have a GREAT art and tinkering station set up in our kitchen, but when I have little ones in the main classroom , it is hard to help and monitor in two different rooms. I do bring the infants and toddlers into the kitchen, but often their explorations tend to be much shorter than the preschool and school aged children, so I came up with this great painting tote!  All I do is give the children a clear plastic tote (sweater box sized). I line it with paper towel, place a pallet of paint (I always let the childr...

Dane's cub scout troop is a mixture of 2nd and 3rd graders the "bears and wolves." The cub scout leader has helped the boys to set a goal of raising all of the funds necessary to send all of the boys to camp this summer without having financial issues as a road block. This Saturday, December 18th at the Westwood Mall in Marquette - beginning at 10 am, they will be taking donations for these: A sampling of the cedar or spruce swags: A sampling of cedar wreaths: A sampling of ornaments: Make sure to stop by the Westwood Mall this weekend!

This year, we decided to make some silhouette ornaments out of some of the wooden cookies we have been cutting. First, we took our photos in front of our felt flannel board . You could do this in front of a solid color background blanket/sheet. We printed them on plain copy paper in black and white. Then, cut out the silhouettes. We colored them solid black with permanent markers. The children sanded both sides of their wooden cookies. Then they stained the cookies with the dye we made with the "Markers That Don't Work." After the dye dried, we covered the cookie with a layer of glue (If your glue is too thick, add a little bit of water to it or use Modge Podge). Carefully put the silhouette on the cookie, and then..... Cover with more glue. Wait for it to dry and add more layers of glue until the cookie has a nice glazed look to it. If you are impatient or are on a time crunch, you can do what we did and dry them in a food dehydrator. I don't have any photos of the f...

One of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season is craft. Our tree is almost always covered in homemade ornaments, and it is nice to add a few "new" things each year. This week, we have been working more with tools. In this project, we have been perfecting our use of hammers as we make old fashioned tin punch ornaments. When I was younger and in 4-H we made these ornaments quite frequently. I had trouble tracking down my old patterns, but found a link here online with a few . Making your own patterns is also quite simple. The less experienced with hammers the group of children you are working with, the less complex you want the patterns to be. (I started to type "younger" and then realized that as with many things, age has little to do with it.... it is primarily based upon experience). We used old juice can lids, but you can use a wide variety of lids/metal to attempt this project. The nice thing about the juice can lids is that they are the perfect...