Fiesta Camp Crafts Part II

Metal Painting

I spent a lot of time researching this one.  There are a gazillion ways to do it from super simple to very complicated.  Only the 4- and 5-year-olds did this.  I think I would try it with my 3s during the regular school year when I know all the personalities and what we are capable of.  We get kids from all over during camp so it is harder to anticipate abilities.

Anyways, one teacher just had the kids draw and color with sharpies and then added glitter and it turned out great.   That was simple but visually stunning.  I  missed the photo again and I apologize for not be able to correctly attribute this sample photo.  Teaching camp this time made it nearly impossible to see what was going on in other classrooms.

Maracas

Plastic Easter eggs, beans or rice, plastic spoons, fun tapes.  Super easy and lots of fun.

We used colored spoons to make it a bit more colorful, but the idea was the same.  The camp kids picked all kind of color combinations.

Cactus Sunset

Once again I missed the photo of our finished product.  But this was the inspiration photo. 

We precut the cacti since our kids were just not scissor savy.  They ripped colored  tissue paper and glued it onto an orange background.   So where the tissue didn't cover it still had a sunset glow.  Then glued the cactus on top.

I would definitely do this again during the year.  Probably when we do Cowboy/5 senses and make a sandpaper cactus.

Back to School

We are off and running.  It was a good first week.  The usual whimpers and whines, but no tears. 

I am adjusting as much as the kids since I have one partner teacher for the M W F class and another for T TH.  We are getting the hang of it.

Fun Fiesta Crafts Part I

Fiesta Camp was the camp I was most worried about finding good projects for.  It ended up being the best camp of the summer.   As usual we searched and searched for ideas and then tweaked them to make them our own.

Silly Chili / Hot Stuff

This was super fun.  The kids always like getting their feet painted.  What a good ice breaker on the first day.

This was an idea I saw at the last minute.  We used googly eyes and skipped the arms and legs.  It's original title was Hot Stuff, but we started calling it the Silly Chili.

 

Ball & Cup Game

I saw many, many variations of the ball and cup game.  Our final version was the fake Solo cups from the Dollar Store since they are a little smaller around and easier for little hands to hold.

Using a regular hole punch, I punched holes in the top side for the string instead of the bottom.  It was MUCH MUCH easier and for the younger kids the swing from the top was easier to manage.  For the ball we used wooden "wheels" that had been donated years ago.

The kids painted the wheels and decorated the cup with sticky foamies.  The teachers tied it together.  Fun.

Sombrero

This turned out nearly identical to the original idea, which is good since I did not get any photos of ours.  We used the yellow paper cups and dessert plates from the Dollar Tree.  I pre-glued them together with hot glue.

We had ribbon and lace for the kids to wrap around the cup.  Then pom poms for the rim of the paper plate.  It was cute, but kind of pointless except as a decoration.  If I did it again I think I would use dinner plates and cut out the circle under the cup so they could at least pretend to wear it.

Another round of Fiesta Crafts coming soon.

Air Dry Clay

As soon as I picked Fiesta for a camp theme I knew I wanted to make clay pots.  But I did not want to make homemade clay that was not 100% sure to work or to dry within the 4 day camp.

I checked out my options at the craft stores and found this:  Air Dry Clay.  The name says it all.  I was still a bit leary since there were not any real instructions included.  This was definitely a project that needed to be tested.

 I divided the 10 pound box into 1/2 pound sections and sealed them each in a ziploc bag.

Little S got one to test.  It was easy to work with, easy to clean up and easy enough to rework as she changed her mind.  She made 3D shapes, rolled and cut with cookie cutters, and added holes for hanging with straws and toothpicks.  It was about the same messiness as PlayDoh or maybe even less.

We left it out on a styrofoam plate to dry.  Within 36 hours it was completely dry.  The box had said it would dry white and it did.

Since this was a brand new activity we only had the 4- and 5-year-olds do it.  It turned out that the 1/2 pound sections were plenty big for the camp kids to make a little pinch pot. 

One class pushed gems and jewels into their pots and those came out amazing.  The other class painted theirs.    Also, super successful.

During the school year we traditionally use Model Magic during dinosaur week.  That is truly as anticlimatic as a project can get.  Model Magic is about $1 per child and it is very difficult to manipulate.  I can definitely see us using the Air Dry Clay in the future.  Much cheaper - $10 before the coupon, which turned out to about 25 cents per child and the kids could actually use it.  Since I had gotten a second box once I knew it worked, we do have some leftover to start with.  I sealed the individually wrapped clay in an additional zip bag and according to the box that should keep it fresh or just add a bit of water to moisten it up again.

My only regret is that I did not get photos of the finished camps products since it was not in my classroom and not on my radar.  These photos are from the web and pretty accurately represent what we made.

I can see us using this to make Christmas ornaments at home and at school.  I'm also thinking Shark ornaments for Middle E's high school swim team.  The possibilities are endless.

Hola

The kids had a lot of fun learning words in Spanish.  It wasn't much since they were only three but the ones who were into it really got it, which is true of any lesson.  The older classes had a bit more success, which is also to be expected.

Our camp themes are very different from our school themes so I borrow books from the public library to cover the literacy aspect.  We had quite a few good books for this camp.  I really liked the ones that mix English and Spanish naturally so you can't help but understand. 

Dragons Love Tacos was super fun and inspired the felt taco / Mexican restaurant activity.  Build a Burrito is from our home library and actually worked better for the 2- and 3-year-olds.  

paper for the 2-year-olds

The 2-year-old made one taco/burrito and glued it down to prevent stuff from going into their mouths.

felt for the 3, 4, 5-year olds

The 3, 4 and 5-year-olds had the reusable felt restaurant

Ooops!  We're running out of lettuce!

Bienvenidos

FIESTA CAMP was a lot of fun.

My favorite project was the Silly Chili / Hot Stuff painted foot.  Even on the first day of camp the kids got right into having their foot painted and no one refused.  That's a big deal with 3-year-olds, some of whom  you've never met before.

More Fiesta Camp projects coming in the near future!

Adios

Amazing Classroom in Action Again

It's been a long time since I last posted. I liked the idea of documenting what we do in class but then life just got out of hand. This summer as I've done a lot of school stuff I've been thinking I need to make a conscious effort to try again. 

So here it goes....

Tomorrow is the last day of Fiesta Camp. This camp turned out amazing in ways we never imagined and it is my last responsibility before the regular school year starts so I think it is a good "re-starting" point.  

Check back in a few days and I'll have a recap of the week and some detailed projects ready to share.  

Hasta luego! 

Salt & Food Color Letters

It is Fire Safety week so we talked a lot about 911 and made these neat salt & food color 911 signs.

Very easy. First write your letters/numbers in white glue. Our background was cereal box cardboard.  That makes is stiff enough to hold up to rough treatment!

Then sprinkle salt all over the glue and shake off the excess but not too much.  The more salt the better later. 

Let dry overnight. 

This next step is tricky for little fingers.  One drop at a time add liquid food color to the salt.

The color will "run" all by itself down the salt path.

Add extra drops as needed. 

We added a pipe cleaner handle with beads in order to hang it from a door handle or somewhere visible just in case of an emergency.  

SKILLS INVOLVED: tracing with glue, sprinkling salt, deciding the glue was covered, following instructions, fine motor beading and squeezing

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  We did this last year writing the kids' names.  Lots of fun.

RECYCLE FACTOR:We used cereal boxes for the cardboard background, glue, salt, pipe cleaners, beads were on hand.  We did use up all the liquid food color that we had and had to get more.  The kids have a really hard time not just squeezing it all over the place.

Fire Truck Bowling

We turned empty water bottles into "flames" with a little bit of red, yellow and orange tissue paper. 

Each team got three flames and one fire truck.  The goal was to put out the fire.

Then we yelled "9-1-1 GO!"  and they pushed the trucks towards the flames.  Sometimes they got it and sometimes they didn't.  But it was a lot of fun trying.

Sick days

Pretty sick. Will catch up when I feel human again.  

Thankful Thursday

We have a really fun teacher for our resource time at school. She teaches Music and Gym (fondly referred to as "Movin' and Groovin'") twice a week each for all classes. That's 80 some kids to learn their names and personalities and keep them on task.  She always comes up with fun activities for the kids.

Today's class was lots of fun. Throw spiders at the web and see how they stick....

throw bean bags into the pumpkin's mouth and other fun stuff!!

So today's Thankful Thursday" is for Miss Lori.
Don't know what we'd do without you.

THANK YOU!!!!

3D Apples

We used the paper from the  rolled apple painting  to make these neat 3D apples.

Cut out 2 symmetrical apples. 

Fold in half with the color on the inside. 

Cover one half of one apple with white glue

Stick a leaf and a stem in the glue so that most of the leaf and stem is off the edge of the apple. Add more glue where the leaf and stem are still on the apple. 

Match up the glued apple with the other apple  and stick together.

Now add the core/center of the apple. We put it on the right side so it was like reading left to right, but it doesn't really matter. 

Add seeds. Last year the school provided snacks and we saved up apple seeds to be able to use real seeds.  This year we used cut out seeds. The kids decided how many 

Ta Daaa. A super cool apple that you read like a book. 

Outside...           Inside...    Outside...           Inside...    Outside...           Inside...

Of course they went on the door 

SKILLS INVOLVED: choosing 2 apples, gluing, deciding how many seeds, counting seeds, following instructions, fine motor

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  We did this last year and repeated it this year. It is better with real seeds though.

RECYCLE FACTOR:We used the paper from the rolled apple painting which made it more interesting than using plain construction paper or just sending home the rolled painting as is.   The vines on the door were left from the monkeys and the caterpillars.

Thankful Thursday

Seems to be a season of nature's miracles in our class. We got a new fish for our tank during pet week. She was apparently sick and we lost one of our fish that had been around since this time last year.  Thought the sick tank situation was resolved. Then we lost her.

In the middle of the sentence telling the kids why there was only one fish in the tank we discovered we had not one, not two but three babies. Later we found that there were 6!!!!  

They are so tiny, but definitely came from the deceased sick fish since they look just like her  Not at all sure how that all happened but it did. 

For now the kids only know there are three. We are tired of explaining fish death and disposal to three-year-olds.  

Levi said it best.  "Cotton Candy had babies but she died so Nemo (our remaining adult fish) will take care of them."

Update: Two weeks later there are now 8 little babies for sure.  They are getting bigger, but they are still tiny.  Some of the kids can find them when they come out of hiding when they get fed.

Painting with Apples

This can be done with anything that even remotely rolls.

Roll the apple in the paint. We used red, yellow and green apples in red, yellow and green paint. 

Gather kids around a big flat box with paper covering the bottom.  Sometimes we use a small box that will fit a single piece of paper. Other times we use a large box like this. We have even been known to use a box bigger than this that the entire class can gather around. 

Drop the apple in.

Raise and lower the sides of the box to get the apple rolling. 

Change colors.  

Change colors again!

Then go back and roll the apples all over again!!

Once the papers dry we will use them as the base for another apple fun project.