Fun Space Crafts and Activities for Kids

My 4-year old son really got into our Blast Off! Week of MOMS Camp this summer. We did a few small projects I found at the Dollar Tree, such as a space sticker scene and some foam rockets that were fun. We also made a few crafts that we all loved!

One of my favorite things we made this week was Night Sky Play Doh! My kids really love play doh - especially my son. I found this awesome recipe on Pinterest that was perfect for this week and we had a blast. Here is the original Link  for the recipe I followed.  The only thing was, I didn't have any black food coloring.... or any black liquid water color! So I came up with a fabulous idea to turn the play doh any color I wanted!! Dissolve dried watercolor paints into 1 cup of water and mix into your play doh as it's cooking! Just pop out a little oval of watercolor paint from the pallet and stir it into a cup of water. For this night sky color I used one oval of black and one oval of purple paint.  When the play doh was cooling, I added TONS of glitter in all different sizes and shapes.

 

We used plastic gems and glow in the dark stars to make night scenes in the play doh which was a super fun way to play with it before we really started molding and squishing the play doh like normal.  Then we used those giant glow in the dark stars to decorate my son's ceiling! They cleaned up great after being in the play doh so it wasn't a problem.

I have been dying to paint with shaving cream for some time and was excited to come up with a craft project using it for Space Week.  We made Shaving Cream Painted Planets!! Start with a rectangle cooking tray covered in foil and fill it with shaving cream.

Then squirt several lines of acrylic paint on top.  Use something pointy to swirl it around - but not too much! We used plastic chop sticks but you could just use the tip of your paint brush.... or your fingers if you're not afraid of a little mess! 

Cut out circles of construction paper and press one down onto the shaving cream mixture.  Hold it there for about 10 seconds, making sure it touches everywhere.  Then gently pull it off and set it aside to dry. 

 After about five minute, use a squeegee to carefully scrape off the access shaving cream and you're left with an awesome swirly planet!

This was such a cool technique to create what looks exactly like a gaseous planet - I loved it! Not to mention my kids loved playing in the shaving cream afterwards and mixing it up even more.

Finally, we made some Paper Straw Rockets that I found on Pinterest. They were so fun and simple - we used crayons to decorate several small squares of paper. They were each about 4.5" by 4.5". Then wrap the paper around a pencil to help it hold a cylindrical shape.

Glue it down one side to create a tube. 

Once that's dry, fold over one end and secure with tape.

Stick it over the end of a straw and blow (just like you do with a new straw wrapper at a restaurant!) to launch your rocket! We used big plastic straws for ours but regular straws are fine too. This was a fun project to make and THEN play with! Here is the original blog where I found this!

Fun Weather Crafts for Kids

During our Weather Week of MOMS Camp we made several fun crafts!


Part of our week was all about clouds - learning the different types and reading books about them. My personal favorite is Little Cloud by Eric Carle, in which a single cloud changes into several different shapes, like a rabbit, a shark, and a clown! After reading this book we used white paint and cotton balls to paint our own cloud shapes. Naturally my daughter made hers into a lamb! We also added lots of white paint to the middle of a sheet of construction paper, then folded it in half to make a new blob shape for a cloud.  We used my favorite paint, Crayola Washable Kids Paint.

My daughter loved painting with cotton balls so much, she came up with her own project! It started when she wanted to use her favorite color (brown) to paint with... and it turned into a tornado! Later, when the paint was dry, she added lots of stickers to portray animals and bugs that might be swept up in the tornado! This project was so much fun to do!

 

 Another fun project was finger painting with sun block! I squirted a little bit of sun block onto a plastic lid and we used our fingers to paint with it on black construction paper. You can use any dark color of paper. Be sure the sun block is kind of thick as you're painting. Then you leave it out in the sun for a couple hours and watch how the sun fades the paper's color all around your design! The sun block will evaporate and your design will be left on the paper in the original dark color! This is a fun way to teach your kids how sun block really does protect your skin!

At the beginning of the week, we made a homemade rain gauge! This was in idea from Pinterest. You'll need an empty plastic bottle, all washed out with the label taken off.  Cut off the top part and turn it upside down, then place it inside to keep water from evaporating out later.  I used an old steak knife to cut our bottle, and covered the rough edges with duct tape. Use a ruler to mark your measurements on one side, then you can decorate your bottle with permanent markers! We left our rain gauge outside all week, with a chance of rain every day... but it barely rained at all! My daughter (age 7) still had fun going out to check it each day though. Here's a picture of the one we saw online:

Here's ours as we made it:

Windsock Craft for Kids

Our last craft we made during our Weather Week of MOMS Camp was a wind sock - and it was definitely the most popular craft of the week! We each decorated an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of card stock for it. My daughter and I chose to paint ours, but my son (age 4) isn't always willing to sit for such long crafts so he drew on his with marker and added stickers. 

When the paint was dry, we turned them over and taped strips of crepe paper to the bottom edge. Each strip was about 18 inches. This was great cutting practice for my preschooler! Then we rolled up the card stock and stapled it together to make a cylinder. 

I used a hole puncher to add two holes across from each other at the top. Before punching the holes, I reinforced the card stock with pieces of tape on each side where the holes would go. Finally, I tied a piece of yarn through both holes (again, about 18 inches in length). 

Now we can hang them for decoration and my kids LOVED running around with their wind sock flying out behind them!

Hand Print Snowflake Project

I love making little projects with my kids' hand prints. It is such a fun way to remember how small their sweet hands are at this age! We got pretty crafty during a recent snow day home from school so I took the opportunity to make a project with some hand print snowflakes!

As always, I used Kids Washable Crayola Paint. I painted a mix of light and dark blue on one of their hands and made the prints on white construction paper. To make the snowflake, you'll need to do multiple prints, each a little off center from the one before. We did 6-8 prints for each snowflake. Reapply the paint after every two hand prints so it doesn't get too used up.

Before the paint was dry, I had my kids sprinkle glitter (yay!) on their snowflake. This kind of paint dries very quickly so you need to move fast. We used white glitter.

 Meanwhile, I created a sign for our snowflakes on a sheet of 6x12 bright blue card stock. I used a silver metallic permanent marker to write "Our Little Snowflakes" and then added the year.

Once the snowflakes were dry, I cut them out and used a hold punch to add a hole at the top of each, as well as a hole for each on my sign. I used varying lengths of white yarn to attach my snowflakes to the sign. Here's how I made it look nice without any knots:

I threaded the yarn through as a loop into the snowflake hole.

Then I passed the two open ends of yarn through that loop and pulled tight. If your hole breaks, just reinforce it with clear tape and punch another hole through that.

Next I threaded both loose ends of my yarn UP through the hole in my sign. Wrap your two loose ends around the yarn connecting to the snowflake and tie a knot behind that.

Use tape to secure the knot to the back of your sign and pull tight.

This is such a cute decorate to have in my kitchen now - and it is one to save and pull out again each winter! I made one with my friend's children as a fun gift for her and we used blue paper as a background for our white and light blue painted hand prints.

Strawberry Craft - Great For Fine Motor Skills!

We had a blast picking strawberries yesterday... and will be eating strawberries for days to come, I'm sure! If you've never gone to pick strawberries before, I highly recommend it! Since they're ready in late May, the weather is beautiful and it's not too buggy out! This was a fun activity for my kids, ages 3 and 6, myself, and my mom so all ages can do it! The place we went to was so clean and nice - I loved it! Check out Gieringers Orchard in Edgerton, KS. I can't wait to go back in July for blackberries, blueberries, and peaches too!

Later that afternoon, I came up with a fun craft for my kids to do - Giant Strawberries!  I did some prep work while my kids were playing: I cut out a giant strawberry shape and leaf shape from red and green card stock for my son (age 3), and drew out a pattern of those shapes on red and green card stock for my daughter (age 6) to cut out on her own. Then I gave them each strips of black construction paper to work with.

My daughter first cut out her giant strawberry shape and they both glued the leaves to the top.  Making the strawberry seeds was the fun part - and great practice for fine motor skills! Encourage your child to tear their strips of black construction paper into tiny seeds.  My son also practiced cutting with scissors (a great first cutting project!) to create his seeds.

Use regular glue to attach your seeds. This is a good time to practice using only small dots of glue on your strawberry instead of the typical huge globs that kids tend to make!

Right now these giant strawberries decorate my refrigerator, but you can also laminate them to use as fun summer place mats! (The strawberries were cut from sheets of 12x12 card stock.)

Countdown to Easter Calendar and Activities

Easter always sneaks up on me so quickly when it's in March!! We didn't even get our Easter decorations out until today so our Countdown Calendar we made last year is only going to be for 9 days instead of 12! My daughter (6) was excited to make a new calendar for this year so I came up with a new idea that we put together today.  It would also be a good one to count down to the first day of Spring... but it's been a bit too cold and snowy here for that!

This craft is a great opportunity to practice using scissors and writing numbers.  First, cut out several tulip shapes... I drew the first one by hand and cut it out of card stock. Then I just traced that same shape onto the back of several other colors of card stock to cut out.  My daughter did a few but then got distracted by pulling out the other old decorations so I did the rest. These shapes can actually represent tulips (especially for a Spring countdown!) OR they can be Easter egg shells... which is what ours are going to be!

Meanwhile, have your child cut fringe into a strip of green card stock, measuring 12" x 3-4".  This will be grass! Glue it to the bottom of a separate sheet of 12" x  12" card stock for your calendar.

Have your child write numbers on each shape and arrange them on your calendar. Glue each one down , leaving the top free to form a pocket. 

Once your glue is dry, fill each pocket with a little note to be opened every day leading up to Easter (or the first day of Spring!). Each note could be an inspirational saying, a part of the Easter Story, or my personal favorite: each day can have a different activity to do! Here's a few ideas to get you started:

1. Go visit the Easter Bunny
2. Decorate Easter Eggs
3. Make a special Easter craft
4. Watch a special holiday movie (such as Hop or Rise of the Guardians)
5. Make and send out special Easter cards
6. Have a special bunny meal... in the shape of a bunny or carrots like a bunny eats!
7. Make some homemade Easter decorations
8. Take a walk and look for signs of Spring
9. Have a practice Easter egg hunt

Santa Handprint Craft

I found this adorable Santa hand print idea on Pinterest and had to try it. What a fun way to make a Christmas card or just to display on your fridge.  This would be a great little project to do every year and see how much your child's hand print has grown!

I used my favorite - washable Crayola paints - for this project.  Simply paint your child's hand with the appropriate colors - white on their four fingers, including the top of their palm and up both sides.  Also a circle of white on the tip of their thumb. Now paint the rest of their thumb red, along with the bottom of their palm, leaving a  rectangle of blank space in the middle. Fill that rectangle with Santa's face. If you don't have an appropriate skin tone, you can use a base of yellow paint, covered with a layer of orange paint. 

This hand print shows up really well on darker paper.  Once it's dry (which only takes a couple minutes if you used the Crayola paint and it didn't get too thick), use a permanent marker to draw on Santa's eyes and nose in black.  Add a little round mouth in red marker, as if he's saying "Ho! Ho! Ho!" 

I am in love with this hand print!!

Paper Bat Craft and Decoration

This year my daughter, Molly (5) is all about bats for Halloween! As part of our traditional Halloween Countdown Calendar, we made a special bat project one day! We cut out several paper bats and used them a few different ways.

Start with sheets of black construction paper and fold them in half; either direction is fine. Outline half a bat, including a little ear, pointy wing, and a foot.  I used a purple crayon so the lines wouldn't show up so much on the final project, and I made several per sheet.  Later, Molly told me they were all too skinny to we fattened them up a bit by cutting outside the lines!

Cut out the bats one at a time. This was great practice with the scissors for Molly because a bat shape has a good amount of straight edges and curves without being too difficult to cut out.  She loved unfolding each one to see how it turned out.

The ones that turned out the best became our little "kites." Decorate yours with little faces, fur, and lines on the wings using crayons that will show up easily on the black paper. Silver was our favorite!

When that's done, stick a piece of scotch tape on both sides of it's belly, fold the bat in half, and hole punch it so you end up with two holes side by side. The tape just makes it stronger. You could also use card stock for stronger bats! String some yarn through the two holes and tie a knot.  Be sure there's a pretty good length of yarn attached, maybe about three feet so you can run with your bat "flying" behind you! When Ben (2) woke up from his nap, he was excited to join in the chasing of the bats!

The rest of our bats became wall decorations like some I saw on Pinterest recently! Fold each wing down so it looks like your bat is flapping its wings. Use a piece of rolled up scotch tape to attach it to your wall.  When you put several bats together on your wall, it looks like they're flying around the room! I filled my stairwell with them and I love it!!  This is the first year I've done this but I wouldn't be surprised if the bats come out every year now!

Glitter Spider Web Craft For Kids

Every once in a while, my kids wander into the kitchen and I find them hanging around the table BEGGING to do a craft! (I love those moments!) Unless I have something planned, I need to think on my toes and come up with something to appease them. They had their eyes on the glitter so we started making glitter spider webs!

I gave each of my kids a black sheet of construction paper and a bottle of glue. Ben (2) went to town with the glue. Squeezing it out on the paper is his favorite part of arts and crafts time so I just let him do his own thing. Molly (5) requested a pattern to go off of, so I drew a large spider web on her paper using a white crayon. She traced it with glue and then sprinkled it with ... GLITTER!

My two-year-old did a great job of NOT making a mess with the glitter - I couldn't be more proud. (Just had to put that out there!) When their spiderwebs were complete, we added on a paper spider. Molly made a glitter face on hers which was cute. I used my Cricut electric cutting machine to quickly cut out a couple spiders for us, but you can totally just make your own. Maybe with cotton balls? If you wanted to make the same shape we had, use the Mini Monsters cartridge!

 

(This is Ben's picture! So cute!)

Watermelon Bottle Cap Pin

I wanted to make an easy watermelon project with my daughter, Molly (5), to go along with a book she read in kindergarten called The Enormous Watermelon by Brenda Parkes. I came up with a super cute and easy pin made from a recycled bottle cap! Molly had fun making them with just a little help from me when it came to the hot glue gun. Now she has one on her backpack and made one as a gift for her teacher!

Here's what you'll need:

clean bottle cap
paint and brush
hot glue gun
pin backs
Dimensional Magic by Mod Podge
Construction paper, scissors, markers and glue

Start by painting your bottle cap green. We used washable paint by Crayola.

While that is drying, it's time to make the middle. Trace a bottle cap (preferably NOT the one you just painted! haha!) on a piece of red construction paper to get the right size. Have your child carefully cut out the circle. I made sure Molly practiced making little snips; keeping her elbow by her side; and making only one piece of trash like she learned in class. Use a marker to make several black dots on the circle to be the watermelon seeds.

Once  the green paint is dry, you can use a dab of glue to attach your paper circle to the inside of the bottle cap. Then fill the bottle cap up with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic. Be sure to cover all of the paper and don't worry if it's cloudy - it will dry clear. I LOVE Mod Podge products! Lay it flat to dry and when it's ready, use a hot glue gun to attach a pin back to it.