Summer Kicks

Saw this post on How to Make Summer City Shoes over at Joy the Baker on Friday.

Made a kid sneaker version for L on Saturday.

She wore them all day Sunday.

It was a glitterific glam weekend.

Here's how I made L's new groovy blues...

Materials needed: Canvas shoes for toddlers/kids, duct tape, glitter, Mod Podge, a paint brush, scissors, and a container to make the glitterness.

First, remove the shoe laces; then, duct tape the sides of the soles.

To make the glitterpodge, I used little less than 1/2 cup Mod Podge with 1/4 cup glitter. If making toddler shoes, you'll have some left over and it should be more than enough for older kid kicks.

Like in Joy the Baker's how-to, I painted on the first coat thin. Waited 30 mins. The second I globbed it on. Waited 30 mins. Then the third was only touch ups.

In between coats, they dried in some afternoon sunshine.

Side Note: I did take the duct tape off before the shoes had completely dried. I guess I was worried I had applied too much of the glitterpodge on the taped off soles and if I had waited until completely dry, the tape might have torn the glitterpodge off the shoe canvas.

Did this entire craft during L's afternoon nap.

Ready to kick it this summer. Park and poolside.

Might just have to make a pair for myself...

Seeing Things

Of meadows and magic.

Inside outside.

Fluttertoes.

Morning road.

Peonies remind me of working on W. 28th. Spring was a jungle of peonies.

Supermoon.

On a stroll to market, to market.

Full bloom.

Answers to Steve. Loves tomatoes.

Reading west.

Beauty.

Mystery.

Energy.

Peace.

 

Adventurs as Annie in EGYPT

This was the last Magic Tree House Adventures session until the school year picks up again in the fall. I now feel that I have a small understanding of how a teacher feels on their last day of school. Going to miss those kids. We didn't have a crazy 50+ group like in the past few sessions. It was graduation weekend and being a university town, everything is affected by what's going on with the school. But we did have our tried and true core of 30 kids in attendance.

Off we went to the marvelous and mysterious Ancient Egypt...

Where Are We? Who Are They

Just like in the previous Magic Tree House Adventure sessions, our first activity is "Where Are We? Who Are They?", a slide show guessing game about the place and time period we're visiting for the day. We discussed the pyramids, famous pharaohs, the culture, the religion, mummies, tomb raiders, King Tut's discovery, and so much more. If you'd like the full presentation outline, please feel free to email me.

Mummy Wrap Race

I have to start by saying this did not go as expected.. but the kids still had fun nonetheless.

We divided the group into teams of 5. 1 person was the mummy, 2 were the mummifiers, and 2 were the excavators. We handed out 2 rolls of toilet paper to each mummifer. With the mummies and the mummifiers in each group standing and the excavators sitting we timed how long it took for the mummifiers to wrap their mummy. The toilet paper was thin and kept tearing, but the kids were laughing and didn't seem to care. The first group to finishing wrapping their mummy won. Then the excavators/tomb robbers were next. Their job was to see own fast they could unwrap the mummy carefully with as few toilet paper tears as possible.

Masks, Cartouches and Gold!

There were so many inspiring crafts for Ancient Egypt, that my partner"Jack" and I decided to make three, so we set up three rotating craft stations around the room in which the kids had 10 minutes at each station.

Cartouche Creations: There was a cartouche station where the kids learned about how to write their name in hieroglyphics. A co-worker found some awesome Egyptian stamps downstairs that we used as well.

Golden Jewels: We made necklaces of "lapis" and "gold" (my favorite of the crafts) were they strung together spray-painted rigatoni noddles on elastic string. I'm pretty sure all the kids ended up wearing their necklaces around.

Mummy Masks: The third station, was King Tut mask making. We pre-made and cut out the masks by tracing an image of King Tut's mask from a book and enlarging it onto 11x14 paper using our printer. After the copies were printed, we cut the eyes and shape out. All the kids had to do was color! The below image of King Tutankhamun's burial mask was left up on the projector from "Where Are We? Who Are They?", so the kids could use it as a guide. We also encouraged them to color their masks in whichever way inspired them. This idea was inspired by Imagine Explore Create.

The crafts were a big hit! They liked making them so much that they didn't want to stop when time was up. They finally let up on their crafting when I let their parents in to pick them up. As they were leaving, they were allowed to select as many Ancient Egypt books to check out from a table display in the back.

Among them were a couple books we used for the craft ideas:

The Ancient Egyptians by Fiona McDonald

The Egyptians by Ruth Thomson

Magic Tree House Adventure Journal #4:

As always, along with whatever the kids made that day and library books based on the theme, they also took home their Magic Tree House Adventure Journal. Here's an abbreviated peak at what's inside. Continuing the learning and the fun.

5 minutes after the kids were supposed to be released from the session they insisted on staying! We had to invite the parents and caregivers to come in the auditorium to collect their children.

I'll take that as as sign that they liked it.

Looking forward to continuing the adventures in the fall!

image sources: pyramids, king tut

Waiting For Wings Storytime

Last week, I came across this article in the Lawrence Journal World about an early abundance of caterpillars this year, which will naturally lead to an abundance of butterflies in the Lawrence area.

It was my inspiration behind last Sunday's caterpillar and butterfly storytime...

Waiting For Wings Storytime Line-up:

Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert

A colorful and educational book about the butterfly life cycle.

Butterfly Life Cycle Flannel Board

Adapted from  In the Children's Room

First comes a butterfly and lays an egg

And out comes a caterpillar with oh so many legs.

See the caterpillar spin and spin,

A little chrysalis to sleep in,

Now we wait and see, shhh...

When out of the cocoon, my oh my,

There comes a beautiful butterfly.

 

The Caterpillow Fight by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Jill Barton

A goofy book about a group of rowdy caterpillars.

Caterpillar, Caterpillar Hand Rhyme

Adapted from Jane Johnson

Caterpillar, Caterpillar brown and furry,

(Hold hand out with pointer finger out sideways)

Winter's coming and you'd better hurry.

(Move pointer finger in and out)

Find a leaf under witch to creep,

(Hold out other hand flat like a leaf and move caterpillar linger under it)

Spin a chrysalis in which to sleep,

(Spin caterpillar pointer finger around leaf hand, then grab caterpillar finger with leaf hand to make a chrysalis)

And when warm weather comes your way,

(Keep holding caterpillar finger with other hand.)

You'll be a butterfly and fly away!

(Lock thumbs and flap hands upward.)

 

Farfallina & Marcel  by Holly Keller

This is such a darling book and the kids really enjoyed it. Had to find extra copies of Farfallina & Marcel for a few families to take home with them that day.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

We ended storytime with everyone's favorite. I had the kids join in whenever we came to the phrase, "...but he was still hungry!"

Butterfly Crafts:

We made two very similar butterfly crafts. The first one, tissue paper butterfly rings, I thought might be too girly for the boys, so I also had a magazine butterfly station. I don't know why I thought that would be less girly than the rings and even so, the boys ended up making the rings after all. Lesson learned.

Materials used for both crafts: Colorful magazines, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, and scissors.

Butterfly Ring Craft:

First cut pipe cleaner in half. Save both halves.

Bend one of the pipe cleaner haves into a "v".

Scrunch a small square or two or three of tissue paper into a bow shape.

Slide bow into pipe cleaner "v",

Twist the ends of the pipe cleaner a couple times,

And then bend butterfly antennae into desired shape.

Using the other pipe cleaner half for the ring, cut in half again.

Push one of the pieces underneath the bottom of the butterfly.

Wrap into a ring shape.

Voila. Butterfly ring.

Magazine Butterfly Craft:

Found this craft idea here. The magazine butterfly is very similar to the butterfly ring. Only slightly more difficult.

Tear out colorful magazine pages.

Cut into squares about 5x5 inches.

Fold into thin strips.

Using a full length pipe cleaner, shape into a "v" shape, and twist the bottom twice.

Pinch one or two folded magazine pages in the center and slide into pipe cleaner "v" and twist the pipe cleaner ends together two or three times, securing the wings.

Shape antenna.

image sources: waiting for wings, caterpillow fight, farfallina & marcel, the very hungry catterpillar