Early Crafters: Photo gallery

Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes

August 12th & 14th
Eight week of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes!
The summer has just flown by!
The students made paper mache hot air balloons, pencil holders, decorated notebooks, and peanut butter and chocolate cookies.

August 5th & 7th
Seventh week of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes!

This week the students made paper mache jelly fish, yarn paintings, watercolor ocean paintings. They loved the yummy cookies we made and the cinnamon and sugar chips! I don't have very good pictures of this week. The time just flew by!

July 22nd & 24th 29th &31st
Fifth and Sixth week of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes!

This week the students made ocean animal wall hangings by taking a piece of poster board and gluing rolled up tissue paper. They turned out great!

For snack one day we took trix creal and mixed it with melted marshmallows...so yummy!

The students were given a piece of air drying clay and they made a star fish. I love the texture they added and the colors!

The students put down painters tape how ever they wanted on their canvas. Then they painted each section. While their paintings were drying they drew pictures and cut them out and glued them on the canvas. They added other objects to their paintings. Such a great way to tell a story! Aren't they amazing!

July 15th & 17th
Fourth week of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes!

This week the students made yarn bowls and yarn balls. The soaked yarn in a watered down glue and then put it over a bowl and wrapped around a balloon.

The students pushed their hands and seashells into sand and then poured plaster into the sand molds. Then they painted them with watercolors.

The students also made an ocean wave scene. It was a great week!

June 24th & 26th
Third week of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes!
The students mixed sand, glue, and paint and dripped it over bowls to make sand drip bowls! Sadly only five of the eight bowls made it. The ones that did work look amazing! The students made foam dough by mixing shaving cream and cornstarch. They had a lot of fun. For snack they made pizza rolls and the next class they made pretzels! They were both very yummy. The students worked with watercolors to create amazing underwater paintings! They also made a fun fish, and a paper crab! It was a GREAT week!

June 17th & 19th
Second week of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes!
For this week of summer camp classes the students made crafts based on the theme of Pirates! They made Pirate Flags that are waterproof and really do blow in the wind! Pirate Boats with background and paper pirate people. Treasure map place mats. For snack they made hot dogs rolled up in crescent rolls and sugar cookies with baked in sprinkles. On the last day the students went on a pirate treasure hunt for a pirate head tie, eye patch, gold doubloons, and a pirate cup with gold wrapped candy! It was great! It was an amazing week!

This was taken after our Pirate Treasure Hunt! Don't they look awesome!

The Treasure Map Placemat is laminated so they can eat on it and keep it for a long time. The placemats turned out great. My son ate on his that night for dinner!

June 12th 2014
The Second day of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes! It was crazy busy today, so not as many pictures where taken. The students made chocolate chip Cinnamon rolls, finished their Jelly fish, finished their father's day gift, and made a shark or whale eating a fish.

June 10th 2014

The first day of Early Crafter Summer Camp Classes, and it was Crazy Controlled Creativity! For the month of June we are making things based on the over all theme of the Ocean.
This week we are making Ocean animals. We started with making a giant paper mache jelly fish. Then we took a break and made peanut butter cookies and the students pushed m&ms and Reese's pieces into the cookies. Then we started on a father's day gift, and then the students played with flubber.

This year we made crafts inspired by many countries. First it was Mexico, then Australia, then the American Native Indians, then Holland, then China, then Africa, and Japan.

Early Crafter Scrapbook!

The students made a book to remember all the countries that learned about this year.

It was an AMAZING school year! My students skills have increased so much and I just loved watching them grow!

Mother's Day!!
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have my students make some mother's day gifts! They learned how to make gift boxes out of card stock. They made a cupcake keepsake box, a sweet little bird, and their own creations out of colored salt dough. They all turned out great!

Earth Day
The students painted their wooden sticks for their koi fish windsocks and then we did an Earth Day craft. We used card board and newspaper and paint to make an earth. We also made yummy cupcakes that looked like the earth.

It was such a BEAUTIFUL day that we did class outside! :)

I really like how you can still see the images that are printed on the newspaper.

China

We spent most of the unit making board games. Each student was given small cookie sheet, 6 magnet game board pieces, one die, a file folder to keep their games, and game boards with only the outline on them. Each student color and designed their own game boards. They had a lot of fun making up their own games. We learned that this year is the year of the horse and made paper rocking horses and the students wrote a new year goal.

Africa

Here are our paper mache lion masks from our Africa unit.

Japan
Here are our Cherry Blossom Water Color paintings. The students learn a new to paint. They blew water down paint threw a straw to make the branches.
They also made candy sushi, koi fish wind socks, took home chops sticks, made origami bunny and dog finger puppets.

Here are the finished koi fish wind socks! They turned out beautifully!

Early Crafters Craft Around the World goes to...
Australia!
I want the students to learn how to paint like the aboriginals in Australia do. So this week the students practiced dot painting on paper with q-tips. Next week they will paint on fabric. When they are done painting I will sew the fabric together to make pillows! So it is art that they can cuddle with! Cool right?!

In the two pictures above are my dot paintings on fabric and made into a pillow. I love how it turned out and I can't wait to see the student's finished pillows!

Below are the student's practice dot paintings. They did an amazing job practicing!

Then for snack we made sinckerdoodles. They are not from Australia, but they are fun to make and very yummy. Lots of the treats that I could find from Australia use coconut and the students are real big fans of coconut. So I just chose one of my favorite cookies to make with kids because they get to roll then into balls and them roll them in cinnamon and sugar. SO YUMMY!

In my morning class we finished early practicing our new dot painting technique so they started making a fish picture frame out of salt dough. I chose a fish because our dot paintings are of the animals on land from Australia I chose to have the students make a fish from the Great Barrier Reef from Australia.

This is mine all finished.

Early Crafters Craft Around the World finished our month of visiting Mexico!
It was a wonderful month learning about Mexico!
So it took two weeks for my morning class and three weeks for my afternoon class to finish their Alebrijes with back grounds! They turned out so great! I bet you can't guess which one is mine. I think the Student's alebrijes turned out better than mine. I just love their creativity!

My morning class finished a week yearly with their alebrijes so I read them a story from Mexico called the Cuckoo. In the Story there is a bird named cuckoo and she is so beautiful. She spends all her time singing and never helps the other birds collect seeds. One night while all the other birds where sleeping and Cuckoo was awake singing she saw red flickering in the field. As she got closer she saw that it was fire burning all the seeds. Cuckoo quickly began to collect all the seeds. As she entered the flames her beautiful feathers turned black and her eyes turned red from the smoke. After she collected all the seeds she was so happy even though her beautiful feathers had turned black and all the birds where so happy that cuckoo and saved all the seeds!

We didn't make cuckoo just like the one in the book but we made them very similar to the one in the book. The students did a great job and they learned a new story!

The students also made yummy empanadas. They took already made biscuit dough and rolled it out and then filled some of them with cream and some of them with strawberry preserves. They we closed them and backed them until they were golden and then put power sugar on them. Yummy right?

Early Crafters Craft Around the World!
Afternoon Class
The students began to make their versions of alebrijes. In my morning class we made the figures, covered them with the paper mache, and made a yummy snack. My afternoon class I had six kids instead of two, and I had my adorable but very busy two year running around throwing paper on the ground. We had a sticky creative mess, and a lot of fun! We did make a yummy snack of homemade tortilla chips with nacho cheese dipping sauce. I have no pictures...they were all gone before I could take pictures.

Early Crafters Craft Around the World!
Morning Class
Today the students learned about Alebrijes. They are made up animals with different body parts from different animals. For example an alebrije could have a head of a frog, a tail of a cat, and wings. Alebrijes come from Mexico City. A man in the 1930s was a pinata and mask maker. One day he became very sick and he had crazy dreams of these animals with different body parts. So when he got better he began to make them. He became very famous and he has family that still live in Mexico City and make these alebrijes just like he did. After the figure is dry it is then painted with bright colors and dots, lines, and shapes. So we tried to make our own. Right now they look like big blobs of glue and paper but next week when we paint them the alebrijes will come to LIFE!

Then after all that hard work of gluing all the paper on we had a very yummy snack. We made homemade tortilla chips with cinnamon and sugar. The students LOVED them!

Early Crafters Craft Around the World!
My after school class had begun! We did yarn paintings just like my morning class, but I learned that the art was very hard to do because the yarn kept on moving around. So I traced and glued down the outline before today's class. It worked much better. So after I showed the students how to do the yarn art we made buñuelos. Buñuelosbuñuelos.

The yarn paintings above where done by a 2nd grader and a third grader.

The yarn painting with the car in the middle was done a 1st grader.

The stars where done by a 1st grader and a preschooler.
Everyone did a great job!

Early Crafters Craft Around the World!

2013-2014

The new program has begun! The students had a great lesson about the Huichol Indians from Mexico. They watch a video clip about their culture and the amazing works of arts they make. One of the art that they create are yarn paintings. So the students painted with yarn, and they did an amazing job. This type of art takes a lot of control, patience, and attention to detail. Traditionally this type of art is made by spreading bees wax on the piece of wood and then the yarn is pressed into the wax. We used card board, glue, and yarn. When are completely dry this will by backed with felt and attached to a dowel so it can be hung on the wall.

These are my Tuesday morning class students.

Here are pictures from the summer classes from June19th-27th.

The students and I had a lot of fun this summer making different kinds of crafts and yummy snacks!

June 18th, 2013
Here are pictures from the fourth day or the summer craft classes!
The students sanded and painted wooded blocks with an outline of a crab and fish wood burned onto the blocks. After the blocks were dry and sealed with a spray I nailed bottle caps onto the wooden blocks. They are AWESOME!!

For snack the students made muffins. They had a choice of adding bananas, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.they had a lot of fun making the muffins and putting what they wanted in their muffins.

June 13th, 2013
Here are some pictures from the third day of the summer craft classes!
The girls made paper bead bracelets (sadly I didn't get pictures of them).
The boys took a wooden block and sanded it, wood burned designs into them, and then painted them with water colors.
The students got to take home their porcupines with colored pencils from the class before. They turned out super cute!
For snack the students made chocolate cookies. The students had fun making them and eating them!
Then all the students made key chains and a tool box card for father's day.

June 12th, 2013
Here are some pictures from the second day of the summer craft classes!
Today the students got their hands dirty and made porcupine pencil holders out of modeling clay, made a yummy crescent pizza roll, and "slinky" snakes and spiders!

June 11th, 2013
Here are pictures from the first day of the summer craft classes! It was a really fun day full of creativity, fun, and lots of laughs.
The students made tugs boats. They got to paint and use decorative tape to decorate their boats and after they dried they put in the "ocean" for an adventure! It was awesome!

The students had a yummy snack of "ocean" jello and whale crackers! YUM! YUM!

While the students where waiting for their tug boats to dry we made origami sail boats that can hang in the window. The students had never done origami so it more like teacher showed how to do then teacher did it for them, but they got to see how you can make something cool by holding it a certain way and then they got to decorate it any way they wanted.

Everything the students made turned out GREAT today and it was a super fun day of summer crafting!

The students have been working on their sewing skills for the last three weeks and they finished today! They did a great job and stuck with project even though it was very difficult.

This a craft that the students finished on May 22nd 2013

The bird cages look amazing hanging up the window!

The following pictures are highlights from the Winter/Spring Semester of Early Crafters 2013

September 12, 2012 was the first day of our craft class. We made FLUBBER!

I forgot to take pictures during class so, I took pictures of my son playing with the flubber when he got home from school. He loved stretching it, feeling how cold and wet it is, and making different shapes with it.

Fun hand print.

He liked ripping it!

It was a great first day, and I am looking forward to many more great classes!

September 19, the second day of our craft class.

We used water colors to paint paper shaped leaves. Once the leaves were dry we drew with glue the veins of the leaves. Then we covered the glue with salt and then let it sit for 3. Then we used water colors to paint the veins. The children just put a little bit of paint on to the glue and salt and the water colors spread out on the vein of glue and salt. To them they thought that the paint was painting the veins all by its self. They LOVED it!

Watch the blue water color spread down the vein....

Cool right?

Then we made Fall Scene Place mats.

The arm and hand were used for the trunk and the branches of the tree. The tips of the fingers were used for the leaves. All of the fingers were used for the grass and the knuckles were used for the pumpkins. Clouds, bats, and scarecrows were painted with a brush.

This student used their whole hand for the leaves; it is raining pumpkins!

This student did not want to get their hands dirty so a brush was used instead, it turned out great!

It is raining pumpkins again!

This is the painting all dry, laminated and ready for many fall dinners around the table.
Today was another wonderful day! I truly enjoyed watching the children create and I LOVED how each of the paintings came out differently. The imagination of a child is amazing!

September 26th, the Third day of the craft class. We made child size scarecrows!

The scarecrow in the picture above was made by my son and the one in the picture below was made by a student and is a work in progress. I love how each child were given the same directions and they both made something completely different!

I love all the colors that she used and the long hair that she painted on her scarecrow! We will finish the scarecrows next week; it was too wet to add the finishing touches to them today.

Then we made Halloween parachutes!

So cute, right?

The students, and my son had a lot of fun dropping their parachutes off my play set. Luckily it was a nice windy day and it carried the parachutes across the lawn. The kids loved it! Today was a great day!

October 3rd, our fourth craft class!

We had a lot of fun decorating pumpkins. The pumpkin in the picture above is my sons. He really liked that the painted dripped down his pumpkin. He also really like putting googly eyes all over it, I think he used 25 googly eyes.

These are some pumpkins after paint, and next week the students will finish decorating the pumpkins with googly eyes, Halloween foam stickers, glitter, jewels, and buttons. They really wanted to finish them today but the paint didn't dry fast enough.

Then we made masks. I laid out different items for them to decorate the masks with and this how they turned out. I love their creativity!

The girl's masks are in the picture above and the boys masks are in the picture below.

We also continued to work on our scarecrows. I am amazed every class by the students creativity! All I did was trace their outline, give them paint, and this is what they created, amazing! I love all the colors that she used!

The one below looks so much like the little 4 year old boy that painted this. He is so cute, LOVE it!

I was able to fill up my Wednesday class with two more students and they are a WONDERFUL addition to our craft class! I can't wait to see all of my students next week and see what they will create!

October 10th, our Fifth Craft Class!!!

The students finished their pumpkins and their masks, and they turned out GREAT!

The student in the picture above put her mask on and found out that when she jumped her mask made a funny sound, because of the googly eyes. She was jumping all over the place with a big smile on her face!

The student in the picture above took his time and glued on A LOT of googly eyes. He did an awesome job!

The student in the picture above kept asking if he could take his crafts home today and he kept on wanting to pose for pictures, so cute!

The student in the picture of took a lot of time making her pumpkin and her mask just perfect! It was worth every minute she spent, they turned out AMAZING!

We also finished the scarecrows! I love how they both turned out so differently, and I love all the colors!

Then we started on making ships. They loved the ships and they thought the should be pirate ships, perfect for Halloween.

Such a wonderful day of creativity! I can't wait for many more days like this!

October 17th, our sixth craft class!

We played with cloud dough today! It is flour and baby oil mixed together, and it makes a soft and good smelling dough. The students had fun putting the dough into the cups and then dumping the cups out.

This student below smashed the dough together to make a wall.

Such a cute cloud dough seashell tower!

The cloud dough was so much fun to play with, but very messy. Thank goodness for plastic covered floors so we could play and not worry about the floors!

We had a lot of fun breaking crayons and then melting them into fingers, bones, and pumpkin crayons.

The crayon below came out really well! I love how you can see the detail in the finger! Such a fun crayon for Halloween!

We finished the ships that we started last week! The kids colored their sails and I glued them on. I love how they turned out!

Today was so great because the kids had so much fun creating! It has been so much fun watching them open up and express themselves creatively! I am excited

October 24th, our Seventh craft class. Meet our new little friends the finger puppets!

The kids had a lot of fun making their finger puppets however they wanted.

While the students were making their finger puppets one of the students really liked playing with the yarn and told me he wanted a hairy monster. So we made hairy monsters!

Isn't she cute?

The students are so happy with their hairy monsters! I am happy that my students are inspired by the materials we use and that they created something that wasn't planned but super fun and cute!

Here are all the finger puppet and monster friends!

After we finished making all of our new friends we went outside and painted the driveway with cornstarch, water, and food coloring.

It was a messy activity and the students loved it! The students used sponges, spoons, and a medicine dropped to spread the paint on the driveway.

This is after the students dumped out an entire tray of paints. I like how the colors mixed.

I love all of the things that the students created today! My favorite moment of the day was when a student was inspired by the materials that were being used and thought of something new to make, he made my day!

What will you be inspired by?

October 31st, our Eight craft class. Wow! I can't believe that two months of the craft class has already gone by! It has been an AMAZING two months. For this class we made haunted houses to celebrate Halloween.

The students used marshmallows and toothpicks to make their Haunted Houses. They look more like a jungle gyms for the skeletons to play on...but whatever it is the kids had a great time making them. Typically the class is very and I mean VERY fast paced. I decided to slow it down by doing one craft that took a long time to do and required the students to really listen carefully to the instructions, wait for help, problem solve, and think about a design that would hold its shape. They did an awesome job!

After we finished our haunted houses the students had snack and then they played with the cloud dough again. They were so happy, they LOVE the cloud dough. This time we took it outside and played, much easier to clean up. It has been a great month of celebrating Halloween. Now it is on the Thanksgiving, can't wait for next week!

November 7th, our ninth craft class! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Today we made turkeys! The turkey in the picture above is the example that I made for the class. The students turkeys are in the pictures below and are a work in progress.

I am so excited for next week to see the turkeys all finished.

Then we made a count down to Thanksgiving.

The students first colored the coloring pages and I cut on the black lines to make little doors. From now and until Thanksgiving the students will open a door everyday and read what it says and do that activity. For example some of them are tell your family what you are thankful for, do something nice for your neighbor, draw a picture about what you are thankful for, and so on. I thought this would be a great way to get them in the Thanksgiving mood and have fun activities to do at home.

Then we had a little time left in the class so the students asked if they could play with flubber. They had so much fun!

Today was a great craft class and a great way to start November. I hope that the students can get into the Thanksgiving spirit and share it with others. How will you share your Thanksgiving spirit?

November 14th, our Tenth craft class!

The students painted their turkeys that they made last week, so while they where drying the students made owls. Earlier this fall I made owls to go on our tree in the classroom. The students really liked them and asked me if they could make them this week, so we did. I warned them that it a really cool craft but it takes a long time and a TON rolled up paper. They were very excited in the beginning of the craft, a little bit frustrated in the middle of the craft and but they loved the end result!

Each student had the same outline for the owl, but they each chose a different color design for their owls and each owl came out looking so different.

Then the turkeys were all dry! Don't they look AMAZING! They really transformed from last week from just being plain white. It is cool what some paint and bright feathers did for the turkeys!
Each of the turkeys were sealed so they will last for many Thanksgivings to come!

Proud owners of Turkeys!
If this doesn't get you in the Thanksgiving Spirit I don't know what will!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!

November 21st, our 11th craft class
The girls made hair accessories and the boys made airplanes. My son was out of school because of thanksgiving break so he joined the class.

November 30th, our 12th craft class.
The students made key chains and necklaces.

I took pictures of the students for the picture frame wreaths they started working on. Don't they look so cute in the Santa and elf hats!

This a finished picture frame wreath that I made and put a picture of my daughter in it. It has magnets on it and will go on the fridge.

Here are the student's picture frame wreaths.

December 11th, Early Crafters First Free Craft Class for children interested in signing up for a craft class.
The children made three different kinds of ornaments and took home a Crystal Snowflake Ornament Kit to make at home.
My melted snowman ornament.

These are the children's melted snowmen ornaments. They decided that two snowmen had melted together.

This is my Sugar Glitter Star Ornament.

These are one of the children's Sugar Glitter Star Ornaments.

The children drew on transparency paper and then I put them in a clear plastic ornament. Now they can see their drawing on the tree and hang it up each Christmas.

I made a Crystal Snowflake Ornament. These are made from pipe cleaners shaped into a snowflake shape and then submerged in a borax water solution over night and they grow crystals. They are so pretty!

I made Crystal Snowflake Ornament Kits for the children to take home and make.

I made reindeer cookies for a snack. They turned out super cute, and they tasted great too!

I also made glow in the dark flubber for the children to take home and play with.

It was a great FREE craft class and I hope this means that I will be able to start another class in January!

December 12th, our 13th craft class.
The students finished their picture frame wreaths.

The students spent most of the class working on Christmas presents for their mom and dad. They want it to be a secret so I was not allowed to post any pictures of the project, only this one, that the project dyed their hands. After Christmas I will post what they made.

The students had a yummy snack. So much crafting can make you hungry.

The students started making Christmas Plaques. The brown hand prints will become reindeer and the green hand prints will become Christmas trees. I can't wait to see how they turn out next week.