Alphabet Wall: Special edition – d for dinosaur

You will need: Coloured paper, marker, scissors, glue, artblock sheet and crayons.

1. On your coloured sheet of paper, draw a lowercase block letter d. Also draw a dino’s head and feet. Cut these out.

2. Paste the letter d in the middle of the artblock sheet.

3. Paste on the head, feet and the tail of your dinosaur.

Decorate it any way you like!

WordCraft: Making… b for beads

As DD has started showing early interest in words now, this craft was thought up for her benefit.  Aside from being a fun way to learn to spell, I also like the element of fine motor skills practice.  🙂

Will WordCraft become a regular series?  Hmm…maybe….maybe…  😉

You will need the following materials: assorted craft beads, coloured paper, cardboard, marker, glue.

1. Paste the cardboard on the back of the coloured paper. This makes it sturdy so it can withstand the weight of the beads that will be glued on.
2. With the marker, write out the word “beads”.

3. Apply glue onto the letters…

…and arrange the beads. DD insisted on doing this on her own so I left her to it.

"Mummy, you don't help!"

I thought the end result was really pretty! 🙂

This could be a fantastic idea if your child’s name starts with B…like room door nameplates…or in a wooden frame above their bed…or on a bookcase…so many possibilities!

Alphabet Wall: Making…z for zacchaeus

My brain is deep-fried this week. There are so many things going on and so many tasks to get over the line.   😛

But I’m still trying to maintain the momentum on the weekly alphabet craft…just because I think it’s good to keep to the discipline.

So, we’re going back to the basic of basics. No prior prep, simple and extremely easy to execute, but don’t let the simplicity discount its ability to achieve the objective of the lesson.   🙂

Only need a very short list of materials: Artblock sheet, markers, crayons, colour pencils.

1. With a black marker, draw a picture of Zacchaeus in a tree, and Jesus standing at the foot of the tree, looking up at him.

2. Zacchaeus’s coat is intentionally drawn in a z shape with stripes, to serve as introductory writing practice for the letter z. (Anatomically inaccurate, I know, but then it wasn’t intended to be a biology lesson!)  😉

3. Colour the rest of the picture.

Sorry, this all took place so quickly I didn’t have time to take pictures of the steps!

Zacchaeus’s story is found in Luke 19:1-10.

Alphabet Wall: Making…x is for exodus

This reminded me of secondary school topography map work. 

And despite it taking a much longer time to prepare than most other Alphabet wall crafts, with DH and me complaining of aching fingers from crayoning large sections of desert, it has been fun in that we too, have now learnt the route of the exodus from Egypt.  🙂

You will need the following materials:  Artblock sheets, marker, crayons, scissors, craft foam, glue.

1. On an artblock sheet, draw with the marker, a map of the Israelites’ journey. I drew two versions – one large one for ourselves to use as a teaching aid, and two smaller ones for DD and DS to colour.

2. Colour in the different parts of the land – we used brown for the tall mountains, orange for the lower mountains, pale orange for the desert, blue for waters and green for the plains of Canaan.
3. With the scissors, cut out two x’s from the craft foam (one for the large storyboard, one for your child’s piece).
4. Also cut a picture of a crowd to use as a prop. (We pasted the picture of the crowd on craft foam backing to make it more durable for preschooler and toddler hands to handle.)

5. Walk the crowd through the route of the exodus on your storyboard.

6. Have your child colour their own maps and stick their own x’s to mark God’s promised land. We let DS do his own thing but I was happy to quietly observe DD following the colour coding on the larger map fairly independently.

And drew Pharaoh’s soldiers chasing the Israelites as well.

 

*****
Psalm 111
 1 Praise the LORD.
       I will extol the LORD with all my heart
       in the council of the upright and in the assembly.

 2 Great are the works of the LORD;
       they are pondered by all who delight in them.

 3 Glorious and majestic are his deeds,
       and his righteousness endures forever.

 4 He has caused his wonders to be remembered;
       the LORD is gracious and compassionate.

 5 He provides food for those who fear him;
       he remembers his covenant forever.

 6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
       giving them the lands of other nations.

 7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
       all his precepts are trustworthy.

 8 They are steadfast for ever and ever,
       done in faithfulness and uprightness.

 9 He provided redemption for his people;
       he ordained his covenant forever—
       holy and awesome is his name.

 10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
       all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
       To him belongs eternal praise.
*****

 

Note to parents:
Many Bible stories can be retold from this same map (crossing the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments at Sinai, wandering in the desert, Moses on Mt Nebo, crossing the River Jordan, etc.)  so it’s worth the effort of backing the map with cardboard or laminating to make it sturdier for repeated use. 

Fill in as many location details as you see fit for your own teaching needs.

Alphabet Wall: Making x is for ??

Sigh, I was stuck at the letter X for our capital letters alphabet craft. I’m on holiday but my mind’s wheels are still cranking away trying to get out of this stuck rut! 

x is for example…?

x is for exodus…?

So we are on a break this week till I figure this one out, or come up with another plan for the letter y instead.  Mail me if you have any good ideas!

Alphabet Wall: Making…w is for wall

Can’t believe I spent a week thinking about what to do for w, when this was staring me in the face all along!  Especially now I’ve just typed the title out…   😛

This craft is useful for a simple pattern exercise.

You will need the following materials: Pencil, artblock sheet, orange and blue craft foam, scissors, glue.

1. With a pencil, draw a brick wall on the artblock sheet.
2. I wanted to achieve the effect of a “w” appearing as a pattern on the wall, so I colour-coded the bricks by number. 1 for orange, 2 for blue. The blue bricks form the “w” shape.

3. Cut out enough orange and blue “bricks” from craft foam to make up the wall.

4. Paste, following the patterns.

5. And you’re done!

Related Bible story: Nehemiah – Rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem

We also brought out the wooden blocks for some building action of our own.   😀

Alphabet Wall: Making…v is for vine

I originally started out trying to use pipe cleaners for this craft but after an hour’s worth of twisting, undoing, retwisting and in the process, gaining tiny but painful, scratches all over my fingers from the exposed wires, I decided there had to be a better and more preschooler-safe way of doing this.

A couple of days later, an idea to use real twigs and brown string planted itself in my mind.  🙂

You will need the following materials: plant twigs, scissors, cellophane tape, brown string, purple colour paper, glue, artblock sheet, marker.

1. Duck out to a nearby park to gather twigs, ideally forked ones. Make it a family outing! 😀   (More power to you if you manage to find v-shaped twigs. I made do with y-shaped ones).

2. Trim the twigs to the shape required. Secure a few together with some cellophane tape to make your vine more sturdy.

3. (Optional step) If you are like me and can’t stand the fact that twigs keep shedding little brown bits, mix two teaspoons of water to one teaspoon of PVA glue and paint over the twigs.

This does not change the look and feel from a sensory standpoint but it does create a sort of sealer coat that lessens shedding to a great degree! 🙂   Leave to dry.

4. Have your child twine the brown string over the twigs. Talk about how vines are creepers that twine their way around whichever structure is available. Secure by tying a knot.

4. While your child is working on the twining, cut some grapes out of the purple colour paper.

5. With a marker, draw a block letter v on an artblock sheet.

4. Paste on your vine, and the grapes.

We added some leaves as well, cut from a forest background from an old magazine.  🙂

**********

John 15:5 – I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

God helps me
God helps me
In my Bible book I read that
God helps me

God keeps me
God keeps me
In my Bible book I read that
God keeps me

**********

Alphabet Wall Craft: Making…t is for thumbprint

In Sunday School, the children have been learning that God made us – our eyes, ears, feet and hands.

And that each of these body parts can be used not just for ourselves but also to glorify God.

I’m thinking we could also take the opportunity to talk about how (and ask why do you think  😉  ) God made our hands to have one thumb and four fingers? How does each individual part play a role in helping us use our hands effectively? 🙂

For this craft, you will need: marker, artblock sheet, poster paint, palette, paintbrush.

1. Draw a small block letter t on the artblock sheet.

2. Mix a few colours of paint into your palette.  DS sat himself down at the table when he saw me getting the paints ready, picked up a paintbrush, and said “Mummy! I want to do art and craft!”.  So loved that moment!

3. Paint onto your child’s thumb and print within the shape of the letter t.

(Alternative: if you have inkpads in different colours, you could also use that. Less messy compared to paints. I think… 😉 )

Many Bible stories can be leveraged to show examples of how people used their hands, eyes, ears and feet to do something for God.

A good idea that TwoCultureMom used for class, was the story on the rebuilding of the city wall in Nehemiah .

Take some time to leaf through the Bible for your own story ideas!  🙂

Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

Two little eyes to look to God
Two little ears to hear His word
Two little feet to walk in His way
Hands to serve Him all my days.

Alphabet Wall: Making…s for seahorse

Continuing on the Genesis creation theme…it was a toss up between s for snake and s for seahorse.

We recently borrowed Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle from the library, and I spent a long time admiring the pictures.

Eric Carle is truly a master illustrator and storyteller. Click on this link to read more about how he creates his tissue paper collages.

So…I started thinking, now wouldn’t it be fun to let the kids paint their own tissue paper seahorse… 

That being said, I am no master illustrator and as you now know from my previous post, my little craft collaborators (yes, we’ve started including our 20-month-old, DS, for selected alphabet craft!) allow me five, ten minutes maximum attention span before wanting to move onto something else.  🙂

It is an entirely different method, but hey, my three-bullet-point sales pitch is – it calls for materials you already have in your home, takes two minutes to prepare and ten minutes to finish (minus waiting time for drying).  😉

You will need the following materials: tissue paper (regular facial tissue will do), artblock sheet, poster paints, brushes, PVA glue.

1. In a small dish, mix one part of PVA glue to one part water and stir till evenly mixed in a white watery texture.

2. Put small dobs of paint of various colours in your palette. Not too much as you want your paints to be fairly watery.
3. Pour a little PVA glue mix into each of the sections. Mix well with the paint colour.

4. Divide your artblock sheet into two halves. Set aside the second half for later.

5. Place a sheet of tissue paper on the first sheet.

6. Here’s the technique – Dip your paintbrush in the colour of your choice, touch it gently to the tissue paper, and let the colour bleed into the tissue. Keep going till you’ve covered the whole tissue paper square with a rainbow of colours.

7. Set aside to dry. Eat lunch. Play a game. Take a nap.

Ready for the second part? You will need a marker, scissors, PVA glue and the second half of your artblock sheet.

8. When your painted tissue paper has dried, notice how it’s now stuck to the artblock sheet, thanks to the PVA glue mix.  😀
9. Using a marker, draw the outline of your own Mister Seahorse.

10. Cut out your seahorse. Also cut out the little fin and spikes, a tiny dark circle for the pupil of the seahorse’s eye, and a slightly larger white circle for the white of the eye.

 

11. Paste your seahorse onto the second half of your artblock sheet.

As with our recent alphabet wall crafts, DD traces out the word “seahorse”.

Done! 🙂

 

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.  God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”  And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. ~ Genesis 1: 20- 23

……………………………………….

 Oh and if you are interested, click here for our other Eric Carle inspired Alphabet Wall craft piece: C for caterpillar.  🙂

Alphabet Wall: Making…r is for rainbow

On Friday at breakfast, I was wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of Noah’s Ark on it.
(Yeah, I’m a thrifty mommy that wears old church camp t-shirts at home…I don’t care what kind of fashion statement that makes about me, so there!)

Midway through munching on her Cheerios, DD turned to me and pointed out that the rainbow colours are in the wrong order. “Mommy, green should be after yellow”, she said.

Hm. Rightly so.  🙂
The other day, I also found her trying to mix red and yellow to get orange, using markers, which doesn’t produce as good an effect. So I thought for alphabet wall craft this week, we’d paint a rainbow and explore colour mixing as part of the process.  🙂

You will need the following materials: three paintbrushes, red, yellow and blue paint, artblock sheet, marker.

1. With the marker, draw a block small letter r on the artblock sheet.

2. Get ready your paints. This is how you should lay it out.

3. Using the first brush, paint a stroke of red paint across the top.
4. Next, pick up the second brush, paint a stroke of yellow paint, leaving a gap between the red and yellow.
5. Third, pick up the third brush and paint a stroke of blue paint, again, leaving a gap between the blue and yellow.

6. Now, pick up the first brush, mix the red and yellow in a separate section of your palette to get orange, and paint the gap between the red and yellow.
7. Fourthly, pick up the second brush, mix the yellow and blue to get green, and paint the gap between the yellow and blue.
8. Following that, pick up the third brush, mix the blue with red, and paint indigo below the blue line.
9. Lastly, mix a little more red in to get violet and paint below the indigo line.

Write the letters  r   a   i   n   b   o  w in multiple marker colours, of course! 😉

(Yes…for you observant readers, I did unfortunately mix up indigo and violet.  I kicked myself after finding this out, because I should have stuck to my original thought logic which had the colour mixing order right. But then I tried to be extra clever, googled the RGB definitions and then ended up reversing the order by mistake!  Gah. I can’t stand it…

DD is none the wiser at the moment, but I am, after double checking, and so at some point I am going to need to correct it…)

Anyway…Ta dah! A wonderful way to learn mixing colours and to paint a rainbow without having to make multiple trips to wash paintbrushes in the sink. 😉

Related Bible story: Noah and the great flood (Genesis 6:5 – 9:17)

Note to parents:
I guess for a three- year old to be required to retain such a degree of control with the paintbrush strokes on this activity probably translates to a lot of pent-up energy in the process!  

Although she enjoyed it, DD wanted to really paint freestyle after finishing the rainbow. So, if your mommy mess-o-meter can take it, below is an alternative activity you could consider, that will allow a little more freedom of expression. 🙂

Rainbow handprints