Sensory Play - Paint Table

The boys are not into messy play. They don't like to get their hands dirty! But I WANT them to! They refused to do hand painting. So, here's my trick. I lured them to the paint table with cars. Ha!


What You Need:
Small Table
Plastic Sheet (to wrap the table top)
Paint
Car (optional... you only need them as a bait)

They were shaking their heads when asked to go to the paint table but they dashed to the table once the cars were out.

K rolling the car.

Hah! Y finally used his fingers! And he told me he was drawing a train.

And then his hands! K followed suit when he saw Y having fun.

Y: "oh oh... dirty hands"

Misson success! This is a great activity. Cars are a nice addition. It was nice to see the wheels texture on plastic. it's nicer than on paper. And they explored the smooth texture of plastic with paint. They were at the table for 40 mins. K was reluctant to leave the table and I had a hard time coaxing him into giving the fire engine a car wash.

I think a great way to preserve the "painting" is to press a big piece of paper over the plastic. I didn't do that this time but will definitely try it the next time round.

Homemade Toys - Car Ramp

I hope I'm not boring you guys with all the cars related activities. I don't have much choice because my boys simply love cars and all things related to transportation.

My husband said we should look out for car ramp toys for the boys to play with. I checked out some and I thought they are pretty expensive. We could probably get one for them since their birthday is just around the corner but I thought why don't we built one ourselves?! So, on rainy afternoon with 2 boys that are dying of boredom, we built a simple ramp out of kitchen towel rolls and masking tape. It was flimsy and it didn't last for more than an hour. The next day, we improvised and built this.

I'm not creative nor artsy but I hope to share with my boys that we can create our playthings. Just like during my parents' time when toys are considered a luxury and they created their playthings with leaves and twigs. It's something that city kids don't get a chance to, including myself when I was a kid. To "de-urbanized" is really hard for us in a small city like Singapore. 

What You Need:
Cardboards
Box
Masking Tape
Toy Trees
Markers
Newspaper

Method:
(1) I filled the empty box with some newspaper for some weight. You might not need to do this but I had to because the boys like to sit on the box.

(2) I folded the cardboard for the "wall".

(3) Tape the cardboard ramp to the box.

(4) Make some road drawings on the box, put some deco like toy trees, etc.

(5) Get your cars out for some fun!

Pardon my drawing on the box. I can't draw. The boys always have very challenging drawing requests and I just have to tell them Mummy doesn't really know how to draw that but I can try. They make me very happy when they tell me what I am drawing when I can't even recognize it myself. And these days, when I'm stumped with another challenging drawing request, they boys say "Mummy try" while I'm struggling to draw something that I don't even have an idea of how to start.

Homemade Car Mat

I have been hoping to do non-transportation related themes and activity with them but my boys are just sooooo into their cars and buses that I can only get their attention by incorporating transportation into the activities we do. So, we did a car mat and we drew roads, buildings, houses, etc for them to roll their cars on.

What You Need:
Big mounting board or paper
Drawing materials such as color pencils, markers, crayons, etc.
Cars

This smile from K just melts my heart

Cardboard Car

Both my boys were down with HFMD last week. But I'm happy that other than the few dreadful days of very bad ulcers that's affecting meal times for K, we had been busy creating and learning. It's been a while since we did so many activities. Our no school mornings are spent creating and playing. The activities were all child directed and I became their slaves.

On this day...

K: Mummy, let's build a cardboard car.
Me: (thought bubble: "Let's"?? You mean "me" Nooooo....) Let's do some other things, how about watching the Cars movie? (wrong move)
K: I want to build Lightning Mcqueen! Ka Chow!
Y: I want to build The King!
Me: (thought bubble: Ok, we have cardboards... maybe it's not that difficult to do afterall) Alright, let's see what we need.

Their persistence paid off and once I got my butt off from the sofa, we were on the roll.

What You Need:
Carton Box
Paint
Brushes
Pen Knife
Markers
White Paper
Construction Paper

I got 2 carton boxes and cut off 3 sides of the flap for the top, leaving one side for the car front. All 4 flaps at the bottom are removed.

   Cut a small rectangle at the sides as a handle for the kid to hold.

Then it's time to get the rascals to work.

I printed out the car number 43 for The King and got the graphic online for Lightning Mcqueen. Cut them out and paste it at the side.

My "designers" had a hard time deciding on the design of their car wheels. They had an even harder time trying to express what they want to me. But we sorted it out in the end and I thought they looked good. I kept the cardboard pieces that I cut out earlier for the wheels. Cut the circles and parts out of construction paper and the boys were responsible for putting them together.

For the front of the car, I cut a piece of White paper to paste over to draw the eyes. Y wanted a "serious" look. He drew a dinosaur (looked nothing like one) for the Dinoco sign and we found a Rusteze stickers for Lightning Mcqueen. I drew the eyes and mouth for Y while K drew everything on his own.

The boys were so happy with their cars and they wanted to bring to school as their Chinese learning theme is Cars. K asked his teacher for permission to bring to school. She agreed and so I let them drive to school today.

K for Kite

 

Our Letter of the Week was K last week and this is the craft we did for Kite. 

What You Need:

Sandpaper

Paint

Hole Puncher

Strips of Crepe Paper or Ribbons or Tissue Paper

Marker

I drew a Diamond shape on the sandpaper. We talked about the shape of the Kite. (Diamond was the Shape of the Week) And I let them use finger/hand paint on the sandpaper. We also talked about the texture of the paper as they did that. 

They got bored with finger painting and asked for Cars. Their wish was granted and they enjoyed rolling their cars over the sandpaper. It was great as they could feel the difference when they roll the car on the sandpaper and on the newspaper. It was interesting to see them exploring with their cars. So, remember to listen to your children, they give you the best ideas!

That's Y's finger pointing to the Kite done by his Brother. They know which is their work! Once this is dried, punch hole on the top and bottom. Attach ribbon/string on top and crepe ribbons at the bottom. They can hold the top ribbon can start running around. However. as the sandpaper is a little heavy, it can't really "fly".

Art and Crafts - Car Painting

After seeing this craft from Make and Takes, I thought this is a great idea! Playing with cars in another way and using cars to create art! So, I took out their favorite Chucks and Friends and let them roll the cars with paint on its wheels. But they ended up doing more hand painting though.

Y, working on his painting very seriously

I didn't manage to take a picture of the final artwork. They turned out nice and I used them as a card for our friend's Baby Full Month Party the next day.  Anyway, it's never about the final product, it's the process and experience that's important, isn't it? :)

This would make a great activity for a Cars theme!

Car Marble Painting

This is Marble Painting with a twist. If you are not new to this blog, you should know by now that my boys are cars fanatics. Their cars are usually within their reach during craft time. Marble Painting is a regular craft for us. We do it every now and then. Especially during times when I'm short of time but the boys are desperately asking for their activity time. Today, the boys did their marble painting a little differently and I welcome the change. Instead of holding the sides of the box to roll their marbles around, they used their cars to push the marbles. This was entirely their own initiative. How creative! I love it when they show me how things can be played in different ways. While we as parents will usually think that we are the ones teaching them, I often think they are the ones teaching us and showing us how the world can work in different ways.

What You Need: 
Some sort of tray or box cover to contain the paper and marbles (and cars in this case)
Paper
Paint
Marbles
Cars

Just push or hit the marbles with the cars and it will roll the paint all over, creating patterns. My sons love the sound of the cars hitting the marbles. And they were thrilled when the marble they pushed hit another marble. Have fun!

Dot Art with Circle Stickers

Read about Pointillism art in one of the art books the other day and got me very interested in Dots. And that made last week a week of Dots and the first dot related activity we did was just making patterns freely with circle label stickers that are easily available at stationery stores. I got all the sizes available and I like the vibrant colors they come in.

In this activity, they...

• learnt about Big, Medium and Small
• learnt about Colors
• learnt about Shapes.
• counted
• practiced fine motor skills, esp with the small ones!
• made patterns, lots and lots of patterns.
• made trains with circles.

And it was a lot of fun... all under the cost $5 for all the pretty circle stickers.