Buchempfehlung - book recommendation 1

Disney Ideen Buch - Disney Ideas Book

Yes, you see correctly, I ordered the book twice. Amazon had 2 different delivery dates for them, both roughly in 2-3 weeks, so I ordered both to see which one got here faster. Guess what, they both showed up at the same time 3 days after I had ordered them. The English version is 5€ cheapter, so if you don't care about the language, buy that one, they're both absolutely identical! 😉 I'm either going to return my duplicate, or I'll put on in my private crafting library, and one in my school material library.

I flipped through the book and I have to say, I really like it! It has two table of contents, one is sorted by topic, like "costumes", the other one is sorted by Disney characters. I love that it is not only a craft book but it also offers games, physical activities, and experiments.
Some crafts take a lot of materials or skills, so I'd say the book aim at ages 8-14. For sewing projects you definitely need to have an adult help you. And you need to be able to use scissors well, there is a lot of cutting required in most projects. Only a few ones looked like I can do them with my 4yo without having to do most of the work myself. But I'm excited to give them a try! I love the narrating stones! So we'll spend some time painting stones and tell each other stories. I'll let you know how that goes!

Spring time water colour

It's almost spring! We're spending time outside in the garden when we can to get my 4yo some fresh air and exercise. As art activity, I did a butterfly stamping picture with my students last year.

You need:

- white paper / weißes Papier

- water colours, brushes, water / Wasserfarben, Pinsel, Wasser

- wine cork / Weinkorken

- butterfly image / Schmetterlingsbild 

(- printer/Drucker)

The butterfly image I found for free in google image search. Of course you can choose any other animal or image your kid likes: How about a giraffe on a green background? Or a race car on a grey street?

Stamping takes a long time. I needed about 90 minutes to cover a sheet of A3 paper in colour. Using the cork from a sparkling wine bottle will safe you a little bit of time and is also more suitable for younger children. 

Use a brush to apply paint to the cork. Instead of water colours you can also use acrylic paint, that way your child can press the cork down into the paint to stamp. The younger your child is, the more help it will need. 

For 3yo-5yo I'd recommend a picture made just from stamping. You can make caterpillars, a flower field, or even a butterfly just by stamping the shapes in the colours you like.

Older kids can then fill the printed animal in the colours they like. The smaller the shapes are, the more they'll have to concentrate and train their fine motor skills and patience.

Here are some examples that my second-graders did.