Saturday 29 November 2014

How To Make Holiday Scented Play Dough

           Christmas is a time for family, food and awesome smells....so when I thought about a fun project for my Little's that they could enjoy during the long winter months, play dough came to mind! (Plus it's Christmas so having holiday scented play dough seemed like a fun idea!)  
        In this recipe I used what I had available in my own home. We use essential oils for a good many things so I chose to use them to scent our dough, however, I would not suggest going to shops looking for essential oils and other supplies just because they are in the ingredients list.  Instead of the oils I would substitute what you have in your own kitchen. Most people keep Christmas spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in their cupboards and those would be a great replacement. The best part about this project is the dough is non toxic, 100% edible (a bit salty however), and keeps well in the fridge for months for repeated play on cold indoor days.

Recipe
1 1/2 cups of white all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
3 tbsp of cooking oil (don't use olive oil as it has a strong smell)
1 cup of boiling water
1-5 drops of your choice of essential oils, I used Thieves Blend, clove and orange (this can be substituted for a tsp of ground cinnamon, a tsp of ground nutmeg, and a tsp of  ground cloves if you want to use what you have in your own cupboard, I have also used a packet of Koolaid powder and that gives it scent and color!)
5 drops of food coloring in the color of your choice

Put water in your kettle to boil.


Add 1 1/2 cups of flour to your bowl. 




Add the 1/2 cup of salt.
  
Add the 3 tbsp of oil, your color and your essential oils, and then blend with a wooden spoon.




When water is boiled add 1 cup to your bowl. 



Blend well with your wooden spoon until the dough forms, then start kneading dough in the bowl with your hands to blend until smooth and dough like.





 The dough will be warm to the touch so pay attention to this since the boiling water would take a few minutes to cool in the process.
Take your dough ball out and begin playtime, you can also add sparkles if you have them kicking around for a more Christmas feel, but we just didn't have any....but sparkle play dough is super festive!



Enjoy hours of fun!

Saturday 22 November 2014

Thanksgiving Turkey Mask

Thanksgiving Turkey or Bird mask

Materials:
*sharpie felt
*paper plate
*scissors
*hole punch
*clear tape
*yellow crayon
*elastic or ribbon or string
*felt in various colors such as gray, brown or white (your choice) or for a more kid friendly version you can use various colors of construction paper

*school glue (more kid friendly version) or glue gun and glue sticks (adult assistance needed for this version)
*glitter paint (optional)

Step 1: Cut your paper plate in half. Use your sharpie to draw a semicircle where the nose would with go about 2 inches across and draw 2 eye holes with about 1.5 inches of space between them.





Step2: Cut out the eye holes carefully with sharp scissors, and cut the semicircle out for the nose. Kids who are practicing with scissor use will like these steps.  


Step 3: Use the hole punch to punch holes for the elastic or ribbon on each side of the mask.


Step 4: Fold the mask in half using the center of the nose cut out as your guide.  You can also draw a dotted line from the centre of the nose semicircle to help with a more perfect fold (as shown below).



Step 5: Cut a length of elastic about 7-8 inches in length and put each end through the holes on each side of the mask that you have created with your hole punch. Make a knot to secure.


Step 6: Draw 5 feather shapes with your sharpie on the darkest colour of felt  (these feather shapes should be about 6 inches in length and 2 inches across). Cut out the shapes.



Step 7: Draw 5 feather shapes 
with your sharpie in your medium tone felt
(these feather shapes should be about 4 inches in length and 2 inches across). Cut them out.

Step 8: Draw 5 feather shapes 
with your sharpie in your lightest tone of felt (these feather shapes should be about 3 inches in length and 2 inches across). Cut them out.

Step 9: Cut out a triangle from the second half of your paper plate that is about 3 inches on each side. Drawing with your sharpie a good sized triangle on the plate as a guide and then cutting is the best idea to help little ones.


Step 10: Fold your triangle in half and make a 1/2 inch notch where you folded it with your scissors.  Fold each side of the triangle back to create flaps where the notch is. This will be where you glue the triangle to your mask as it will be your beak.


Step 11: Glue the beak to the mask over the nose semicircle using a glue gun by gluing the wrong sides of the flaps on the base of the beak.  Or for the more kid friendly version, simply have them tape it down.


Step 12: Glue one of your longest and darkest feather shapes to the centre of your mask having the bottom of the feather shapes butt up against the beak. 


Step:13: Glue 2 more of your longest and darkest feather shapes to the center of your mask on either side covering up the holes that have your string in them.

 Step 14: Proceed to glue your second longest/lightest feather shapes to the spaces in between your first feathers making sure to fold the ends into the eye holes and gluing them in place on the inside of the mask. This creates a nice looking eye hole for the mask
Step 15: Add a few of the shortest/lightest of the feather shapes accents, folding the ends into the eye holes and gluing again on the inside.  Also use 2 of the short pieces to the beak and mask to create a kind of turkey look.

Step 16: Colour your beak with the yellow crayon


Step 17:(Optional) Paint highlights on your mask with the glitter paint, my daughter wanted to do this as she loves glitter everything so it's really up to you if you have the supplies why not?



Step 18: Enjoy your Thanksgiving Turkey Mask! 

May you have a restful and blessed Thanksgiving full of love and laughter! (and some Turkey too!)

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Christmas On The Go! A new NO-PREP series by Tweet Resources

Christmas! Yes, it's already on my mind. The stores have rolled out the Christmas decorations weeks ago and so I felt somewhat inspired to get in the holiday spirit. I just love the lead up to Christmas here in Australia because it means that summer is on it's way!


So this is a new series I have created titled "On The Go" and my first pack is geared for the Kindergarten class (I've begun a Grade One package... fingers crossed time and creativity is on my side!)


There lots of creative goodies in my "Christmas On The Go" package like this adorable Teen Number Ten Frames. As soon as I saw Whimsy Clips gorgeous Christmas windows clip art I knew I had to use it for this activity!


You can never have enough counting practice! I know so many classrooms are working on teen numbers at this time of year so this activity will help those students practice their teen numbers.


I absolutely love this visual for Adding With 10! I couldn't help myself and had to coordinate my colors with a candy cane. Yummm.... candy canes!


I had to put these GORGEOUS gingerbread kids from Pink Cat Studio to good use! So I made a few sound sorts to add to this Christmas pack.


Are you working on real or nonsense words in your classroom? I often get requests for this activity so I tried to make it as fun as possible by adding a Christmas twist!


Christmas On The Go (for Kindergarten) is now available in my store. Click here to view this package (I hope you love it as much as I do!). Thanks for stopping in and checking out my latest creation!



Wednesday 5 November 2014

Monday Makeover with FirstGradeFunTimes


Welcome to my brand new blog! 

This gorgeous blog design is courtesy of Designs By Kassie, and I am just in love with this design she has created. I hope you love it as much as I do. It's so great to start this new adventure of blogging with such a bright and cheery beginning. Thank-you so much Kassie.

So, when I decided that it was time to jump into the world of blogging I brainstormed for ages possible topics to write about that I am passionate about and that might be interesting for others. One thing that I love is MAKEOVERS. Home makeovers, body makeovers, garden makeovers.... any makeovers! I just love me some crazy dramatic before and after shots! Then I thought to myself perhaps I could take my love of graphic design and do a "makeover" style segment...... and here it is "Monday Makeover".  Ok, technically it's not Monday as I write this, but my blog wasn't quite ready to roll on Monday so shall we just pretend it's Monday?!

With this little idea in mind, I wrote to my good friend Alisa from FirstGradeFunTimes, and basically begged her to be my first guinea pig for a product makeover. Within 60 seconds I had a Thanksgiving package in my hands and yes, it was in dire need of a facelift (sorry Alisa). I've given her lovely little package a much needed makeover and voila.... here it is!


As you can see the cover needed some attention. To be honest, the cover was probably the easiest part of this challenge. To get this look I used:
*Fonts HelloFirstieBigSolid and HelloBigBlue
*Adorable clip art by Whimsy Clips
*A textured background pattern by Sonya DeHart
*3 layered pictures at the pack are images of pages that are contained within the package

Now the original page in Alisa's package I actually didn't mind but I did change it up a bit to make it stand out a little more. To get this look I used:
*seriously cute naked turkey clip art from Pink Cat Studio (Those turkeys really crack me up!)
*a bold frame from Kelly B
*Fonts HelloFirstieBigSolid and HelloBigBlue

For this one I took the old version and simply added some new clip art, changed the fonts and added a frame. I really didn't want to change too much of the essence of what Alisa originally created, but I think these little changes have just cleaned up her package a little more from what it was before.

I just love the concept of these word family turkeys! What a great idea Alisa has here! What I wanted to do with these was to take it from two pages and change it so that only one page could be used if teachers so desired. Oh, and also I chopped off the turkey's legs.... sorry Mr. Turkey but your legs were too flimsy for primary scissors to stay! Once I finished these up I made some myself with my daughter.


Alisa also had included some antonym and synonym interactive activities in her package. With a few small additions (new frames, clip art and HelloFonts) I gave those pages a minor facelift. The picture below is how it now looks when it is printed up and completed. This is a great hands on activity with easy to follow directions. 


Thank you so much to Alisa from FirstGradeFunTimes for being such a great sport and allowing me to re-design her Thanksgiving package. If you would like to check out her newly updated "Turkey Fun For Grade One" please click here.

Thanks again for checking out my new blog and bearing with me as I navigate my way through the art of teacher blogging. Til' next time,