Craft Stick Puzzle

My 4 year old, Caden, takes a lot of pride in creating something all by himself.  He's been showing great interest in drawing and even though I'm pretty biased, I think he's really good at it.  He's only 4 and he draws things that are so imaginative and wonderful.  One of my favorite drawings is all blue, but if you look real closely, you can see the robot he drew in all blue too.

When he draws something, it's a great opportunity for me to ask him about it.  What is this a picture of?  Oh, a basketball and a hoop.  Do you like basketball?  What do you like about it?  And we can go on and on.

I told you how much we love coloring around here lately.  Here is another spin we put on coloring that we had fun with.  We made a puzzle out of craft sticks.  It's super easy.  All you do is line up a bunch of craft sticks, put tape on the back side.  Let your toddler color away on the front side.  Once they are done, remove the tape and put the puzzle together.



Porter, my 16 month old even had fun helping me put it together.  He loves puzzles!  And this one isn't so frustrating since the pieces can fit anywhere.

Sandpaper Art

We tried something fun around here yesterday.  Sandpaper Art. My kids really love coloring and I thought it would put a fun spin on their artwork. It was a great opportunity to talk about textures and things that are hot since this craft uses an iron to transfer the image over to the blank piece of paper.

SUPPLIES:

• Sandpaper


• Crayons


• Iron


• Paper (or a shirt would be fun too!)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Color the entire piece of sandpaper.  Make sure to press hard.  The more coverage, the better.


2. When complete, place your artwork face-up and the blank piece of paper on top.


3. Iron for a couple minutes and Voila!

The texture of the end result was a lot of fun.  It also made the sandpaper piece a little different too.  It was a fun experiment and one I'm sure we'll try again!

P.S.  Yes, I have pregnancy brain, but I still know Caden's name.... he's wearing a name tag because they had a substitute in preschool yesterday. :)