Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday. That's what it used to be called. Now more commonly referred to as 'Mother's Day'. For the sake of Brenda (our fabulous play group tea lady), who prefers the old name, to the new, I have adapted this popular tea pot craft with a ditty that reflects the traditional name for this day.

In the UK, Mothering Sunday, is on the fourth Sunday of Lent. In the past, it was considered important for people to visit their 'Mother Church' the main church in their area. This of course, brought families together for the day, as domestic servants were allowed to return to their home church. Thus it has become associated with the idea of visiting home and taking a gift of flowers to your Mother.

Teapot worksheet

Equipment

• coloured card
• worksheet
• scissors
• single packet tea bags
• flower stickers
• pens 

Preparation:

1. Photocopy worksheet onto card.

2. Cut out teapot shape and round the top of the heart (enough to insert tea bag packet).

Method:

1. Children decorate teapot with stickers.

2. Help children select tea bag and insert into teapot.

3. Write child's name on the back and leave on the 'Home' table to be collected at the end.

NB Feel free to print/enlarge my image for non-commerical use. If you would prefer a more personalised teapot, with a finger print design, you might like to try this one: https://www.messylittlemonster.com/2015/04/teapot-craft-free-printable.html

Happy New Year! Calendar Craft

Happy New Year!

We always start the new year with a calendar craft and ever since I discovered how much our Mums love a hand print of their child, to keep for posterity, its been a hand print. Sometimes (as this year) accompanied by a poem, always with the date, though, so that, years later, they can place that moment in time.

This is this year's version ('scuse the shadow, it was a busy old morning, so I had to take the pic as quickly as I could, before the moment was gone).

And if you'd like to see the blank version, it's here:

This is the version we did two years ago, just before the pandemic struck!
 

As you can see, each one is unique! Just as it should be!

Equipment:

• coloured photocopy card
• curling ribbon/scissors
• hole punch
• calendars
• stapler (to attach calendars)
• poster paint/paint trays (we use 3 or 4 colours)
• sponges (for applying paint to hands)
• stickers
• wipes
• overalls
• pens (to label craft work)

Preparation:

1. Order calendars (before Christmas). You can get them from places like *Baker Ross and Amazon. Some local stationers may also stock them.

2. Prepare sheet for craft and photocopy onto coloured card (or onto plain paper, trim and stick onto card).

3. Hole punch holes in the top of the card for a ribbon to hang it.

4. Cut ribbon for hanging calendar.

Method:

1. Help children roll up sleeves and put on overall.

2. Show children how to apply paint to their hands (it comes out less splodgy when applied with a sponge) and then press hand on to paper.

3. Wipe hands with wet wipe. Give children option to try another colour.

4. Allow children to embellish with stickers.

5. Give children option of ribbon to hang calendar.

6. Adult to attach calendar with stapler.

7. Ensure children's name is on work, and put aside to dry, ready for Home time.

*Any resources listed purely for information purposes only.

Christmas Tree Crowns

Christmas is upon us, once again!

Every other year, the Church holds a Christmas Tree Festival and our toddler group always enters a tree.

This year, our tree's focus is based around the concept of the potential of each baby. 

In Jesus' case he was born to be kind, albeit not an earthly one. So this year, we made clay crowns, like these:

What child can resist a bit of bling, eh?

Equipment:

• Air drying clay* 
• Rolling pin
• Crown cookie cutter
• Drinking straw
• Paper
• Pen (for writing names)
• Paint brushes
• Gold paint
• Pot for paint
• Glittery bits (beads, sequins, gems)
• PVA glue
• Glue brush
• Glue pot
• Newspaper
• Overalls
• Baby wipes
• Scissors
• String or ribbon for hanging

Preparation:

1. Prepare pots of paint.

2. Roll out balls of clay. You could roll these out in advance, and keep sealed, but I did this on the day, as fresh clay is more pleasurable  and easier to use. I do this for them, as clay needs to be rolled evenly, and that can be hard for children to manage. If it is too thin, it will be more fragile, once dry.

3. Roll out clay (on sheet of paper) and cut out crown shapes. Remove excess clay from around cutter, before pulling cutter away. I roll out on a sheet of paper, which may sound wasteful, but sops clay from sticking to the table and makes it easy to transfer clay work away, once it is finished.

4. Make hole for hanging. The end of a drinking straw is ideal for this. If you do it in advance, the children will work around it, if you try to do it at the end, there may not be much space! 😄

I only roll out enough for one table, at first, as I don't want the clay to dry out.

Method:

1. Child paints crown gold. Yes it is on damp clay, but they will dry together. The paint will be a little thin, but using white clay means it will be fine.

2. Child adds glittery bits, by pressing them in firmly. It does not matter where they place them, or how many they use, the end effect will still be stunning.

3. Write child's name on sheet and remove to dry. This may take a day or two, depending on where you place it. 

4. When the crown is dry, paint it with PVA, across all the crown and round the edges, but not underneath. Try to keep the ole for hanging clear of glue.

5. Leave to dry (approx. 6 hours, depending on how thick your glue is).

6. Cut string or ribbon to desired length, ready to hang your ornament.

I balanced the clay crowns on small pots, whilst painting the PVA and leaving it to dry, so the edges didn't stick to the newspaper.

The completed tree!

*Resources:

Das Clay  (we use this one - widely available Hobbycraft, The Works, W
HSmith etc.)

Giotto gold paint (also available at The Range, I think)

Crown cookie cutter

Gold string for hanging (similar in Sainsbury's)

Please note: no Ads here. Resources listed, purely to help people find similar.

Paper Plate Chickens

Not so long ago, the Queen gave a great message about how Easter isn't cancelled, just because of the Coronavirus lockdown. In the same way, neither is Spring, or, for that matter, Summer!

Blossom is bursting out, and whether we can see it or not, young animals are being born.

So, today I thought I'd share our chicken craft, that we did this time last year.

You can accompany this craft with Dora's Chicks, if you have access to the book, or you and your child could have great fun, singing, 'Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken lay a little egg for me!'

Song

Spot the missing feature!

Equipment:

• Paper plates

• Googly Eyes

• Feathers

• Red Cardboard to cut out wattles and combs

• Yellow card for beaks

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Scissors

Preparation:

Cut out some Wattles and Combs for your paper plate chickens, from red (or maybe even pink) card.

Cut beaks from yellow card.

Gather some pictures of chickens for the children to look at.

Method:

1. Fold Paper plate in half.

2. Assist children to look carefully at the chicken pictures and think about where to place, eyes, wattles, combs and beaks. You may end up with all kinds of variations, including multiple eyes, but I tend to let that go, as art and craft should really be about allowing the children the opportunity to express themselves. It can also be a great way to assess their understanding.

3. Attach feathers, as desired, using PVA glue.

Incy Wincy Spider

There can't be a playgroup in the land who has never sang Incy Wincy Spider. 

This Song is certainly a favourite of ours, and surely quite topical, with the the wet weather we've been having this year.

We've made various versions of Incy in the last four or five years, but I think this one is my favourite!

Each one is unique!

Equipment:

• Play dough 

• Googly eyes

• Pipe cleaners

• Paper plates/small pieces of card

• Felt pens

Preparation:

• Make play dough (recipe link*). 

• Cut pipe cleaners in half and then in half again.

Method:

1. Take a small lump of play dough and roll into a ball.

2. Add two googly eyes. We provided a few different sizes, to choose from.

3. Add pipe cleaners as legs. Children may decide to add as few or as many as they like, but that is totally fine!

4. Place on paper plate/card and write name on the side, ready for home time.

* We used the Kids with Food Allergies rice flour recipe, so that it would be suitable for anyone allergic to wheat/gluten. We used black food colouring, to make the spider, but actually your spiders could be quite colourful, if you like! Play dough can be made a few days in advance but will need to be stored in the fridge in a air tight container.

Marching Drums

One of the songs our littlies love to sing at playgroup is The Grand Old Duke of York. So it seems only natural to make our own drums, with which to sing along!

Ready to march!

If you need a reminder, the words of the song can be found by following this link.


Equipment:

• Used container with lid

• Coloured paper circles

• Felt pens

• Stickers - we ordered some instrument stickers from Baker Ross*

• PVA glue and spreaders

• Plasticine

• Short sticks

Not that attractive in its original state, you can see why it needed covering!

Preparation:

• Collect suitable tubs/containers.

• Cut coloured paper/light card circles for the top of the tub. You could also do as I did, and cut card to fit the side of the tub, or if you're feeling brave you could use poster paint mixed with PVA glue.

Method:

1. Use PVA glue to stick coloured paper on the tub, to prepare the surface for decoration.OR paint decoration using paint mixed as above.

2. Decorate coloured paper using felt pens & stickers.

3. Roll a ball of plasticine and mould it round the end of a short stick, to form a drumstick.

4. Don't forget to try them out at song time! The children are sure to enjoy marching round with their drums!

*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.

Spoon Dollies

I don't know if you're like me, but if you're not careful, you can fall into a rut at Song Time - singing all the same old songs with very little variety, which can get a little boring. 

Basing our craft on Songs and Rhymes has helped me to choose more carefully. This week we had great fun making Spoon Dollies, so we could sing 'Miss Polly had a Dolly.'

This was our example, made by my daughter

Equipment:

• Wooden spoons* 

• Large cupcake paper cases

• Ribbon of various thickness/lengths

• Pipe cleaners

• Wool

• Felt Pens

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Googly eyes

• Stickers

• Buttons

We bought ours from Baker Ross

Preparation:

1. Cut lengths of wool in various colours (to use for hair).

2. Cut short lengths of ribbon.

Method:

1. Use PVA glue to stick on googly eyes.

2. Use felt pen to draw on nose/mouth etc.

3. Push paper cupcake case onto the end of the spoon, to form a skirt. You could add a small lump of Blu tac inside to hold in place, but we sued a blob of PVA glue.

4. Stick ribbon onto the top part of the spoon handle to form a top for the dolly. 

5. Wind a pipe cleaner around the top of the spoon handle to form arms.

6. Use PVA glue to add 'hair'. My daughter used some fake hair from our craft box, but the children at playgroup used wool, which was just as effective.

7. Embellish with buttons/stickers, then leave to dry.

*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.

Chinese Lanterns

Our second week of Songs and Rhymes and the aim was to introduce a new one. Well, its actually quite an old one, but new to me and certainly to the children. Quite handily, it tied in with Chinese New Year. So, the craft just had to be... 'Chinese' lanterns!!

The finished article

I can't claim any credit fro the idea, we used a printable from Twinkle, a UK based teacher's resource site. It's full of great ideas. You have to register to use it. Some ideas are available for free, but for others you have to pay a subscription fee.

Incidentally, the song we decided to use alongside this activity was called, 'My ship sailed from China.' It has some great actions, so if children don't know the words, they can always join in with the actions. If you'd like to learn them, this clip from You Tube is quite handy.

Equipment:

• Paper cups 

• Pipe cleaners

• Stickers

• Paper strips

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Scissors with sharp points

Preparation:

1. Make two small holes in the top of each cup. I used the sharp points of scissors to do this.

2. Cut thin paper strips.

Method:

1. Show children how to thread both ends of a pipe cleaner through the two holes in the top of the cup. 

2. Look inside the cup and pull both ends of the pipe cleaner towards you and twist the ends together. 

3. Pull the loop at the top of the cup. The twisted ends should prevent the pipe cleaner from coming all the way back out.

4. Embellish the lantern with stickers of your choice.

5. Spread a line of PVA glue around the inside rim of the cup. Stick one end of the paper strips to the line of glue, to make a tasseled edge to your lantern.

6. If you, can, hang to dry.

Work in progress

Autumn Leaf Plaques

This craft was inspired by a jewellery workshop I participated in during the summer in which we made pendants and earrings using a form of porcelain clay. 

One of the ideas we were encouraged to try involved pressing plant materials into the clay, then colouring the impressions with under glaze paints. The pieces were later glazed and fired for us.

For the purposes of our craft, firing was not going to be a possibility, neither would painting the pieces once dry. It needed to be an all-in-one process. So we came up with the idea of using leaf stamps, to make plaques like these:

Just like the jewellery project, this craft proved extremely popular.

Leaf Plaque

We used air dry clay for our project. I would imagine that salt dough clay could also be used, but it would require a little baking.

Equipment:

• air dry clay (we used white, but you can also buy coloured clay, although this is likely to be more expensive)

• poster paint/plastic trays/sponges

• leaf stamps (or you could use natural leaves)

• rolling pins

• paper plates or small piece of card

• pens (to label paper plates with names)

• cutters - ours was 10 cm diameter (optional)

• ribbon

• drinking straws (cut in half)

• scissors (to cut ribbon)

• PVA glue to act as a 'varnish' & brush to apply

We used these leaf stamps*

Preparation:

In advance:

• order/buy clay 

• order/buy leaf stamps (or gather leaves, you need to dry them a bit before use, but not too dry, or they will become brittle and fall apart)

• cut ribbon into short lengths

• cut a few drinking straws in half (these will be used to make a nice clean hole in the top of the plaques)

On the day:

• pour poster paint onto sponges and work into the sponge, so that it isn't just a blob on top, then place in a plastic tray. I provided just two colours: yellow ochre and brown.

Soaking the paint into the sponges helps to prevent blobby prints

• roll lumps of clay into small balls

• make an example, to show the children, before they begin

Here's the 'one I made earlier'

Method:

1. Help children into paint overalls.

2. Give each child a paper plate, ball of clay and a rolling pin. The paper plate will be used to roll out the clay, but also to take home the finished piece. This avoids making too much mess on the table, but also avoids lifting the clay plaque before it has dried, which could lead to the plaque becoming deformed. A small piece of card could be used as an alternative.

3. Children roll out clay. A round cutter can be used to make a distinct shape, or it can be left as a 'free' shape, which also looks quite visually appealing. Excess clay can be peeled off from around the edge, once the cutter has been pressed in firmly. 

This plaque is a 'free' shape. No cutter used. 

This plaque has been cut to shape with a round cutter.

4. Children make their designs, by pushing collected leaves or leaf stamps into the paint, then into the clay. As you can see from the illustrations, some used more than one stamp, creating various effects.

Another 'free' shape.

 5. Children press the end of the drinking straw into the top of the plaque, to make a hole for the ribbon, which may or may not need to be threaded by an adult. Some of the older children may be able to do this completely by themselves.

6. Write the child's name on the edge of the paper plate, on which the children will take their leaf plaques home to dry.

7. Place the paper plates on the 'home' table, until the end of the session, then use baby wipes to clean up. It is important to be thorough when cleaning up clay, as tiny dry clay particles aren't great for you, when breathed in.

8. If parents and children are returning the next week, you may wish to provide PVA to 'varnish' over the clay, or to quickly varnish them yourself, for them to pick up the following week, although this is not entirely necessary.


*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.