Arts-N-Crafts: School Projects

Eversince the little miss started attending formal school (aka traditional school), we have had very limited arts and crafts sessions. Maybe it's the packed weekends. Or me subconsciously choosing to stay lazy on most weekends. Or maybe it's the no TV/cellphone/computer rule during school days. Or probably all of the above. But as I look back at the year that just past, I couldn't recall any particular project that we really labored on as mom and daughter.

Despite the lack of artsy activities at home, I'm happy to report that her school still gives her opportunities to channel out her creativity through regular arts and crafts sessions. These activities are the teacher's way of gauging their motor skills and they're usually being rated on how well they'd cut, paste, apply glue, color within lines, if they can hold crayons and scissors properly, pick tiny glitters and eyes.

Now that she's in kindergarten already, the art projects have become more complicated. But I'm really happy to see that the kid showed huge improvements every time she'd take home one finished project after another. It makes me feel like all those bonding sessions every weekend doing nothing but art was all worth it. Well, not that I was really counting on it coming in handy later on. Those were still moments I deeply cherish with or without the benefit that we are reaping of late.

Anyways, moving on. Let me just share with you a couple of projects I managed to document. In Maia's school, we are often required to provide the materials (the teacher sends us a note a week before the activity) since they were not included in the school supplies list that we have to complete during the opening of the school year.

learning addition is fun! (cutting and pasting exercise using construction paper)

Christmas activity (cutting and pasting)
(wreath made from paper plate and christmas wrapping paper and silk ribbon)

Everytime there's a note that says bring tissue paper roll,
my heart gives a silent jump for joy. My hoarding of paper tubes is justified.
This particular activity was a test of painting, brushing, drawing, and gluing.

How they are graded on these particular activities

Adding is fun! And on the right side is a test on cutting and pasting and tracing.

Care to share the art activities your kids enjoy most?

Arts-N-Crafts: Primp-Up-My-Rockies

When Maia was still a toddler, our house converted to a daycare during the afternoons. Maia had made friends with several village kids and they soon became regulars in our household. I never worried about my little girl's social interaction then because she was with a playgroup every day. Her inherently shy demeanor started to fade away as we began to notice that she's started warming up to other kids easily. I can also tell how influential this daily interaction with other kids was to improving her communication skills. She soon became really verbal. She looked forward to these play dates everyday but all that had to end abruptly when Ate Inday left. The kid had to quickly learn to be by herself and instead make imaginary friends to invite to her 'parties'. She coped well with the changes in her environment and we could tell that she finally was having fun on her own but we also know how she longed to be with real kids to play tag, fight over toys and have real conversations with. Now that Ate Inday's back (yes, she's back! yipee!), imagine her delight. It's been two weeks and our house has never been without a kid since! The daycare resumed operations! :)

Even on a weekend, we had a kid over.  So last Saturday while Shea (Maia's BFF) spent the morning with us, I took the opportunity to inject something creative into the kids' day by giving them painting duties. I took out some stones that I brought back from our Antique vacation last April and everyone got busy primping up their little rockies. Even Ate Inday joined in the fun!

Maia, Shea and Ate Inday's masterpieces

What You Will Need:

• Stones (flat ones are better)
• Poster/tempera paint
• Googly eyes/Buttons/Beads
• Tinsel decor I saved from a few Christmases ago
• Ribbons
• Glue
• Scissors
• Paint brush
• Used newspapers

How to do it:

1. Cover the area where you plan to do the activity with used newspapers, grab a stone and paint it with your favorite color.

2. Let it dry in the sun for a few minutes.

3. While you're waiting for your little rocks to dry, the kids can be occupied by free style painting. In our case, we just handed them some scratch papers and they painted away.

Check out Shea's artwork. Isn't that pretty?

This was a funny scene. While Maia was painting on her paper,
I think she suddenly recalled their wet-on-wet painting sessions at St Michael.
She started with "Over the meadow"...
long pause, then she goes "ano nga sunod nun Mommy?" (what comes after that again, Mommy?)
I had to stifle a laugh because I know Maia always gets self-conscious when she hears us laugh over her witty/funny remarks.

4. When the rockies dried up, they each took their stones and started decorating it till their heart's content.

little girl was so engrossed with primping up her rockie

5. Primped up rockies can be made into paperweights and even as storytelling characters. Just let your kid's imagination flow!

Maia and Shea enjoyed this activity. They even showed their masterpieces to Shea's mom when she came to pick Shea up. Next time when I have more kids over, I'll have more art activities ready so they'd always look forward to spending a day in our house (talk of bribery no?). That way, the little kid will stop pressuring me and her dad to buy babies at the palengke (marketplace). Works well for me (since I am on the win-win side here).

Daddy's Corner: Truckie from Trash

Yes, Maia is a girl. But we would like to teach our kid gender equality even at this early age, so we let her play with whatever kid-friendly toy she pleases. 

I guess my being a pack rat (and a lover for trash - no pun intended) has somehow rubbed on my husband that nowadays when he sees unused boxes he immediately thinks of making a toy out of it for Maia.

So today, as we were packing away Christmas decors and making some space to store our Christmas tree in our bedroom he found a small box that he thought would be great to make a truck out of. Maia is of course excited. Despite her being a girl, yes she's a big fan of Cars too. And there was a point in her babyhood when she loved watching all types of vehicles pass by. When we were having a hard time putting her to sleep, her dad would take her out to see the truckies and cars and come home with a baby quietly sleeping in his arms.

So anyways, from that 2 small boxes, 3 tissue paper rolls and a couple of metal fasteners he was able to come up with this:

Hey there, Mr. Truckie. You need a paint job!

Fasteners from my craft box. I knew they would come in handy!

The little girl is now busy playing with her truckie. She's so far transported some animals for her mini-zoo. And drove Hetty, Woody, her toy blocks around for (probably) some sight-seeing. She's refused to nap because she's just too busy playing tour guide to her 'friends'. 

can you see ms. elephant in there?

taking Hetty on a spin

Oh well, she does deserve more play time after recovering from her tummy flu so I just let her be. No nap equates to an early bedtime for us anyways so it's a win-win for me. 

How's your weekend going so far?

A Project For Her Prince

I had a really grand plan (this crafting thing has really bitten me big-time) for this little surprise of ours but tummy flu got in the way so we had to settle for this. At least in was still handmade. I hope Maia's prince will like it because the little miss really did make the effort to prettify it. 

She's really excited to hand this over to our birthday boy tomorrow. (times like this I'm happy my husband never reads this blog. lolz)

She sealed it with a kiss, Daddy Prince!