Nannies Created: Glue

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Dinosaur eggs

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

One of my current charges favourite things at the moment is Dinosaurs! If you need to know anything about dinosaurs such as Who eats meat?, Who eats plants?, How did dinosaurs die?, Which dinosaur is the biggest? Etc etc then J is the little man to ask ( warning he will become a friend for life if you ask too many questions though!)

There's only so much dinosaurs stomping roaring and hatching from an egg I can take, So I needed to find something which would not only keep J interested but was also going to let his twins sister M and I move away and do something different.

M and J have started school this year so time for arts and crafts and other such activities has become limited, that's when I decided we would do something which could be done in stages.

Paper mâché is one of my pet hates - I can't stand the stuff it's boring, sticky and takes forever!

But every child has to experience it at some point in their lives, so now was the time to use it to create Dinosaur eggs.

As it was the first time for J and M, I kept it small and went with the flow. I started by blowing up 3 small balloons, and cutting up large pieces of kitchen paper and set to work glueing the paper onto the balloon, I told them both they have to cover it until you couldn't see any of the colour from the balloons - this took about 3 layers and LOTS of glue.

I would recommend a few more layers to make them stronger but attention span was fading (me just as much as the children)

We then hung them up to dry over the weekend, I explained we needed to let the eggs "grow" and get stronger before they become real dinosaur eggs. (Just to add to the imagination they don't really grow but do become stronger as they dry)

By the time I had returned on Monday they had dried and were harder, so we set about decorating the "eggs" with a bit of colour, I let J and M chose their own colours and we all painted them differently, once all painted again we hung them to dry overnight.

Once the paint had dried it was time to find out if all our hard work was about to pay off or become a complete waste of time.

I carefully popped the balloon and watched in anticipating as the "egg" held its shape!

We have since been using our dinosaur eggs to add to the dinosaur world/islands and dinosaur figures for small world imaginative play. Because we all decided on different colours J says that this is because there are different dinosaurs inside each - Diplodocus, Triceritops, and T-Rex to name a few.

3D modelling

I've been collecting alot of resources lately so we could do some recycled model making, and have finally got round to finding the time to a larger project.

I let the children freely design and make what they wanted to make and explained to them to ask if they needed help but otherwise they can do what ever they wanted.

I set about making my own model so I could role model some skills to them.

I spoke to the children about what they had chose to make and asked what they felt they needed. M made a pig out of an egg box and J made a volcano. ( I made a crocodile).

At just turned 4years old there was a lot of the activity which the children could do themselves therefore only needing little bits of help to hold bits in place whilst they sourced the glue tape or other materials.

Although they took a while to get going and keeping themselves engaged with the activity they finally achieved their creations and were very proud to take ownership of their models at the end.

We used a large selection of resources but you could provide your child with as much or as little as you'd like, here's a few of the things we used...

*various shapes and sizes of boxes

*felt

*glue (PVA, tacky glue and stick)

*foam shapes

*various papers or shapes, sizes, colours and textures

*scissors - both straight and patterned

*sticky tape

*coloured tape.

There is some much that can be done with a few things that would have otherwise gone in the recycling bin or are laying in the back of the art cupboard for that special activity that your never do!

Let your child's imagination run wild.

Number collage

Here's a way of learning numbers in a creative way and best of all the children won't even realise they are learning!

I found these fantastic large numbers on Twinkl http://www.twinkl.co.uk/ and had planned to update our number line but my mind was blank on the best way to use them and make them inviting enough to encourage two 3 year olds to actually go to them and use them.

So instead I thought about how I could use then as an alternative learning tool. Then it came to me whilst collecting materials for collaging (another post coming soon) why not use them to collage with. Collaging and glue based activities is something I seem to forget about I tend to head for paints first.

I had some great pieces of large square scrap booking paper which were perfect for these large numbers. So set this activity up for the 3 year olds.

Straight away they were naming the numbers they were using and at times were even arguing over who was having which number and whether they were having the blue ones or pink ones (yes girls have pink and boys blue!! - Why did I pick these ones?)

Anyway enough arguments. The first numbers are being finally stuck down, I'm then asked by M "what do we have to do?" I respond asking "what do you mean? You just use the numbers to make your pictures" M says "Do we have to use are finger?" She then uses her finger to 'write' the number over the top!
Perfect! I wasn't expected this so is an added bonus to what I expected the outcome to be.
Then she gets the glue and carefully drizzles it over the number two again following the way it forms.

Once they had both finished and used up all the available numbers J was talking about what numbers he had and which numbers M had. We then used to art work to discuss which numbers were missing from each one too.

I liked the way that they both tried not to cover the numbers with other numbers where they could and were really concentrating on the space they had and the way they were going to arrange it.

To extend this learning further...
- Encourage the numbers to be put in the correct order
- Use two numbers to discuss what bigger numbers they are eg. 10, 11,12 etc
- Encourage addition, subtraction, multiplying and dividing by using some numbers used

Collaging

We used Metallic card and Metallic Confetti shapes to create our Reflective Shiny collage pictures.

Recycled art!

I'm not one for throwing away children's art work so seem to have kept nearly every painting and collage produced over the last two years. Although they have been "filed" away into individual child's folders they they are still just there!

So I came up with the idea to produce new pieces of art with the old ones whilst teaching new skills and developing all areas of development (plus I'm doing my bit to recycle too.)

I chose a few pieces which were bright and colourful and cut them up to small pieces and presented them on a tray with some glue and black card and freely allowed the children to create their pieces.

I also let the children chose some of their own art work to cut up and practise our cutting skills which we have recently been learning too.

One of our final pieces which I then displayed on the wall in the play area to create our own art gallery with a range of recent creations.

Both children are very pleased to see their creations displayed and show them to everyone that comes into the room, creating a great topic of conversation whilst developing better communication skills.

Drizzle Glue

PVA Glue
Poster Paint

Mix together PVA glue with small amounts of poster paint to create coloured glue
using glue spreaders drizzle the glue onto the paper

Collage

*Old Magazines
*Children's scissors
*Glue stick
*Paper/Card

A great activity which helps children to learn to use scissors,
This also allows them to create their own pictures and scenes with the pictures
they have cut out, or this could be a great way to create a wish lists for
birthdays and Christmas.

We've been using these spring loaded scissors from Yellow Moon

http://www.yellowmoon.org.uk/product-Spring-Loaded-Scissors-D8633.htm