Now that summer has said farewell, we were anxious to try out this fun, sensory craft project that we can actually use to decorate the garden as it slips into autumn mode. For this project we used …

Now that summer has said farewell, we were anxious to try out this fun, sensory craft project that we can actually use to decorate the garden as it slips into autumn mode. For this project we used …

DIY Seed Bombs using air dry clay for kids! This fun activity is perfect for Earth Day or to start of your spring and summer planting!

Now that summer has said farewell, we were anxious to try out this fun, sensory craft project that we can actually use to decorate the garden as it slips into autumn mode. For this project we used …

Now that summer has said farewell, we were anxious to try out this fun, sensory craft project that we can actually use to decorate the garden as it slips into autumn mode. For this project we used …

Create stunning autumn leaf trinket dishes with this easy DIY project. Use oven-bake or air-dry clay and leaves from your yard to add a touch of nature to your home.

DIY Seed Bombs using air dry clay for kids! This fun activity is perfect for Earth Day or to start of your spring and summer planting!

Learn how to make wildflower seed bombs with air dry clay. Making seed bombs is a quick and simple craft, and a great way to garden with your kids!

This clay frog is so cute! A frog clay sculpture is the perfect introduction to sculpting. Made with air dry clay, and painted with acrylic paint, it's a fun craft for both kids and adults and makes a great addition to any froggy knickknack collection. Clay Frogs Frogs are cute amphibians that are known for their hopping skills. Did you know that there are over 5,000 species of frogs?! You can find them on every continent, except Antarctica, living in all types of climates - from tropical forests to deserts. We made these clay frogs using our homemade clay recipe,

Learn how to make wildflower seed bombs with air dry clay. Making seed bombs is a quick and simple craft, and a great way to garden with your kids!

DIY Seed Bombs using air dry clay for kids! This fun activity is perfect for Earth Day or to start of your spring and summer planting!

A diy toad house for the garden, using a recycled container, foil, air dry clay, acrylic paint, with polymer clay embellishments. Making your abode In an attem…

Make these DIY seed-growing clay hearts for Valentine's Day or other special occasions! Its a great way to give and plant flowers using air-dry clay.

Clay cactus sculpture tutorial.

My little girl has been obsessed with salt dough & clay for a long time. When she turned 2, we even threw her a Play-doh themed birthday. Through the years, we have experimented with various homemade clays & doughs and recently have tried working with some store bought polymer and now air dry clay. She […]

Learn how to make your own doodled clay bowls!

Make these DIY seed-growing clay hearts for Valentine's Day or other special occasions! Its a great way to give and plant flowers using air-dry clay.

Unleash your creativity with our DIY dragon eggs tutorial! This kid-friendly craft transforms beads and air-dry clay into fantasy-like treasures, perfect for any adventurer's collection.

After we explored Diwali, as seen in the last post, we displayed what we did and learned. Another holiday celebrated by friends in our room was Ramadan! You can see what we learned about each celebration in the pictures. We also had a friend who celebrated Kwanzaa. While I pulled out children to test for report cards, our substitute teacher had family members who celebrated Hanukkah! I had him teach the kids all about it! He taught them The Dreidel Song which they sung over and over for the next week! He also taught them how to play dreidel! They LOVED this game and it had so many math concepts connected to it! Addition, subtraction, and the concept of half. Next we looked at how the holiday of Christmas was celebrated in different areas around the world. We learned about Los Posados in Mexico and read "The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomi DePaola. They were able to use art mediums to show what they noticed about a poinsettia and created beautiful still life paintings! Unfortunately, I did not get photos of their beautiful art. We learned about some Christmas traditions in Italy! We learned that because we have a population from so many countries here in the United States, many of our traditions have come from all over the world! As we recorded what we learned, the kids either helped read it and highlight sight words, or as you saw in the photos above, they helped spell some of the words by either filling in missing sight words or missing sounds and blends within words. Here is our finished display showing celebrations around the world! Kwanzaa actually originated in the United States, but I pointed it to Africa as they are celebrating their African heritage. The rest of the kids projects were displayed all over our room! A group of kids wanted to turn our Dramatic Play Area into Santa's Workshop. Since I was testing for report cards, they had to do this without much help from me! I was really proud of how well they did independently! Below you can see them brainstorming and creating a list of what they need to create a Santa's Workshop. Now THIS is writing for a reason! It does not get more authentic than this. Play is when kids get to practice the skills they are learning! I found them a box as they told me Santa needed a sleigh to deliver toys to everyone! A wonderful friend of mine supervised this for me! The kids took a spare piece of cardboard we cut off of the box to make Santa's sleigh and made it into a door for the workshop. I love the writing on the door! Again, authentic use of a skill! The kids then loaded up the sleigh with toys and a globe so that they knew where to deliver the toys! Some kids acted as reindeer, pretending to pull the sleigh. They quickly learned that is was much easier to push the sleigh! They had to explore with the force of pushing and pulling for a while! There was much problem solving as they had to figure out how many could travel around the room in the sleigh and how full of toys it could be! They had to organize who could go and who had to wait. They had to problem solve how to maneuver the sleigh around the obstacles all over out room such as chairs and tables. They were very perseverant! The 21st Century Learning Skills that took place with this little side project amazed me! Creative and critical thinking, leadership skills, collaboration, problem solving and handling disappointment gracefully were the ones I saw the most of! This is why play and projects are so important, not only in education but at home! Look at all of the skills that they used, not to mention the pride they felt in what they created and accomplished independently with just a bit of guidance and encouragement from me! All of the celebrations we studied centered around good deeds, helping others, lights, spending time with those you love and giving. The kids painted self portraits as a gift to their families. They can be used as a Christmas ornament or can be displayed as a beautiful piece of art! They made these adorable gift bags to put the gifts in! Here are some other holiday experiences put out in our room to explore! A loom with ribbon and bead necklaces and a christmas tree with beads and wire were set out for the kids to use to create some beauty! Both of these experiences focused on developing the kid's fine motor skills. The more the kids play with tablets rather than coloring, drawing, playing with play dough, etc, the harder time they have with holding a pencil, paint brush, or crayon which really affects their abilities to write, color, draw and create! Because of this, providing experiences to develop these muscles and improve their pincher grasp are so important! As you can see below, the concept of weaving the ribbons in and out of the holes was very difficult for them! I will provide more weaving experiences to see if we can remedy this! Another fine motor experience that I put out was crushing holiday spices! They had to work hard to grind them up! Here they had to write a recipe showing how many of each spice they used, crush the spice, and then they could walk around the room and let everyone smell their spice mix! Again, you can see the purposeful writing as they wrote directions and labels for this area. When we were done grinding spices, I used them as a science invitation to look closer and document what they noticed. I set up a STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Math) Challenge in our building area! The tallest tree ended up being 49 inches! When the challenge was over, they still loved using the cups to create! Our Math Challenge: How many bows long is your friend? Another Math Challenge was on our Engineering Table. What 3-D Shapes can you make with the cranberries and toothpicks! Only one was able to figure out how! Many could create 2-D, but 3-D was pretty difficult! Another friend found directions to follow with one of our engineering tools and created a cube! In our Literacy Area, the kids are working on handwriting skills. With the experience below, they had to create the letters by making the lines the correct way and then also put the beads on going the correct way. The kids created sight words using these materials. We took a picture of the sight words they made and put them on the promethium board. Whoever made the sight words would point to them and see if the others could read them. It was almost like a word search puzzle with some being backwards and upside down! They did it on purpose as a challenge! Another favorite game is called "Stack-It." The kids pick a cup. If they can read the word, they can add it to the building. If they can't read the word, they put it aside. Our next step is to have them record some of the words they don't know to practice with a friend. I loved the experience below. It was such a perfect example of how learning happens and is shown through play! This friend brought up these velcro hair rollers that they had been building with and said, "Look Mrs. Myers! 3 and 3 and 3 make 9! I have also been noticing that their structures in our engineering and building areas have been getting more complex! They are working in teams and collaborating together on their own projects as they work in these areas! The two friends who worked on the structure below pointed out how they added an AB pattern to their design. Look how proud they are!!! We also had an amazing Christmas Program because we have the best Music Teacher ever! She poured her heart and soul into this and it showed! The kids loved it and performed beautifully! I hope that you all have had an amazing holiday season! Happy New Year to you all!

Have you ever wondered how to use seed balls? I've seen seed ball recipes before but I have never been quite sure how to use them.

This listing is for one set of 2 or 4 Animal Crossing magnets. The two designs available are the Pitfall Seed and the Fossil. These magnets were handmade using polymer clay. They measure approximately 1 inch. These should be handled with care, as they are handmade (: ------------------------------------------ Note: Please know that this hand-made product may vary slightly from the pictures and should be treated with care. This item is made to order.

Have you ever heard of seed bombs? Basically, they are balls made out of clay, compost, and seeds. They can be tossed anywhere you have a large area you’d like to cover with flowers, etc. Apparently, seed bombs were first used in the 70’s to “bomb” large vacant lots in New York City with flowers–they Read More >>

Dinosaur fossils with air dry clay is a super simple activity for toddlers and preschoolers that will occupy your kiddos for a while!

Use air-dry clay to make a set of handmade coasters. This DIY project is made with air-dry clay and a flowers to imprint in the clay.

Make this easy Christmas star wall hanging with air dry clay, string, and a branch or antler.

Yes, I know, last week we had our adorable SPRING BUNNY coloring pages… today we have a wonderful EASTER BUNNY coloring pages created for you by Easy Peasy and Fun. Uhm, what’s the difference, I hear you ask… well, nothing really, apart from that they are two different designs and I promise you – one...

Explosión de colores, de fantasías, de aromas de bosque y cerezas, de sonrisas, de ilusión y mucha satisfacción por el trabajo realiz...

There’s something truly magical about crafting with clay, and when it comes to finding inspiration for new projects, there’s no better source than nature itself. That’s why weR…

Handmade Christmas ornaments are easy and fun to make. Use these crafts to decorate your home for the holidays. Discover silver nature-inspired ornaments, felted animals, ribbons, rosettes, and more.

Looking for easy and fun clay crafts ideas? Check out these DIY clay crafts ideas! From simple figurines to intricate designs, there's a clay project for everyone. So get your hands dirty and have some fun!

Strawberry Shake Handmade Hand Painted Clay Leaf Ring Dish Trinket Dish card Holder Made of air dry clay Hand Painted with Acrylic paint to look as close as possible to a real Strawberry Shake leaf Finished with resin for shine and protection Unique and one of a kind. Each piece is completely different. Perfect gift to any plant or art collector It measures 7.5x4 inches Not appropriate for food consumption. Clean with moist cloth. Keep away from moisture From a smoke free home Free shipping domestically

These air dry clay handprint ornaments make the most adorable keepsakes and Christmas gifts!