Binoculars & Telescopes

Take your Ankle Biters on an adventure!
Hi Friends!  Long time no blog....been super busy lately, but I'm back with this new tutorial in which I'll show you two different ways to construct fun binoculars and telescopes.  Both methods can be used for either.  The binocular tutorial is the way I'd do this project with a pre-school class.  Because project time may be limited and you may have a large class, I'd put together the base binoculars during my prep-time and let the children decorate them.  If you have an assistant or lots of project time, the children could absolutely do the construction themselves with a bit of help...they would look wonky and awesome.  The telescopes are less involved than the binoculars.  This method leaves the construction after the decoration, but both are easy.  In addition to the supply list and instructions, I'll provide some fun activities to go along with this craft project.  Here we go!

SUPPLIES:

• Paper towel & toilet paper rolls
• Plain white drawing paper
• Glue - rubber cement (if you are putting them together) or glue sticks
• Drawing utensils - crayons, colored pencils or markers
• Stickers (optional)
• Stapler
• Hole punch
• Ribbon or string

BINOCULARS 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.) Use two toilet paper rolls or cut a paper towel roll in half.

2.) Cut two lengths of paper long enough to cover the circumference of the of the rolls and wide enough that there is at least an inch extra on each side (you'll be tucking these in later)

3. & 4.) If using rubber cement, cover the rolls with the rubber cement and the whole page with a thin layer and let dry before putting them together (this is the trick).  It holds better and if you mess up, just pull the paper up and you'll be able to re-adhere without needing to re-apply more glue.  A glue stick woll totally work, I just happen to love rubber cement...it's one of my favorite things.

5.) Add the rolls to the center of the paper.

6.) Roll the tubes attaching them to the paper and trim any excess.

7.) Tuck in the paper on the sides.

8.) Add a line of glue to one of the tubes (optional...this is just for better hold)

9.) Press them together

10.) Staple the two tubes together where they meet in the center.

11.) Punch a hole on the outside of each tube (not too close to the end to avoid ripping).

12.) Tie the ends of the ribbon or string (measured to the appropriate length of the child, allowing them to easily put on over their head and take off) in the punched holes.

13.) Decorate. The end.

TELESCOPE

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.) If you are using legal sized white paper, you probably won't have to cut the paper towel roll down, but I just had regular sized printing paper, so I did.  Cut about an inch or inch and a half off the tip of the roll.  You'll want to have the extra paper on the sides (for tucking) just like the binoculars.

2.) Trim the paper lengthwise leaving enough to cover the circumference of the roll without having too much overlap (because you'll end up covering up some of the drawing).

3.) Have the children decorate the trimmed piece of paper.  Love my excellent drawing skills?  Yeah, me too.  I've somehow forgotten how to draw since college, but it was never really my strong suite to begin with.  Anyway, back to telescopes!

4.) Add some glue along the bottom of the backside of the drawing and attach the tube to the center of the paper (leaving extra paper on the sides to tuck in later).

5.) Add glue to the surface of the tube and roll it up adding more glue as you need it.

6.) Glue the bit of overlap and finish rolling the tube up in the paper.

Tuck in the edges of the paper and you are done.

ACTIVITY IDEAS! 

All of these can be used as fun educational games or just plan ole pass the time games.  Use your imagination and have fun!

• Play Eye Spy!
• Hide a "treasure," make an X marks the spot map and be Pirates on a treasure hunt!
• Place toy animals all over and go on Safari!
• "Going on a Bear Hunt" - interactive song!  I use to do this with my pre-school classes and they LOVED IT.  Learn this song....it's easy and repetitive and leaves room for ad-libbing.  Copy him or make it your own.  Commit to the hand gestures and body movement...sure it's great for their gross motor skills, but they'll think you are the most fun thing since bubbles and Elmo.  This is the original video below, but there are lots of version on YouTube for you to choose from.

                    

Have fun & get messy!

:-)

Miss Jenna

St. Patrick's Day Fun

Hello Friends!

I came across this amazingly delish looking rainbow fruit platter on Gluesticks and simply had to share it.  It's a great activity for you to do with your ankle biters for a St. Patty's day party (or just to enjoy at home).  What kid wouldn't want to help make this?  I want to make this!  Check out the other projects that Brandy (of Gluesticks) has on that link as well.  Rainbow painting, pots of gold and leprechauns are a must for St. Patrick's Day crafts.  I dropped the ball on getting together some crafty ideas in time for this luck-filled holiday, so I'm resorting to sharing Brandy's with you instead.  There is a lot going on in my world right now...busy busy...  Enjoy!

Have fun & get messy!
:-)
Miss Jenna

Kid Talk

Do you need to laugh today, giggle or at least crack a smile?  Well my friends, do I have a treat for you! Today, I was looking through my huge scrapbook from my pre-school teaching days and I found the book (yes...book) that my Director (Miss Janet) printed out for me of all the wonderfully silly kid quotes that she and I collected and compiled throughout the years.  If you've ever been around pre-school aged children, you know that they can be funnier than the best professional comedians.  I mean...seriously...the way they butcher the English language is genius!  Whenever one of my little lovelies spouted a linguistic gem, I would write it down immediately...and I mean verbatim...specifically writing out the mis-spellings and marking inflection.  My little bits of paper gold would be placed in their special place on Janet's desk and a day or two later I'd hear her howl with laughter as she read through them all.  This was absolutely one of my favorite things about that job.  So without further ado, allow me to present the first batch of Kid Talk...

REPORTING INFORMATION:

"I have a tadoo!" (tattoo)

"May name broke down."

"I cut it with sidders."

"I saw a apple-puss!" (octopus)

"Siesta is how you say New York in French." (huh?)

"Jimbo's are elephants!" (Dumbo's...I think)

"This is Farari Week." (safari week)

"Thank you very welcome!" (gotta love good maners!)

"He called me a BIG FAT!!!"

"A critter is a jumphopper."

"Turkeys go 'boggle-boggle'." (or...gobble-gobble?)

"I've been learning about Overhand Lincoln."

"Guys, your noise is giving me a fever!" (I feel your pain little one)

"I LOVE to do arting!" (art table)

"I stabbed my toe!"

"It's NOT a concept!" (contest)

"I can whistle backwards!"

"A bull shark even has HORNS!"

"Eskimos live in an Egg-Loo."

"A critter is a bug that crits around and crawls on legs."

"Do you know what color hair I have?  I'm blind!" (blonde)

"Oh, did I say I love you when it's Valence Day?"

"Lizards are echos."

"I've got my hand-shoes on!" (gloves on hands in the "shoe store" dramatic play area)

(talking about milking cows) "They squeeze the gutters!"

"I have pretty good taste bugs." (or buds)

"There was a REALLY mean wiggard!" (wizard)

"It was a big hungry nap...you know...REALLY big and hungry!" (???)

"Can I be the Pazoose?" (caboose)

(in a sing-song to eeny, meeny, miney, mo) "Catch a tiger by the mo."

"You be the monkey, okay?  Then you can be the monkey's uncle!" (yes, really. They were playing in the "pet hospital" dramatic play area)

"Chickens are very instershing...they go back and forth to find food...and when they come back with the food sometimes the make a friend! Sometimes it's a duck, they're not like chickens anymore!"

....aaand, your welcome.  :-)  I hope you all have a beautiful day and don't forget to have fun and get messy!

~ Miss Jenna ~

Recycled Bottle Cap Glue Project

In my first blog post for Ankle Biter Art, I wrote about Process vs. Product in children's art.  To try to make it short and sweet, the process a child goes through in working with their hands and creating a piece of art (for example: getting tactilely involved with the supplies, experimenting and getting messy, working independently from start to finish) is SO much more important than the visual outcome of the artwork or 'product'.  It may not be a magnificent "fridge worthy" masterpiece or be anything recognizable to us adults with expectations.  It might be a downright glue puddle mess or have a hole worn through from too much paint....but these things don't matter, because in this creative freedom, a lot of learning happens.

So, Process vs. Product....and this project absolutely falls under 'process'.  It's not a "pretty" art project, but it's still a good one for several reasons.  One of them being that bottle caps are actually surprisingly difficult to recycle.  I had heard that before, so I did some quick research and found this helpful article that explains why.  I also incorporated sorting as part of the steps in accomplishing this project.  Simple sorting is an important component of early childhood science and math and a lot of pre-schools incorporate sorting activities into their curriculum.  "Simple sorting and classification are fundamental concepts that help children to organize their thinking about the real world."

SUPPLIES:

• A variety of bottle caps in different sizes - I collected my caps for a month or two and stashed them in the closet until I had enough.
• Full strength white glue
• Glue brushes
• A really sturdy base - I used the stiff cardboard backing from a pad of Bristol board that I had, but you could also save your Styrofoam produce or meat trays (washed & dried).  They work really well and you get to do some more recycling!
• Glitter (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.) Have the children sort the bottle caps by size

2.) Glue the caps to the base.  {TIP} The bottle caps adhere best if they are glued with the flat side down.  I recommend showing the children an example of this, otherwise you'll end up with bottle caps popping off very easily.  Whether or not they they follow the example is another story and if not, no biggie.  This is one of those freedom ("open ended" as we called it when I taught pre-school) projects.  Remember...PROCESS!  :-)

Sam did some nesting and built up while Molly kept her caps flat and singular.  I love to observe the difference in process between these two...age and personality play a big part, but I find it interesting.

3.) Glitter (optional) and let dry.  This project can sometimes take a LONG time to dry depending on how much love your ankle biter had for glue puddles, so keep them out of reach until they are completely dry, otherwise you might have a sad friend when it all falls apart. 

....and there you have it!  Have fun & get messy!

:-)

Miss Jenna

Spring Time Collage

This week all of the birds in my city started singing their feathers off...a friend said he felt like Julie Andrews walking out of his house to all of the chirping.  "The hilllllls are alive...."  The weather has also warmed up quite a bit here in Florida (to my great disappointment) and the other day my husband saw two cats gettin' busy in the middle of the street...wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?  HELLO SPRING!

I was able to get together with my little Ankle Biter Art helpers today and I thought it only fitting to do Spring inspired collages.  We had a little conversation about Spring and had a brief lesson in collages....making a whole picture out of separate elements.

col*lage (noun)

a form of art in which various materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric are arranged and stuck to a backing.

A few posts ago, I shared a few collage crafting tips, one of which was saving and cutting up empty tissue boxes.  These little bits of paper treasure were our principle paper sources for our collages.

SUPPLIES:

• Variety of collage papers - like magazine clippings, cut up tissue boxes, decorative scrapbook paper, wall paper scraps, paint swatches, etc...
• Card stock weight paper
• Glue sticks
• Colored pencils

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.)  Adhere paper scraps to the card stock with the glue stick.

2.)  When the artist is satisfied with their composition, they can further decorate their picture with some colored pencils.

The End.  Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Have fun, get messy and enjoy Spring!

:-)  

Miss Jenna

Valentine's Day Activity

Hi Friends!  I came across this cute and delicious Valentine version of Bingo on Tip Junkie and wanted to share it with you.  Kids would LOVE this game and I also think it would make a fun classroom holiday activity...if they were allowed to have the candy.  All you need is the printed out Conversation Bingo sheet (you'll find the link below) and those colorful and disgusting delicious Valentine hearts with the love sayings!

Click HERE to download the FREE printable and get instructions from The Party Animal!

Have fun & get messy!

:-) 

Miss Jenna

Valentine's Day embroidery hoop wall art hangings

I've been busy visiting family this past week, so my crafting time has been preoccupied with the beach, cocktails and other fun.  Also...today is Superbowl Sunday, so clearly I won't be picking up my glue gun.  Instead my husband and I will be cheering on the Steelers along with our good friends Jeff & Amy (but they are Packer fans, so I'll also be busy wiping their tears) ;-)

BUT...since the love fest holiday is fast approaching, I didn't want to go any longer without sharing another Valentine's Day gift idea for you to do with your ankle biters.  I came across these cute wall hangings on Mod Podge Rocks!  I thought they looked fun to make and relatively easy for young ones (perhaps with a bit of help).  If you end up trying this craft out, let me know how it turned out.  OH!  Post photos of your project on Ankle Biter Art's Facebook wall :-)

Click HERE for supplies & instructions.

Have fun & get messy!

:-)

Miss Jenna

2-7-2011  Okay...so Jeff & Amy ended up having to wipe OUR tears during the Superbowl. Congratulations to The Packers! Our Steelers have plenty of Championship rings anyway ;-)