Fireworks and Yankee Doodle: 4th of July Crafts for Toddlers

For the first craft we made fireworks! Well, at least the non-explosive kind :) I found the idea for that here. It was really easy. We just took 4 baking cups (the kind you bake cupcakes in) and flattened them out then used different colored markers to make them colorful. Then we glued the cups onto a black piece of construction paper. After that we took glitter glue and spread it around with our fingers so the fireworks would be sparkly.

The next craft was a little more mommy involved. In my attempt to be festive, I've been singing the boys "Yankee Doodle". Scientist thinks the part about the macaroni is just hilarious, and asks me to sing it to him over and over. So I thought it would be fun to do a Yankee Doodle craft. I had Aaron make both boys a paper hat out of newspaper. (I don't know how, but you could probably Google search for instructions.) Then the boys painted their hats. In order for this to be festive, I only gave them the option of using the red, white, and blue paint. :) When that was dry, I put a line of glue around the bottom of each hat and the boys (Sponge had a lot of help from me) stuck macaroni all around the bottom. Then we glued some feathers to the top.

I was really happy with how the hats turned out. It was kind of a stop and go project. We painted one side of the hats, then had to let that dry so we could flip them over to paint the other side. Then we let that dry, glued one side of macaroni, let that dry, then the other side. And finally the feathers. But it was worth it, and it took a good part of the morning, so in my mind it was a success. We'll see how long the hats last, and how long I find random macaroni noodles strewn about my house. :)

Here are some things we (but probably mostly I) have learned about Yankee Doodle the last couple days.
Lyrics:

Yankee Doodle went to town

A-riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni.

Chorus:
Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy.


Father and I went down to camp
Along with Captain Gooding
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.

Chorus

There was Captain Washington
Upon a slapping stallion
A-giving orders to his men
I guess there were a million.


Chorus

Also a few interesting things from Wikipedia:

"Yankee Doodle" is a well-known Anglo-American song, the origin of which dates back to the Seven Years' War. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today and is the state anthem of Connecticut.

The song's origin is unclear. Traditions place its origin in a pre-Revolutionary War song originally by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War. It is believed that the tune comes from the nursery rhyme Lucy Locket. One version of the Yankee Doodle lyrics is "generally attributed" to Doctor Richard Shuckburgh, a British Army surgeon. According to one story, Shuckburgh wrote the song after seeing the appearance of Colonial troops under Colonel Thomas Fitch, Jr., the son of Connecticut Governor Thomas Fitch.

As a term Doodle first appeared in the early seventeenth century, and is thought to derive from the Low German dudel or dödel, meaning "fool" or "simpleton". The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became contemporary slang for foppishness. The implication of the verse was therefore probably that the Yankees were so unsophisticated that they thought simply sticking a feather in a cap would make them the height of fashion.


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Shaving Cream Paint

I decided we'd do some finger painting so I could try something I've been hearing a lot about lately. That is to mix your poster paint with shaving cream. There are various reasons for doing so....it makes your paint last longer (as in because you only have to use a few drops each time), it gives kids a new texture to work with, it takes away the awful smell of the poster paint, it makes the paint easier to clean up...are the reasons I've heard, and I wanted to give it a try. So I put some shaving cream into two different bowls and then added just a few drops of poster paint to each, one orange and one blue, and stirred it up with my finger so the shaving cream and paint mixed. Then I gave one bowl to each boy. For Sponge, he gets a little wild, so I taped his piece of paper to his high chair tray so it couldn't go anywhere.

The kids had a good time with it. And I will say that most of the above mentioned reasons to mix your paint with shaving cream, I found to be true. I used less paint on this project than when we do straight finger painting, the texture turned out really cool and 3-D which I really liked, after mixing in the shaving cream I could not smell the paint at all which I hate the smell of and it usually takes over my whole house whenever we get the paints out, AND my favorite part of all...the mess was a cinch to clean up. Sponge got paint all over my kitchen table, his high chair tray, himself, his onsie, and in his hair, and just rinsing all those things with water took the paint right off, no scrubbing whatsoever. My real only "concern" is that I'm not sure this mixture will ever actually dry all the way. I might have to spray it with hair spray to keep the "paint" in place, but that wouldn't be too bad.

Pirate Crafts

During the summer months, instead of story time, our local library does craft time for kids 12 and under. Today they had the kids make these adorable pirate hats and pirate hooks. I thought they were so cute and easy that I would share them.

To make a pirate hat all you need is a piece of black construction paper, a white crayon, and some tape. Turn your paper the long way and cut about an inch think strip off the bottom. Then on the rest of the paper trace this shape:

and using the white crayon, color in where all the white parts are, or designs of your own. Then cut it out. Next tape the inch thick strip to either side of the front of the hat so that it fits the child's head. Done and done.

To make a pirate hook you'll need 1 pipe cleaner, tin foil, and a large plastic or paper cup. Make a square out of tin foil that's as long and wide as the pipe cleaner is long. Lay the pipe cleaner on the edge of your tin foil square and tightly wrap the pipe cleaner in tin foil. Poke a hole in the bottom of your cup and feed the tin foiled pipe cleaner through the hole. Bend into a hook shape. Leave enough on the inside of the cup that the kids have something to hold onto.

My boys had such a fun time doing this project. And both were able to help making it to some degree (Scientist my 2 1/2 yr old obviously could do a lot more than Sponge my 1 yr old.) and they loved the finished projects even more. In fact, they wore them all over town while we ran our errands today. :) But I think these ideas are simple as easy enough for a wide age range of kids. They would make great Halloween costume ideas, a good activity for letter P, or just for some fun an old day.


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Dryer Sheet Box Entertainment

Found another Sponge appropriate activity today, that only took about 3 seconds to put together and provided a half hour or more of entertainment. I took an empty dryer sheet box and cut a round hole in the lid, just big enough for a ping pong ball to fit through. Then I gave Sponge the box and a few ping pong balls (you can buy a 6 pack of ping pong balls at Target for $1.98 and they make great toddler toys) and showed him how to drop the ping pong balls into it, and then how to open the lid when he wanted to get them out. He played with that, and I folded laundry. It was a beautiful compromise.

Masking Tape Town

Scientist woke up 45 minutes before Sponge at nap time today. I wanted to keep him occupied and quiet at the same time, so I got down on the floor and played cars with him. The only problem was that after driving all around the living room on my hands and knees, my pregnant back was telling me to call it quits. I decided I'd have an easier time playing if the cars could be contained to driving in a small area. So, I got out the masking tape and made Scientist a little car town. We even set up blocks to be the different places we go, the gas station, Target, Costco, Macey's House (Macey's Grocery Store, Scientist calls it Macey's House for some reason), The Mending Shed, etc. It wasn't my intent to make it look like a face, but that's how it came out. Scientist deemed that the "mouth" was a big sandbox and had all the cars/trucks pick up sand from there and go dump them at different locations. He also spent a lot of time filling up each car with gas. He was so into it that I didn't even have to play, I just watched. He played really well with the little car town, until Sponge woke up and promptly began pulling all the tape off of the carpet.

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Toddler Train

Since Sponge started walking he's been a lot more insistent on being part of things. So I've been trying really hard to do a few activities each week that target him specifically, and then also finding ways to involve him in what I'm doing with Scientist.


This morning while I was trying to get ready for the day, Sponge was on a rampage and needed a distraction. So I took a 5 minute break from getting ready and made him a toddler train. I got the idea out of The Toddler's Busy Book: 365 Creative Games and Activities to Keep Your 1 1/2 to 3 Year Old Busy by Trish Kuffner. I like this book a lot, I'll do a review on it one of these days.

To make a Toddler Train you'll need:

3 or more assorted boxes (I made boxes out of sheets of card stock, and I only had two)

String, ribbon, or yarn

Plastic straw
Scissors

Use scissors or another pointed object to poke small holes in the ends of each box. Insert about a foot of string, ribbon, or yarn, into the back hole of the first box, then tie the end of the string around a short piece of plastic straw to prevent it from pulling through the hole. Insert the other end of the string through the front hole of the next box and fasten it in the same way. Use more string to continue connecting boxes until the train is finished. Use a longer length of string for the front hole of the first box. Tie a cylindrical wooden block or small plastic vitamin bottle to the end of the string for a handle.

I couldn't convince him that it would be cool to pull his toys in his train, but the empty train kept him busy for the next 25 minutes while I finished getting ready, so I'm not going to complain.


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