Melted Snowman

Things have been rather quiet here at the Zoo as the the Zebra has been poorly and not felt like doing any crafts. She's luckily getting better so we did a quick make this afternoon!

For the melted snowman you obviously need white paint! This is best painted onto dark card or paper - we went for dark green grass. We used some pink ribbon and paper to make a hat and scarf, then some mini Pom-poms for buttons, orange triangle for nose, and of course, googley eyes! Oh, and don't forget the glitter...

 Really easy to paint this one - I let the zebra use a sponge brush to swish the white all over the card.

After that we used silver and blue glitter, because it's not a toddler craft without some glitter!

To help develop the fine motor skills, I got the Zebra to dip the snowman parts in glue and stick onto the card. It doesn't matter where they go as the snowman is now a puddle!

And here it is - a sparkly, glittery, melted snowman 

Cold as Ice

Brrrr!!! It certainly has turned cold today, so our craft is reflecting how we feel - Frozen.

Frozen themes only need two colours - blue, and white to give different shades of blue.

With one piece of blue paper I used masking tape to make snowflake shapes. For the other piece I cut a toilet roll to make a snowflake printer.

Despite having lots of different brushes, the Zebra insisted on painting her hands and feet. She would then stamp and pat the paper to cover it white...

Once it dried, I peeled off the masking tape to give lovely blue snowflakes against a snowy white sky 

Next, the Zebra had blue paint mixed into the bowl and was given the toilet roll stamper. Things started well and she made some snow prints, but it wasn't long before the toes got in on the action and the piece became a big blue smear! 

We did have a bit of artist temper half way through as the Zebra was clearly not happy with the direction her work was going, and demanded a clean sheet of paper...

The way things are feeling here, we may have some real snow in the next couple days! 

Bubble Blowing Prints

This was a bit of a fail on all levels if I'm honest! We did get two nice prints but it wasn't worth it.

I think I may have gone wrong with the colouring - I imagine liquid food colouring would work a lot better than dissolving gel in warm water.

It seemed like such an easy idea - food colouring, fairy liquid and water. Blow with a straw to make bubbles...

However, the Zebra was much more interested in playing with the bubbles! Not so great when using super-strong, mega-staining colouring.

She also wanted to blow the bubbles her self. After a quick go and a big mouthful of fairy liquid she soon changed her mind.

We did manage to get some of the paper on the bubbles, but the blue card was no good as it was so shiny the bubbles just ran off.

A great sensory activity...

If you don't mind hands looking like this!!!

Tweet Tweet!

Tweet tweet tweet!! So it would seem today is national bird day (thanks again Google!), which makes another great theme for some crafts. I don't really know many birds so thought I'd go with the English robin and a colourful parrot.

As always, just basic materials needed - white paper can be used but I went for green and blue card - green jungle for the parrot and blue wishy-washy winter sky for the robin.

The Zebra loves nothing more than painting with her hands and feet and was more than pleased for me to paint the blue and yellow to make the parrots body 

After you've made your foot print, paint the hand with yellow and blue. Put the palm of the hand onto the toes, so the fingers point down and create tail feathers.

The robins are much easier, just two brown footprints! Use each foot once so the birds are looking at each other on paper.

Add a brown branch, orange beak and googley eye to complete the parrot...

...and a red tummy in the foot instep, orange beak and googley eyes for the robins!

While I finished the birds, I let the Zebra have some good free-play with the paints - she really does love it!

Tweet!

Spaghetti Day

Thanks to some random googling last night, I found out today is National Spaghetti Day. I'm not sure which nation this is for, but it seemed a good theme for the Zebra to enjoy!

I had two activities in mind, using just a few basic supplies I'm sure most people would have! I used orange card, but plain paper would work just as well.

To prepare the lion, I drew the basics of a lion face on the card, then, using a sponge brush I made a mane with pva glue. The spaghetti I snapped in half to use as hair.

I showed the Zebra how to stick a piece of spaghetti down, and she had a go but clearly doesn't have the fine motor skills yet. I snapped up the spaghetti until it was all very little bits in the jug, and then let her pour it over the picture! To make them stick, she would pat them down onto the picture. 

To fill in the gaps between pasta, we used gold glitter which worked a treat!

I stuck on some googley eyes to complete the fun spaghetti lion!

To keep her busy while I tidyed up and started tea, I gave her some whole spaghetti sticks and the collinder. She loved fitting them through the holes and it will help improve those fine motor skills!