Crafts Category
Fun Summer Frankenstein Craft and Recipe for Kids
Frankenstein Pops in the summer?
It may surprise you, but we get to celebrate Frankenstein more than just at Halloween. Tomorrow, August 30, is National Frankenstein Day. The author of Frankenstein, Mary Wollenstone Shelley, was born on this day in 1797. While celebrating Frankenstein, may not spark the interest of all generations, we know these Frankenstein pops surely will get the attention of your kids’ taste buds.
What You’ll Need:
Frankenstein Pops In the Making
- Large Marshmallows
- Candy eyes (we purchased candy eyes at the store, but chocolate chips will do!)
- Green food dye, or frosting (we bought edible green spray)
- Popsicle sticks (we used candy sticks)
- Optional: You could also make Frankenstein’s hair out of dark sprinkles
What to do:
- Dye the marshmallows green
- After they dry, attach them to your stick
- Add the eyes
- Add the hair
- Ready, set, go…. ENJOY!
Frankenstein Pops In the Making
While you are enjoying the tasty Frankenstein treat, enjoy a few of these Frankenstein facts:
- Frankenstein is a German name meaning “stone of the Franks”
- Television character Herman Munster’s appearance is based on Frankenstein
- Frankenstein the movie is the first film to use the famous Castle Thunder sound effect
Ladybugs Your Kids Can Eat & Other Fun Summer Activities
School may have started, but summer isn’t over yet! We love ladybugs and had fun learning about ladybugs with our kids through these fun activities.
- Go on a ladybug hunt in your backyard, garden or in a forest preserve. Look under leaves, shrubs, branches, flowers, fields, tree stumps, cracks in wood, under a fallen tree, etc. Be sure to teach your children to be gentle and observe the ladybugs & not disturb them by trying to pick them up. They can use a magnifying glass to see their spots and other marks without picking them up.
- Have this yummy strawberry ladybug snack from our friends at NWF. You can talk about your ladybug adventure while you make this easy snack.
- Sit outside and read a ladybug book together. There are many ladybug themed books you can buy or check out at the library. If you want to be really creative, make ladybug antennae with a headband and construction paper or make wings with poster-board or fabric. Dress up like ladybugs while you read!
Have fun on your ladybug adventure!
National Tooth Fairy Day Activity and Craft for Kids
It’s National Tooth Fairy Day! It’s a great day to celebrate your child’s healthy smile with these fun activities!
- Happy Food for Healthy Teeth – Talk to your child about healthy eating and the special foods that the Tooth Fairy eats – vegetables, fruit, milk, etc. Sugar takes a bit of sparkle away from the tooth fairy! Make the Tooth Fairy sparkle by eating only happy food for healthy teeth today!
- Color a Happy Smile – Print out these Tooth Fairy coloring pages and talk about healthy smiles while you color the Tooth Fairy!
- Sing and Brush – Sing a brushing song while your child brushes his teeth. We like these easy-to-sing brushing songs.
- Keep Yourself in the Know – Most toothpaste brands have tips on their sites about caring for your child’s teeth. Be sure you are in the know!
- Think Outside the Bank – Some people think the Tooth Fairy needs to leave behind a small dowry. The excitement is not in the amount of money left in the pillow, but in the celebration of hitting another milestone. Other ideas besides leaving money are: leave a congratulatory certificate, a letter from the Tooth Fairy, a shiny penny from the year your child was born, a gift certificate to do one of your child’s favorite activities with her or a scavenger hunt to find the gift left from the Tooth Fairy.
Use your imagination, celebrate your child’s healthy smile and enjoy National Tooth Fairy Day!
Bringing Your Child’s Book to Life Fun Activity & Craft
Reading to your child has many benefits from developing language to growing imagination. We have blogged about bringing your child’s books to life including I Am A Bunny & Skippyjon Jones. We had a request to bring A Cuddle for Little Duck to life and we had fun doing it! We liked A Cuddle for Little Duck because it is a sweet book of the simple joys of everyday living and the importance of cuddles – what’s not to love about that!
What you need:
- A Cuddle for Little Duck book
- Yellow & orange construction paper
- Non Toxic glue
- Googly eyes
- Scissors (adult use only)
- A nature trail, forest preserve, prairie, pond or pet shop if you can’t go outside in nature.
- Open arms for cuddles
What to do:
- Read the book A Cuddle for Little Duck
- Act the scenes: run through the meadow (a prairie, park, empty lot, yard, will work), go to a pond to look at frogs (pet shop will work in a pinch), sit under a tree and tell your child a story (mommy duck tells a story at lunch to baby duck), put on some music and shake your tail feathers like little duck
- Cut a big yellow circle from construction paper for ducks body, a smaller one for head and 2 ovals for wings (teach your child shapes while you do this)
- Cut small triangle from orange construction paper for beak and two bigger triangles for feet
- Glue all the parts together to form a duck
- Glue on to face the beak and googly eyes
- Be sure to give lots of cuddles throughout the day
If there is a children’s book you would like us to bring to life, please let us know by leaving a comment!
Olympic Rings Craft – Getting Excited for the Summer Games
We have another medal winner of the Kolcraft Olympic Craft event! We were impressed by Marcella Cook’s Olympic Rings craft because it looked like a great activity to involve the kids and share some Olympic flair. Thank you Marcella for sharing the steps for our other Kolcraft parents to follow!
What you’ll need
- Blue, black, red, yellow, green and white paper
- Scissors
- Glue
Directions:
- Cut the blue, black, red, yellow and green paper into little squares
- Trace five circles on the white paper in the Olympic Ring formation
- Glue the cut paper pieces in the Olympic ring order onto the white paper
Enjoy your newest Olympic decoration!
Marcella will receive an Olympic themed package of shirts, mugs and more!
There is still time to create your Olympic craft and get the opportunity to win Kolcraft’s Olympic Prize package. Enter here.
Bronze Medal Winner of Kolcraft’s Olympic Craft Event
We have our Bronze medal winner of the Kolcraft Olympic Craft event! We were impressed by Donna Partain’s Olympic Torch craft because it looked so “real” and it was easy to make. Thank you Donna for clear pictures so we could recreate this craft with our kids! This is a fun craft to make and you can use it when you put on your own backyard Olympics.
Congrats to Donna who will be receiving an Olympic themed package of shirts, mugs and more!
There is still time to win the Silver and Gold medals so be sure to submit your craft on Kolcraft’s Facebook page.
Summer Reading Activity for Kids
Reading to children has so many benefits and you can extend those benefits by reinforcing the story that you have read. A couple of months ago we blogged about bringing your child’s books to life by reading them and doing activities with I Am A Bunny book. Today our craft focuses on the lively series of Skippyjon Jones. We love the Color Crazy book because it teaches children their colors as well as using their imagination. After all, why can’t four Chihuahuas be red? 
What you need:
- Skippyjon Jones Color Crazy book
- Crayons
- Paper
What to do:
- Read Color Crazy book together
- Reenact the book by drawing the scenes on a piece of paper: a blue sun, a purple puddle, etc.
- If your child is just learning her colors, reinforce this by asking her what color Skippyjon Jones colored the sun, etc.
- If your child is older, fold pieces of paper in half & put them inside each other to make a booklet. Have them make their own color crazy book. Ask them what color they would like to make the sun, a puddle, a bunny, etc.
What fun ways do you bring your child’s books to life?
3 Parenting Tips To Keep Summer Fun
Summertime is a fun time for new adventures and bonding more with your children, but the heat and “I’m bored” can cause any parents nerves to be a bit on edge. We have 3 easy parenting tips to help keep your summer fun and not frustrating.
- Focus on Fun – Summer is a time for memories and doing things a bit off schedule. While you will want to stay on routine (children work best with routine), you can be flexible for fun. Take some time at the beginning of the week to plan at least one fun activity every day. It can be as simple as running through the sprinkler for 30 minutes, making a simple craft or taking a nature walk.
- Set Rules – Just because it’s fun time doesn’t mean the regular rules don’t apply. Be consistent with your parenting rules of sharing, kindness, cleaning up, etc. Kids need consistency, not chaos.
- Be aware – Are you planning too many activities that your kids are constantly exhausted or too little so they are bored? Taking a few minutes to be aware of how your kids are responding to your summer activities can help you adjust accordingly.
What summer parenting tips do you have?
Create a Sun Craft with Your Child’s Hands
We love when Kolcraft employees bring their children to work. It is a great time to use their help in creating crafts for our Baby Matters readers. Today, we created a sun, a great craft when you are trying to stay cool indoors. Get started on your own sun craft:
What you’ll need:
- Yellow and orange construction paper
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Glue
- Crayons
- Your child’s hands
Directions
- Using a compass, cookie tin, bowl, or whatever circular object you have, and trace the circle to be the sun
- Trace you child’s (or children’s) hands 5 or 6 times to create your sun rays
- Begin cutting out your traced sun and hand rays
- While you cut, your helpers can decorate the sun or the rays with crayons
- Using glue, attach the rays around the sun
- Your child can continue to decorate their finished sun
If you try this craft, make sure to share your finished product on our Kolcraft Facebook page.
Celebrate the Olympics with Olympic Crafts
Starting July 27, the 2012 summer Olympic Games will begin in London, England. The Olympics are a great time for families to gather together to watch their favorite sport and learn new things about other cultures. The Olympics represent a time for sharing. As athletes share stories about themselves and their families, it is a time for our families to share time together and share pride as a country.
In this spirit we are looking for you to share your Olympic themed craft ideas and win prizes.
What to do:
- Develop an Olympic themed craft
- Create it with your family
- Share it on Kolcraft’s Facebook contest page
Each Friday throughout the month of July, we will feature one of the crafts on our blog, Facebook and Twitter. We hope this contest will allow everyone to gather creative juices so we can share, maybe for the first time, the spirit of the Olympics with our little ones.
The winners featured on Kolcraft’s Baby Matters blog, will receive family prize packages with a USA T-shirt, family games, London themed gifts, and more! Winners will be picked on July 11, 18 and 25th. Enter early for a better chance to win!
Photo credit: Steve Broer / Shutterstock.com
