Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Big Paper Snowflake

We get to enjoy making various types of snowflakes from October through April (hopefully not May...). This is one of our favorites.
We make one or two of these big beautiful snowflakes every year. You need 7 squares of paper, scissors, a pencil, and clear tape. We used white paper cut in 9" squares.
Fold in half to make a triangle, then in half again forming a smaller triangle.
With the open sides at the bottom, cut three lines, parallel to the long straight side, from the bottom, almost to the top (but do not cut through the top). Use the picture below as a guide. Draw first if that helps.
When you open it up, it should look like this. Now, repeat with the remaining 6 squares.
Now, you want to make each piece 3-dimensional. Take the top and bottom corner, bring them together and secure with clear tape. Then take the next top and bottom corners and bring them together on the opposite side and secure with tape. Looks like we started with the inside pieces...
It really does not matter how you start as long as you end up with seven pieces like the one pictured below.

Now line them up and tape the sides together so that they form a long line. We only have five lined up in the picture, just pretend there are seven.

Finally you want to tape the bottoms together so that it forms a round snowflake. As you can see, I took over at this point. It can be tricky getting the corners together.

These are beautiful in a classroom or a space that can accommodate a bunch especially if they are various sizes and colors.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Painting with Vroom Vrooms

"Vroom Vrooms" have been a huge part of our lives since Waylon was mobile enough to scoot to the stroller and try to spin the wheels. He takes them everywhere. He sleeps with them, eats with them, bathes with them and paints with them. Now every little guy (or girl) enjoys running a car through some paint to make tracks on the paper, but Waylon manages to do it regardless of my intention. I will set out paint and brushes, or paint and gadgets, or fingerpaints, etc. and he will somehow produce a car and start painting with it or painting it.




Washing the car in a tub of soapy water might even be more fun than painting it. Perfect for a cold January day.