one mommy's journey to build better little boy (& girl!) brains
Flower “stained glass” windows
We were having cold-spring-like weather in late June, so here is a good indoor craft we did (though will also work for the now-sweltering heat!): Flower “stained glass” windows. I saw this idea over at The Artful Parent. We did briefly head out to the yard to gather flowers & leaves, which was a nice respite from being inside.
Bl choosing flowers to pickHave I mentioned Bl REALLY likes being outside?Weeds are a good choice
Materials:
– contact paper ( got a 12″ x 36′ roll at Walmart for about $5)
– paper plates
-exacto knife & cutting mat/cardboard ( to cut middle out of plate)
-scissors (to cut contact paper)
-flowers/leaves
Bl was a bit interested in pulling the leaves off the flowers (what toddlers isn’t?), but lost interest in sticking them on the contact paper. Bl took a piano break.
Which was okay, because that left Mommy with a pile of flowers to play with. There is WAY worse ways to be left.
Once it was “completed”, I covered it with another piece of contact paper (flowers sandwiched between the sticky sides). I left the contact paper long, and used the overhang to stick it to the window (not pretty, but toddler-watching-quick).
Voice of experience: be careful how you apply the contact paper/ smooth it down, so the petals/leaves don’t get folded over the wrong way
Bl checking out Mommy's work
After seeing the first finished product, Bl was much more interested in taking part. Unfortunately, so was Mommy….
*sigh* *process, not product….*
Once the flower carnage was over, and Bl had moved on to other things, I recreated my flower mandala.
Bl appreciating the view
I tried the activity again with Br (3 1/2). He was certainly more interested in taking part, but wanted to generally put the whole flower on, rather than individual petals, despite my explanations it would be very lumpy and not as easy to see through.
I had Br help figure out how big to cut the contact paper ( lesson in relative size) and cut it (scissor practice= fine motor skills).
Br measuring & cutting the contact paper for his "stained glass"
Okay, so Br was probably more interested in the chance to use big scissors than the artistic design.
Br's completed design-Notice his rapt attention to smoothing the contact paper on carefully.... 😉 Oh well.
It will be interesting to see how the boys differ doing this activity in the future, but was pretty decent for a first-attempt. Okay….mostly, I enjoyed playing with the flowers….
Post Script: both kids found these way more interesting once they were hung on our sliding glass door- it was neat to see the details that showed up in the flowers & leaves once a little light was shining though them.
What a fab activity. Can’t wait for the spring so i can make some – although maybe I could find some christmas berries and leaves and have a go at some winter ones. As you can probably guess I’m more excited about this for me than my son.
Yeah, in our case this mostly ended up a Mommy-activity too.
I’ve seen it done with tissue paper as well, in case you don’t have any luck finding nice berries or leaves (though fall colored leaves would probably be pretty awesome. Hmm…we may have to try that ourselves!)
What a fab activity. Can’t wait for the spring so i can make some – although maybe I could find some christmas berries and leaves and have a go at some winter ones. As you can probably guess I’m more excited about this for me than my son.
Yeah, in our case this mostly ended up a Mommy-activity too.
I’ve seen it done with tissue paper as well, in case you don’t have any luck finding nice berries or leaves (though fall colored leaves would probably be pretty awesome. Hmm…we may have to try that ourselves!)