Last year we made some flags and another type of fireworks, you can see here.





I haven't had as much structured craft time with the kids as I'd like lately, but Annette did help me make some more firework art to get us ready for the upcoming holiday. It's becoming a crafting tradition.



I held down the stencil and she used Dot Markers to fill in the shape, but paint or even crayons would get the same point across.


There is something everyone seems to like about peeling off a stencil. Instant gratification of sorts.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar the other day and got crafty while learning about the complete metamorphosis of a butterfly.






We used to do this when I was teaching first grade. Orzo or rice as the egg stage. Some type of spiral pasta for the larva stage. Penne or a shell type pasta for the chrysalis or cocoon stage. And then the bowtie pasta for the butterfly! We used pasta I already had on hand, or I would have used the shell kind for the chrysalis.

I tried to explain the life cycle, and how after a butterfly is an adult it can make new baby eggs and the cycle will start all over again. By that point though, they were much more into seeing how much glue they could squeeze out of the bottle.

Speaking of baby eggs and life cycles ; ) ..... We got a great report at the doc's office yesterday. Baby Smith #3 looked healthy all around. So very thankful for that fast little heartbeat.

The other day we had a neighbor over to play and we tried out another Pinterest idea. We used the tops of bottles and other circluar objects to make some artwork. Left brained people, this paint is all very washable and took only about 6 or so minutes to clean up.

We tried to blow the paint around using the straw, but that didn't work too well. I guess we would need more slicky-style paper (finger painting paper maybe?) and/or more watery paint for the blowing technique to work well. So, we used the straws to drag the paint around to form fireworks.



I found that if you leave the paint drops sitting for very long and then you have a heavy handed 3 year old scraping the paint around, you may end up with some holes in your artwork.





Annette said her design was a 'peacock' which I thought was mighty creative. Charlie just stuck to squeezing the glue bottle most of the time. This red, white, and blue craft was more for the process than the end result, because the finished products weren't too impressive :)



I cut the red paper into long strips so we could use them to create the stripes on the flag. If I had wanted to do the true 13 stripes, I would have needed to make the red strips thinner for sure.


I showed the kids how to use glue to make a line across the page. They were both able to do this with a bit of help. Then, they laid the red stripes on top of the glue. The strips weren't long enough, so we used additional red paper pieces to complete each row. I love how patched up these look. Adds to their childish charm if you ask me.


Charlie is getting so good at crafting!!! He can cut, glue, paint, etc. now. All with a paci in his mouth : /

 I drew a little rectangle in the corner so we would leave space for the stars.


For the stars, I used sticky notes and cut out several stars at a time. Then, the kids peeled the stars apart and stuck them in the corner rectangle.



Then, the kids painted blue over the stars. They loved this part.




While the paint dried, we walked around the house with our mini store-bought American flags. I sang songs from my teaching and school days. Fifty Nifty United States. You're a Grand Old Flag. My Country Tis' Of Thee. You know the ones.



Then, it was time for the big reveal. We peeled the post-it stars off.