Preschool Flower Lesson - Sizes

 

I love to use crafts and craft supplies for learning. I found these flowers on one of my favorite sites Fave Crafts at this link:   http://www.favecrafts.com/Ornaments/No-Sew-Felt-Flower-Ornament/ml/1

What little girls don’t love flowers? Not mine...they draw them, piece them together, talk to them, and put them on headbands. We love flowers. My Moon Princess is very good with her shapes and is now past this learning activity, however she’d make them every day if I had it set up for her.  She is getting better and better with her ability to cut and place tape. 

You know this is a skill if you have ever had your little one stick half of roll of tape to itself when they are unrolling it! Little E is mastering her sizes and following directions….OK, she isn’t really mastering the directions part…but we are working on it.

The pictures tell the story. They loved this craft and had many cute flowers that I will use in a future project for them. I hope your little ones (and you) enjoy this.

Materials:

Felt  or construction paper of different colors – prep the shapes a head of time.

Double sided tape ( I use the kind I use to make headbands)  or glue sticks with the paper

About an hour of free time. Really, it took us that long to play with all the color combos before they taped them together.

I like to have the trays prepared for them.

They usually find it easier to work at the table, but I like the trays because they can take the whole project over to their mat if they wanted to.

The finished flowers all sorted by shape....Little E did the Felt (3 yrs old)

 Since my girls surprised me and did the opposite tray than I thought they would, the felt was actually left unattached. My 4 1/2 year old could have done the double sided tape, but not my 3 year old. They wanted to keep them so they could continue to play with them and didn't want them put together. They really really enjoyed this!

I made up the same project in paper because I thought it would be easier for Little E.

My Moon Princess actually choose to do the paper shapes..she liked the glue stick:)

 They did want the paper flowers put together. I think we are going to have paper flowers everywhere soon:) They really loved playing with the shapes and sizes. I had Little E line them up and go through and tell me which one was bigger or smaller. (or the baby ones and the Momma ones as we say in my house) I highly recommend this project. Simple, yet she mastered her size variations.

We did finish one up so we could keep it and to use for the example. I sewed a bead in the center and secured a pin to the back....I love it. I'm putting it on my coat today.


                  

Paper Sparkle Flower

My beautiful Moon Princess and her sparkle flower

My little Moon Princess really loved this craft. I wasn’t sure if she would be able to finish it on her own, but I only showed her how to fold the paper for two folds. We work with paper folding and weaving a good bit so she did take to it quickly. 

We used a piece of construction paper and folded it from the shorter side with accordion folds. Now that we know how to make fans around here I’m finding them all over. This included a permission slip for one of my sons…I found it just in time. The field trip went off without a hitch.

Here’s the step by step:

Fold paper accordion style with about half inch wide folds.

Once the whole sheet is folded hold together and fold in the center so that the two ends meet.

Cut that open end with one angle or a curve to your liking.

Use clear tape to cover the inside fold where it matches up to the other half. Tape just that one open fold to the other.

Carefully open the fanned end of the flower. This gave me some trouble and you just have to be gentle with it but not afraid to pull it open.

Tape the other two ends together to complete the circle. I also added a line of glue from a glue stick to try to keep the inside together. 

We cut out a circle of other paper and covered it with glitter for the center. We like glitter around here! I ended up just rolling a piece of masking tape up and double sticking it to the circle and the center of the fanned circle. 

This was great for a 4 year old who likes folding. I had to pull it open and secure the outside seam for her. The rest she was able to do on her own. It has too high of difficulty for my 3 year old. She enjoyed making glitter circles though. We used all those glitter circles to make some spiral hanging ornaments.   

Just give the baby glue, a paint brush, and a cup full of glitter. That’s all they need. Hey, it all vacuums up eventually:) 

This baby LOVES glitter!

Just paper....just fun

Sometimes all you need is paper and paint...pink paper is even better when you have lots of little girls:)

I try not to get too fancy and just put basic supplies on the table and leave the rest to them. My girls love arts and craft so much that even when the cousins or friends come over it's the first thing they want to share.

I keep a container full of cut construction paper. The favorite is when I cut flower shapes. My 4 year old will play for half an hour just positioning the flower petals without any glue. My 2 year old is more interested in the glue stick still...but she likes putting the glue on the paper. That's a step in the right direction:)
The important thing to me is that the girls have craft time every day. Some days I need to keep it simple. I was able to clean the kitchen and prepare dinner before they ever got tired of playing with cut out shapes. Wonderful!

Tip Toe Tulips

The key I've found to keeping my girls happy with crafting is prep work. I cut many shapes at a time and keep them in my "prep bin". When I'm feeling tired..aka lazy, I can pull stuff out of my bin and the girls can sit at our craft table at any time. They are 2 and 3..almost 4.
For my 2 year old I put the glue in an old juice or milk carton cap and give her a cotton swab to use to apply the glue. This keeps the mess down a bit and she loves to "paint". They love flower crafts and this is a nice way for them to make something they can play with. They hold the flower sticks and it's great to see them "talk" to each other....
"hello pretty flower" says Luna's flower
"hello pretty flower" says Evie's flower
"I'm the momma flower" says Evie's flower...Evie has a baby and momma everything right now:)
"no, I'm the momma flower" says Luna's flower....because this is what we do now...for EVERYTHING;)

Happy flower making