stART ~ My heart is like a zoo

 

While we were at the library last week I stumbled upon the book “my heart is like a zoo” and thought it was perfect for using in a story + art activity. 

 

Lucas loved this book for the bright colourful pictures, and rhyming text. And Dominic liked this book for its variety of animals and there were just over 300 hearts for him to count throughout the book!  I liked this book because it was a great way for me to begin talking to Lucas about his feelings. The book covers a range of feelings covering happy and sad all the way to feeling crafty and peaceful.

a look inside the book 

Lucas chose the snappy as a crab… not because he is snappy or crabby : ) but because he loves our hermit and emerald crabs that we have in our fish tank.

Lucas started out with some glue and cornmeal for sand

and then with help from mama we cut and assembled the hearts to match the one in the book.

 

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stART ~ Art’s Supplies

This week we read Art's Supplies by Chris Tougas.

The book starts off with Art saying “its not my fault… my supplies have a mind of their own!” then the book goes on “the paper started it by inviting everyone to her pad for a party”. It doesn't take long for the pencils to arrive. They are soon joined by crayons, markers, pastels, ink, glue, scissors, and paint. This book creatively explores the process of children creating art.

However there is a BIG part of the book that I did NOT LIKE… on every page Art’s supplies are talking and making comments. Some are cute and clever like the crayons saying “lets colour outside the lines” others are rude and inappropriate like the pencil talking about his butt, and the markers talking about having the runs and making references to alcohol – that completely ruined what could have been a great book.

I gave the kids large sheet of paper and some pencils, markers, crayons and pastels.

Once they had coloured for awhile I gave them scrap paper, scissors and glue.

Lucas LOVES working with glue, we easily go through a bottle a week!

“just when I thought it was over, the paints arrived.” ~ a line from the book

although I was not satisfied with our book, I loved this art project. It was great to just let the kids create after doing so many structured crafts the last few weeks!

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stART ~ Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones

We have moved on to learning about dinosaurs! and the book we have chosen for our stART project is

Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones by Byron Barton.

For our art project to go along with the book we used our play-dough and some different pasta shapes that I raided from our pantry we made dinosaur skeletons/fossils!

Lucas made this one on his own

and this is one that we made together!

He wasn’t to interested in making dinosaur shapes, and that was OK! We ended up having lots of fun making all sorts of other creations with the play-dough and pasta!

  

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stART~ Freight Train

This week we read Freight Train by Donald Crews for our stART activity. Yep! Another book by Donald Crews! What can I say, we LOVE his books!!

 

After reading the book – several times, we made a train from toilet paper rolls.

 

 

Lucas lost interest in painting after the second colour, so Dominic helped me finish the rest after he got home from school.

After the paint dried I joined all the pieces with paper clips and had Lucas glue on the wheels. It didn’t turn out quite how I had pictured, but Lucas loves it and that is all that matters!

 

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stART~ Flying

This week Lucas and I read Flying by Donald Crews. I mentioned before that we love books by Donald Crews for their nice illustrations and short, simple text – Lucas is not yet ready to sit for a longer story.

 

After our story we started an airplane craft.

It took lots of concentration ; )

 After the paint was dry we added some wings, and glitter glue.

 

Lucas loves his airplane that we made, this is the only picture I could get before he snatched it away : )

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stART ~ School Bus

This week Lucas and I read School Bus by Donald Crews. My son has an obsession with buses right now so he really enjoyed this book!! As with most books by Donald Crews it had wonderful illustrations and short, simple text… which is a must when reading to my busy little guy!

After we finished reading the book… 3 times! We made a school bus craft. I had all the pieces already cut out and ready for Lucas to glue. I glued the pictures of Lucas and Dominic into the bus for him.

After he was finished gluing he coloured the bus, this was his favourite part. I think this was the longest time he has sat and coloured!

 
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stART ~ Little Blue and Little Yellow

 

I have been working with Lucas on learning his colors, so I picked out Little Blue and Little Yellow for our stART project. Its such a cute little story!

For our art project I gave Lucas blue and yellow paint together on a plate for him to mix and paint.

I had originally planned on having Lucas finger paint, but it has been awhile since we last used paint and he wasn’t very interested in getting his hands dirty.

Check out some other great stART projects by visiting "A Mommy's Adventures"