As I continue to teach Eliana the alphabet, I'm finding more and more ways to help her learn that is fun and crafty. I am not able to do learning activities with her every day as of yet. So there are still days she comes to me asking, "What can I do?" We started this lesson learning the letter L. L is for leaf. L is for Ladybug. L is for laughing. Thankfully I found this fun craft we were able to make last two days.
I took an egg carton and cut out the holders and trimmed them down. I also located the washable craft paint that a volunteer group brought with them and it was leftover. Not all the bottles are full, but I'm just thankful to have it and that it's washable, although Eliana didn't get any paint on her clothes this time. (Nope, she came home from school with red paint all over her shirt, pants and shoes!)
The egg cartons here only have 10 spots (so we don't buy a dozen eggs at a time.) And there were 10 colors of craft paint, so she decided to paint each ladybug a different color. So yes, I had to run and wash each paint brush between ladybugs (thankfully we had two bruches!) But she had fun and she is learning at the same time.
Here are the paints we used from Crayola.
And we just happened to have Crayola brand paint brushes as well. (Should I get some advertising credit here or something?)
The first day we had to stop the craft to allow the bug to dry. Since it's getting a little colder inside our house, the paint takes a little longer to dry. And Karis woke up from her nap and I didn't feel like cleaning up 2-year-old hands from all the paint. So we set them out to dry and I told Eliana we would finish them tomorrow.
The next day after we got home from school and Karis was sound asleep, Eliana asked if she could finish her ladybug craft. So I got out the glue, a black fine point sharpie, some colored craft pipe cleaners and the all-too-famous googly eyes, and we went to work.
I first had to punch holes in the top and Eliana put the pipe cleaner through to make antennae. Then we glued on the eyes, which some she used a little too much glue and they started drooping. But we fixed them. And then she drew on the mouth. I love how each ladybug seems to have his own personality with the way she drew the mouth.
Aren't they so cute?!
So our two-day ladybug craft went from this...
...to this!
Hmmm... Now what can we do?