sticker inspiration

Ella drew a giraffe, using a sticker as her inspiration :)

She's really starting to pay attention to details . . .

collage fish

still in the ocean . . . i found an orange pre-cut fish & we decided to collage on it.
started by cutting up some old water colored paintings.
then it was as easy as gluing them into the fish.

so easy.

Telling Addition Stories with Wooden Discs & Plastic Animals

I found some coaster sized wooden discs at Michaels.  After covering them with fabric, I added some felt number stickers.  Today, Ella and I took turns telling each other addition stories using the discs and a bag of plastic sea animals.

underwater sea life collage

We created a background by painting on bubblewrap and then using it to make a print on watercolor paper.  While that dried, Ella made some fish using old paintings that we cut into fish shapes. I also found some sea life coloring sheets that she decided to paint. Later, she glued torn strips of sandpaper and some real shells on to create a sea floor and then glued on the fish and sea life.

sandpaper sand castle

Ella loved coloring on the sand paper to create a sand castle.  We attached a flag with a toothpick and then added shells and other details after gluing the sand castle to blue paper.  (This is how the project look before the shells and other collage materials were added.)

I Spy: At the Park

The Set-Up:  Took photos of things at the park - some she would recognize right away and some that were a bit more obscure.  Printed them and put them on a clip board with a crayon for recording.

The Play:  Ella led me through the park, marking off items as she found them.

This was so simple but so much fun!

Easter Tree

Ella is a little under the weather this week but she was really excited about making this Easter tree.  She started by painting a trunk with brown watercolor.  Then she used her paintbrush to make big juicy blobs of brown paint on the trunk which she blew around with a straw to make the limbs.  She used her finger, dipped in wet watercolor, for the leaves.  When it was dry she used clear tape to add little Easter eggs to the tree.  I found the eggs at Goodwill but I saw them at the Dollar Tree today so I actually overpaid :(