Ghosts from paper fans

Fan ghosty friends

Draw face

Fold like a paper fan

Tape top of fan well

Fold top of fan under for the top of the ghost's head

Tape together in back of ghost

A bat pop up

What is Halloween without bats and pumpkins?  This simple craft gives the bat a little bounce with paper springs.

Draw a pumpkin.

On a separate piece of paper, draw a bat, and cut out. As you can see my bat is simple. If you have an example, children may be able to draw their own pumpkin and bat. It might help to tell them the bat is drawn with parts of circles and parts of triangles.

Cut out the bat.

Strips of paper for springs

Cut three strips of paper about 2 inches long, and 1 inch wide. Fold the strips like a fan for little springs, and tape them to the back of the bat and then to the pumpkin. Now there's a bat popping out of the pumpkin.

Cutting a pumpkin out from orange paper and making the bat from black paper can make this craft even more impressive. Happy flying, bouncing or popping!

A Halloween salad?

My daughter asks me, "Mom, do people give other things besides candy for Halloween?"  Well, there are alternatives aren't there?

Halloween, the dentist's delight or the dentist's nightmare. The parent's heart attack when they get the dentist bills.

It doesn't have to be a sticky gooey mess. It's all in the presenting.

How about a candle salad for a Halloween party? Serving it first, and turning down the lights to make the atmosphere a little spooky might be kind of fun. Using little battery operated candle lights to eat the candles by may complete the ambiance.

I wonder if putting the salad together could work as a craft for the party? I'm thinking of trying this with my family, and see how it goes over. In my experience, when I try things with my family, they then get even better ideas of how to make it good.

Here's to a healthy fall of festivities and happy teeth, kids, dentists, and parents!

Link:
How to Make a Fruit Salad Candle

Look mom, I can write "sun" in Chinese!

First stroke for "ri"

Here's the order of the strokes for writing the Chinese character for sun.

It is pronounced "ri" which is the fourth tone, the down tone, in Mandarin. It is a little like making a rrrr sound of starting a car, but the rrrs are not drawn out and sounds as if the speaker is a little angry that the car won't start. R!

The first stroke starts on the left hand side from the top down.

Second stroke in "ri"

The second stroke starts at the top of the first, but goes over and down.

Third stroke in "ri"

The third stroke crosses the middle from left to right.

Fourth stroke in "ri"

The fourth stroke closes the bottom from right to left.

Now the watercolor started yesterday can be finished with a yellow sun up in the sky and rays of light flowing from it.

Have fun!

Link:

Look mom, I know Chinese!

"Hill" and "sun" Chinese characters

Look mom, I know Chinese!

Chinese characters in watercolor

For children who don't know Chinese, this painting might be a craft that helps them remember two Chinese characters.

A hill is the background for the Chinese character "shan" (pronounced with a short "a" sound a little high pitched and drawn out much as you might sing, "The hiiiiiiiills are alive with the Sound of Music!" "Shan" is the first tone in Mandarin and means mountain or hill.

Here's the steps for drawing the character.

First stroke in "shan." 

The first stoke is the tallest in the middle. Start at the top and go down.

Second stroke.

The second stroke turns a corner, but it's all one stroke. It's shorter than the middle stroke. Lower on the hill so to say. Start at the top, go down, around the corner, and over to where it will eventually meet the last stroke.

Third stroke.

The third stroke is the other side of the hill, and is short also. Start at the top and go down to meet the end of the second stroke.

Viola! Chinese your youngster may remember and use when used to paint a hill in a watercolor painting!

I'll be back with the instructions for "sun" in Chinese this later today or tomorrow.

Link:
                              Look mom, I can write "sun" in Chinese             

Shark faces?

Shark faces on empty glitter bottles

My daughter called these shark faces. They could be any kind of faces your child's imagination would like to make them.

We used permanent markers to draw faces on the lids of open, empty glitter shakers. Empty spice shakers would probably work too.

If you have a bunch of little hole punches from a three hole paper punch, these scraps would work nicely as eyes and a mouth or teeth. Just glue them on.

The shakers could even be covered with paper and then the little hole punches glued on the body for scales of a fish. That might be a little tedious to glue on all those hole punch scraps, but think of the focus and patience it would take too.

Our bottles were clear, so my daughter filled them with crumpled newspaper to make it look like shark skin.

Here's to creating imaginative animals with shakers.

Drawing a hummingbird with kids

Children's imaginations can create colorful hummingbirds.

This simple drawing we did began with an up-side-down small "u" without the tail for the head, a long "V" for the beak, and a capital right-side-up "U" without the tail for the body.

Wings and feet can be made like the picture or however your child wants.

Looking up the colors of hummingbirds can be a learning experience, or children can color their hummingbirds as they please.

 Here's a link for step by step instructions for this hummingbird.
How to Draw a Hummingbird: Directions for Children