Camp Summer: Making a Sock-to-pus

I saw a picture of these a while back and knew that I wanted to make them with the kids. It took a bit of work to round up and sort through all of my socks, but they are now sorted and matched, and I found some good candidates for the project. 

Each kiddo picked out which sock they wanted from the pile, as well as buttons for the eyes. Then I sent them off into another room so that I could sew the eyes on. I lost count of the number of times I stuck my fingers with the needle. 

After all the eyed were attached, each took a turn stuffing their sock part way. I tied this part off with small rubber bands that are made for hair. The last step is to cut the bottom into eight legs. Then you're done!

I think they look a bit more like jelly fish than octopuses. Daven called his a ghost. But whatever you want to call them, they're still cute!

Karlyn's socktopus read to the other about shapes, colors and opposites. 

Chalk off the Sidewalk

The girls (Daven's treasured Deedee and Momo) are off for spring break this week and this afternoon they got to come over and play with Daven.  I decided to set up an art station for them so that we could try out using wet chalk on paper.

I used the same card stock and shapes that we used for our last project.  We have tons of outdoor chalk from last summer that doesn't get used very often.  They each had their own paint brush and water.

The girls seemed to have fun doing this project.  Daven sat for a total of about 2 minutes before he was back to his toys.  We found there are two ways to do this:

1. Dip the chalk in water and draw on the paper.
2. Draw with the chalk (dry) and then paint over with a wet paintbrush.

I think they turned out pretty neat.  The kids were finished a lot faster than I thought they would be though.  The whole process from the time they all sat down until the last shape was colored was about 10 minutes.  It would be great if you have a few moments to fill.