Recycled Soda Bottle Floating Turtle

This project meets all of my criteria for a good craft.

Simple? Check.

Cheap? Check.

Adorable? Check. Check.

Here's how we made it and what you need.

Craft foam in a color of your choosing

Small, clean empty soda bottle

Yarn

Darning needles

Hot glue (optional)

Button

Scissors

Turtle template (download mine free here or get creative and draw your own)

Pen or fine-tip permanent marker

First trim your bottle down so you just have the very bottom (parents should exercise caution and do this step if children are not proficient with scissors).

Now trace the turtle pattern or draw your own onto the craft foam. Cut out.

Draw eyes and other features. My boys were too excited to spend much time on details. They wanted to get their turtles in the water! We're lucky "Lightning" and "Green Lantern" were even given eyes.

Next, apply a few dots of hot glue on the cut edge of your bottle and place it on your turtle, giving him his shell. The glue is optional, but helps to keep it in place as little hands stitch thread over and around the shell. (In hindsight, you could probably just glue the shell on, but I like the look of the yarn and it gave my kids some great fine motor practice.)

Then, thread long lengths of yarn onto a darning needle. Tie at knot at one end. Have kids pull the needle up from the bottom of the turtle and bring it back down through the foam on the other side of the shell, stitching a asterisk type of pattern. Sewing was my oldest son's favorite part of the project (who knew?!?). When done, either knot the yarn on the back or glue it down.

Now add a button with glue to the top of the shell where the yarn intersects to keep it from slipping off the turtle's back.

Take your turtles to the water (in our case, the bathtub) and watch them float on the surface!

Want a great book to pair with this activity?

Our oldest son (age 9) really liked Gail Gibbon's book Sea Turtles. It covered everything from the anatomy of sea turtles to the threats to their existence. Details, details, details, and beautiful watercolor illustration to go with them - that's what you and your kids can expect.

Our youngest son (age 5) and I read the Level 2 National Geographic Kids easy reader titled Sea Turtles. Author Laura Marsh, provides basic information in the main text and the opportunity for readers to dig deeper with turtle terms, extra facts, and even fun jokes. This book is scalable to kids of many ages. Pick how much to read and share depending on your child's attention span and level of comprehension. Or for children who are reading, hand them the book and let them choose!

This great activity came from Good Home Design.

Numbers Froggy Hop Game

Our young son has counting down, but associating the numbers with the numerals is coming slower to him. To help practice, I made a fun game (perfect for a kinesthetic learner!).

It's short, sweet, and simple. And it gets children moving.

This game is geared toward one player, however, you could easily adapt it for siblings or classmates to play along.

What You Need

8-page PDF of the lily pads, flowers, and die (download it free here)

poster tack or tape (optional)

heavy weight cardstock (6 green, 2-4 white)

What to Do

Consider your child's proficiency with numbers. You may want to only play with numbers 0-5. If so, print the first three pages of the 8-page PDF onto green cardstock. Otherwise, if you're playing with the full set of numbers (0-10), print the first six pages onto green cardstock.

Print the pages of water lilies and die onto white cardstock. Again, think of your child's early math skills. If playing with numbers 0-5 print one die. If playing with 0-10, the child will either have to roll the die twice or you can create two dice to have the child roll. The latter is perfect for kids that still need to see the objects to count them. Older kids working on simple addition might enjoy the challenge of adding the two numbers in their head after rolling the same die twice.

Cut out the water lilies, lily pads, and die (or dice, if you printed two). Score the lines on the die with the backside of a butter knife, fold and glue into a cube shape. You can laminate the lily pads and flowers for added durability if desired.

How to Play

Set the lily pads on the floor in a random pattern.

Because we were doing this activity on hardwood floors and I didn't want my son to slip on the lily pads, I used poster tack to secure them in place. I also added a piece of poster tack to the back of each water lily flower.

Here's the play-by-play:

1. Child rolls the die (or dice).

2. Child counts the frog faces that land face up.

3. Child looks for the lily pad with that numeral.

4. Child jumps to the lily pad.

5. Child places a water lily on the lily pad to signal that he/she has already visited there.

6. Play continues until all lily pads have a flower or the child's attention wanes.

Variations: You can time the child to see how many different lily pads they jump to in 5-10 minutes. An opponent can then take their turn and try to beat the first player's score.

Want a great book to pair with this activity? Here's a few counting frog picture books we read. They're all perfect for this fun game.

After School Linky Party (8-25)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

Ideas. Ideas. Ideas. Last week's linky was LOADED with them!

Here are a few of my favorites.

Bahay Kubo (Nipa Hut) at Pinay Homeschooler.

Balloon Powered LEGO Car at Science Sparks.

Bubble Wands with Natural Materials at Doodles and Jots.

Constructing a Four Star Mandala Tutorial at Highhill Education.

Cool Science Experiments: Exploring the Density of Liquids at Buggy and Buddy.

Engaging Conversation Starters at Mama Knows it All.

How to Make a LEGO Drawbot at Planet Smarty Pants.

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

This Reading Mama

What Do We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend!

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks!

Racing ABCs Game

Our youngest son (who just turned 5 years old) can be convinced to do anything if it's a race. It has been this way for awhile now, and while we're certainly not trying to turn everything into a competition, whenever possible to use it as motivation, we do.

This little game is an example.

To work on counting and review some letters, I grabbed six small matchbox cars and a die. I labeled the cars with six different letters. I printed the letters on sticker paper, but simple masking tape and a fine-tip permanent marker works just as well.

After printing the game board on cardstock and taping it together, he was ready to race! (Click the image to download a 2-page PDF of the game board for free from Google Drive.)

To put him in the mood for our game, we read The Racecar Alphabet by Brian Floca. It was the perfect pairing for this activity!

Here's how we played.

All cars were placed to the left of the starting line.

My son rolled the die and counted the dots on the side of the die that landed on top.

Then he found the numeral on the game board.

"What car is in that lane?" I asked.

"The 'S' car!" he'd reply and then moved the race car one space forward.

He continued to roll, count, find the lane on the game board, announce the letter on the car, and move it until one car (the "G" car) passed the finish line and won the race!

Paper Plate Ball

Both my boys had birthday parties in the last two weeks. With parents and siblings invited to both, we bought a surplus of cake plates so we wouldn't be short. Well, of course, we had extras. Lots of them.

We could either buy more cake or make an awesome polyhedron. I chose the latter. It's less calories.

My oldest son looked at me like I was crazy when I gave him a stack of paper party plates and a stapler and said, "Let's make a ball!"

The paper plate polyhedron requires 20 disposable paper plates. The smaller your plates, the smaller the ball. We used dessert plates and our ball ended up to be about 1 1/2 feet diameter.

Here's how we did it.

First do your best to flatten 20 disposable paper plates. You will need five for the top, five for the bottom, and 10 for the middle.

All the plates need to be folded the same. Make three folds in each plate, folding in the sides so the middle of the plate is an equilateral triangle.

I made my son a template to help him fold.

Begin stapling the flaps of five plates together, until they form the following shape. (We used two staples on each flap.) This is the ball's top.

Repeat to make the ball's bottom with five more plates.

Now to make the middle. Staple the flaps of the plates together so that the points of the triangles alternate up and down so you have a strip of 10 plates.

Bring the ends of the strip together and staple so it's shaped like a donut.

Set the top on your paper plate donut and line up the plate flaps. Staple in place.

Flip over and add the bottom, lining up the flaps, and stapling. Voila! You're done!

At the precise moment we finished, a neighbor boy came over. He was equally as impressed as my sons and I.

Want to up the challenge? Show kids a finished example and ask them to replicate it without instructions. Or simply see what they can come up with using the folded plates. I love the sculptural effect! One part art, one part engineering … now that's what I call some great after school learning!

Want to make a different polyhedron? Want a harder project? Check out this one made entirely out of cut paper!

After School Linky Party (8-18)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

Wow. My sons are headed back to school today. Where did the summer go?

Thankfully, we don't have to quit having fun just because school's back in session. This linky has loads of ideas to keep learning hands-on.

Here are a few of my favorites from last week's link up.

Elementary Teachers Share Their Favorite Books at Buggy and Buddy.

Easy Science Experiment: Why Do Ice Cubes Crack in Drinks at Pragmatic Mom.

Review Letter Sounds with Beginning Sound Blackout (8 Free Boards) at The Measured Mom.

The Bear Without a Buddy: Teaching Odd and Even at Empowering Parents to Teach.

How to Make: Pizza Box Easel at Munchkins and Moms.

FREE Place Value Top It Game at Boy Mama Teacher Mama.

Rolled Paper Art at ArtClubBlog.

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

This Reading Mama

What Do We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend!

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks!

Balancing Stick Figure

This activity is perfect for talking about balance, counter balance, and center of gravity with your kids. It takes only a few minutes and a handful of supplies.

What You Need

1 hex nut (ours was 3/8 inch)

4 wooden craft sticks

hot glue

Wire (ours was 18 gauge copper wire)

How to Build It

Using a hot glue gun, glue the four craft sticks in the configuration of a stick figure.

Cut a length of wire approximately 12-15 inches long. Wrap one end around the leg of your stick figure. Wrap the other end of the wire around the hex nut.

Shape the wire so it's curved and looks like the letter C.

Now simply place the wire-wrapped leg of the stick figure on your finger and be amazed. The figure will balance there with ease.

If he's tipping forward or backwards, adjust the curve of the wire and reposition him.

This quick craft elicited loads of oohs and aahs at my house. I think the highlight was when both of my sons tried to find various places to set the balancing man - ranging from the edge of the kitchen table to the top of my husband's head (yes, it actually DID balance there too!).

This great activity came from Curt Gabrielson's book Stomp Rockets, Catapults, and Kaleidoscopes: 30+ Amazing Science Projects You Can Build for Less than $1. I highly recommend it!

3D Kandinsky-Inspired Melted Cups Art

It's been ages since I snuck some art history into our after school learning. This project combines mixed media, three-dimensions, and melting (yep, that's right - melting!) - all of which made this a little more palatable for my art-avoiding oldest son.

Wassily Kandinsky is considered the pioneer of abstract art. His works were perfect to explore with my son who has the opinion that if your art doesn't look like real life, it's no good. We talked a lot about the criticism that Kandinsky must have faced.

We looked at a gallery of his work online and stopped at his color study of concentric circles. This was the work that inspired our activity.

What you Need

9 oz clear plastic tumbler solo cups

Permanent markers in a broad range of colors

Scissors

Oven

Parchment paper

Construction Paper (optional)

Hot glue (optional)

What to Do

Color the outside of the cups with bands of color using permanent markers. Start by coloring a circle in the middle of the cup's bottom and continue outward using a variety of colors in varying thicknesses.

When you're done, use scissors to trim the lip of the cup off.

Place the cups two inches apart on a parchment paper-lined jelly roll pan.

Preheat an oven to 250 degrees F. for a few minutes. Then put the pan of cups into the oven and watch the magic happen through the window on the door.

Our cups didn't flatten completely, but the translucent colors of the marker became vivid and solid. The effect was truly magical.

To finish, cut colored squares of construction (or cardstock) paper. Glue to a piece of flat cardboard or mat board, and with hot glue, adhere the melted cup circles. Display in a shadow box frame.

Read

To enhance my fourth grade son's understanding and appreciation for Kandinsky's art, we read a wonderful fiction book by Barb Rosenstock. The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art explains beautifully the wonderful integration of music and art in Kandinsky's work by watching his interest in art grow and develop from the time of childhood.

This project was inspired by the mobiles on Arts for Life.

After School Linky Party (8-11)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

While you may have found this linky to be a great way to help ward off the summer slump, I hope you'll continue to join us each Monday as the school year gets underway. There's always room for more learning at home!

Here are a few examples from last week's linky.

Constructing a Solar Oven at Mosswood Connections.

Printable Graph Paper (and ways to use it) at Doodles and Jots.

 Feed the Shark Play Dough Geometry at Left Brain Craft Brain.

New Free Upper Case Tracing Pages with Playdough Mats at 3 Dinosaurs.

Paul Klee Building Projects for Kids at Highhill Education.

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

This Reading Mama

What Do We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend!

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks!