Thursday, September 8, 2016
Glitter Apples
Our daycare theme every September is apples. We make apple paint and paint with it, take homemade applesauce, learn all about apples, do apple painting, volcano apples, and more. It's apples, apples, and more apples for thirty days (after that it's our Halloween theme). I was trying to come up with a new and simple art and craft for the kiddos to try.
I have a lot of younger kids this fall and I know they aren't able to do a lot of our regular fall activities or projects. But I still wanted to find something fun and new, even if it meant me helping them (and help I did). I picked up a few packs of flat canvases from Michael's last week for a different project, but once I came across my large red glitter I knew exactly what we'd be making: glittery apple shapes.
It was quite simple: I used an apple shaped cookie cutter and put glue around it. Then the kids put the red glitter on, and done! The longest part of the project was waiting for it to dry.
Two four year olds were able to do the glue themselves....although they did have to re-do it after their first one didn't turn out (they put a ton of glue on the inside of the cookie cutter. You must outline the outside of the cookie cutter or it runs out of it's shape otherwise. The younger kids had some issues with NOT putting the glitter into the glue. It took a while to get the sprinkling of the glitter down.
Be sure to trace the cookie on the outside, DON'T put the glue on the inside. It doesn't work out, as the four year olds learned.
This is by far my favorite one. I have two one year old twins at daycare and they loved this project! So much so that they insisted on helping me with the glue, then they needed to touch the glue (and smell it), then they wanted to play in it, then came the glitter. They don't look like apples (or as much as the other's do) but they were soooo fascinated by everything I had them do. I love it when kids get so involved like that--and yes, it was incredibly messy!