4th of July Activities: Day 4

Red, White and Blue

Pom Pom Fireworks
and
Tissue Paper Fireworks

For our first activity of the day, we made pom pom fireworks! We took several red, white and blue pom poms (solid and sparkly) and glued them to a sheet of black construction paper. This was a simple activity that didn't take long to do and mainly it was just to get them used to using the glue sticks while sticking to our patriotic theme. 

We also made these funky things. They are sparkly pipe cleaners that were glued into plastic craft tubes. They really enjoyed waving them around and saying, "pew pew". 

Our Second activity of the day is Tissue Paper Fireworks. These are great because the kids will be able to launch them just like fireworks! Well, sort of. :)

You will need

Recycled toilet paper or paper towel rolls

Red, white and blue tissue paper

Red, white and/or blue construction paper (or paint the rolls, colour with markers/crayons, etc.)
Glue, if you are using construction paper

Our first step was to decorate the paper towel rolls. We cut-to-size the construction paper to wrap around the toilet paper rolls. Then we glued a few long pieces of tissue paper inside one end. Once that was finished, I handed them each a few small squares of tissue paper. They immediately crumpled them up and stuffed them in the tube. Then the Firework Shooters were ready to go. 

Take your new firework shooters into an open room, stuff them (loosely) with tissue paper, and have the kids blow into them to launch the tissue paper. They blew through the non-decorated side, so that the crumpled up tissue paper would shoot through the other side and blow the tissue paper around. They loved them! Unfortunately I ran out of time to take those pictures because we were getting ready to go to a family BBQ.

{If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Facebook and Pinterest. Thank you!}

4th of July Activities: Day 3

Red, White and Blue

Construction Paper Flags

Flags are such an important theme for Independence Day, so of course we had to include them in our crafts this week! We spent a few minutes before doing this craft looking online at pictures of our flag. The US flag has changed a few times over the years (26 times, officially!), so I told them about why that was and we looked at a few of the different versions. The version that Bean liked best was the 1777 flag, which has 13 stars and 13 stripes. She can count to 13, she can't count to 50 yet, which is why she liked the one with less stars. Although, when we looked at the current flag, I counted the stars out loud for them and Bean kept track on her fingers and she discovered that the flag has 5 groups of 10 stars. I also told them about our own state, which was the 6th state to join the USA.

We used construction paper to make our flags. Between the 3 of them (J was here for this activity), we only used 3 sheets of white construction paper, 2 sheets of red construction paper and 1 sheet of blue construction paper. J is 8 and had no issues constructing her flag by herself, but I helped Munchkin and Bean by cutting the paper for them. I armed them with glue sticks and guided them on how to position the pieces. They did add some of their own artwork to the flags though. :)

Munchkin is really starting to get the hang of using a glue stick. He also added artwork to his belly. :)

I held down one end of the stripe and they would press the paper down until the glue stuck.

We decided to add glow-in-the-dark stars to the flag instead of star sequins. Why? Because who doesn't love things that are glow-in-the-dark. :)

They really enjoyed adding the stars and later that night when I showed them their finished flags that glowed, they were so delighted!

J's flag and Munchkin's flag.

{If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Facebook and Pinterest. Thank you!}

4th of July Activities: Day 2

Red, White and Blue

Chalk Fireworks
and
Pipe Cleaner Fireworks

Last summer, when we spent the 4th of July at the lake with my family and the kids saw fireworks for the first time... they immediately fell asleep. Because it was a little past 8 and that's their usual bedtime. It was a bummer for me, because I was hoping they'd love them as much as I do. There is just something serenely beautiful about fireworks bursting against a starlit sky... So although they might sleep through fireworks again this year, I've prepared a few activities that I hope will delight them and spark in them the same love that I have for fireworks.

Our first activity is Chalk Fireworks. And we actually did this one yesterday when J was still visiting with us.

We used black construction paper for the night sky and red, white and blue chalk. The kids also used a few other colours, since fireworks aren't limited to patriotic colours. :) Bean also added some stars to hers, to make it more like a night sky. 

They look really pretty hung up on the fridge. :)

Our second activity of the day is pipe cleaner fireworks! These are really neat and we decided to hang them on the window. All you need are a few pipe cleaners. We used red, white and blue plain and sparkly ones. We cut a few on them in half to make smaller fireworks and one great big one. All you need to do is line them up so they are even, fold them in half so you know where the middle point is...

Twist them together in the middle and then fan them out. Then you can bend them whichever way you want to make your fireworks look like they are exploding.

We made a few simple zig-zag ones. 

And then we hung them up on the window. They look really cute! They are hung up using clear suction cups with hooks, so they can be taken down and played with or rearranged. :) 

{If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Facebook and Pinterest. Thank you!}

4th of July Activities: Day 1

Red, White and Blue 

Homemade Candle Jar Craft
and
Tissue Paper Jewelry

Now let me just be honest, this will be our first year doing crafts for Independence Day. This happens to be one of my favourite holidays, but mainly because it means I get to spend time with a bunch of my family members that I haven't seen since the previous summer. We celebrate by having a day-long bbq and enjoy fireworks and sometimes a boat ride at night. 

But this year we will actually be home the week of Independence Day! And we won't be on an island with no electricity, hours away from our stash of art supplies! We will be home where we can celebrate the holiday all week long. We won't be doing all the crafts all on one day. That would just overwhelm my kids. So I've made a list of a couple that we will do each day and I will post them at some point during the day.

Now that my kids are a bit older, I can also start to teach them about what the holiday is and why it's important to celebrate it. We will also read books geared towards the meaning of the holiday. :)

For our first craft of the day, we will be decorating and transforming a recycled jar into a candle holder. I found this one over at Fantastic Fun and Learning and just loved it! When I showed Bean, she jumped up and down and said, "that one, that one!" And this is after we looked around on the web for a few minutes to find a red, white and blue themed craft that she wanted to do. So her excitement definitely put this one on the list.

How to upcycle a jar into a candle holder

First, remove all the glued on paper from the jar
(pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce and salsa jars work well)

Wash the jar thoroughly and dry

Set it up on a table (or splat mat or a tray) with glue, glitter, sequins and/or tissue paper. 

Paint the sides of the jar with the glue
 Then let the kids decorate! 

It's such a simple and fun craft! Bean's final decision was to make the sequin candle holder instead of the tissue paper candle holder, but when I brought out the supplies, she ended up using tissue paper anyways. :)

We had three different size jars, one for each. Munchkin and Bean's cousin J joined us for our first day of 4th of July celebrations. Munchkin chose the salsa jar, Bean chose the pizza sauce jar and J took the big spaghetti sauce jar. I poured white glue into 3 2 oz plastic cups. I left one white and added blue and red food colouring to the other two. They all immediately started painting their jars with the glue. J covered almost her entire jar in the white glue. Bean chose red and Munchkin chose blue, but eventually they switched the glue around and shared. J painted a flag on her jar and was so sad when it started to drip. We didn't water down our glue to try and prevent this, but hey, it happens.

These two were so calm while they painted glue on their jars. Normally their art is everywhere (the floor, the walls, my arms, etc.), but I think they were trying to follow J's lead (she is 8). They both tried to mimic her and cover their entire jars with glue.

She even added some to the inside because she said she missed a spot. :)

Munchkin was just swish-swishing his paint brush all over that jar.

Bean tried to drip the white glue into the jar, like we did with one of our paint drip projects, but it didn't work because J had used it all up.

J's jar after she gave up on preserving the flag. She swirled around the colours and added tons of glitter. :)

Our next craft of the day... was going to be a Red, White and Blue Wreath. But everyone just wanted to rush into the next craft and had no patience for tying tissue paper (it would have been a fun fine motor activity). So we made two quick patriotic bracelet/crowns.. Maybe next year we'll get to make the wreath!

We took tissue paper cut into strips and tied it loosely around the bracelet. We used 9 strips (3 red, 3 white and 3 blue). Perhaps next year we will try this again with ribbons and they can make actual crowns. :)

{If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Facebook and Pinterest. Thank you!}