Tinkerlab Creative Challenge: Flower Projects

It’s time for another Tinkerlab Creative Challenge!  The kids love these challenges so much that sometimes I will find them “hosting” their own challenges for each other or their friends.  And I adore watching each of their creative processes.  Seeing how they create and modify and recreate until they are satisfied is fantastic.  You can actually see how they are thinking.

This month’s creative material is flowers.  I have to say that for me this material would definitely have been challenging, but not for the kids.  They right away decided that they wanted to work with fake flowers.

So we picked out some at the Dollar Store and invited some friends over to create with us.

And create they did!  Our little group consisted of 2 kindergarteners, a 4 year old, an almost 3 year old, and a 2 year old.  They gathered lots of supplies from the craft room and got to work “figuring.”  They threw out ideas and tried out different things and worked very hard.  The 2 and 3 year old were much more interested in the non-flower supplies and created and cut and glued to their heart’s content while the 3 big kids finalized their creations.

 And here’s what they came up with!

The 4 year old’s original idea was to make a bird house out of flowers.  Her had to modify his idea when he realized that flowers themselves would not be sturdy enough for birds to stand on.  He decided to use a milk jug as the house part and cover it with flowers.  He needed me to help him cut the jug and after I cut where he told me he decided it looked more like a bird feeder than a house.  So a bird feeder it became!

My little kindergartener saw the flowers and immediately wanted to make a fairy garden.  And actually almost finished making one when she decided that fairies would prefer real flowers.  After some tinkering she decided to make a blanket for her dolls.

Our little kindergarten friend had never done a Tinkerlab challenge before and couldn’t decide what she wanted to do at first.  She asked her friends for ideas and together they brainstormed many options.  After looking over the materials she decided that she liked the idea of making a hair clip holder the best.

We had a lot of fun creating with flowers this month.  I highly recommend taking a Tinkerlab Creative Challenge if you haven’t already.  You’ll be amazed at the results!

Linking this post up to Tinkerlab, of course!

Egg Carton Computer and Jelly Bean Toss Game

It’s time for another Tinkerlab Creative Challenge!

The item this month is an egg carton and we definitely have lots of those in our craft cupboard right now!  Last Friday the big kids each got an egg carton to create something with.

The almost 4 year old got right to work cutting even though he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to make yet.  After he had cut the cup section into 3 parts he announced he was going to make a game and would know what kind of a game it was going to be after he finished painting it.

The 6 year old turned her carton around in her hands a couple times and decided it would make a perfect play computer.  She thought this would be especially good because we only have one pretend laptop and they usually need more than one computer when they’re playing.  She cut the top off of the carton and flipped it over so that the the inside of the top could be the computer screen.

She painted the “keys” each a different color and traced and cut out paper to cover the writing on the top of the carton.

After the almost 4 year old had finished painting he decided the cartons were going to be “catchers” and that they needed handles.  He cut and painted a paper towel roll to attach to the bottom to use to hold it.

I hot glued the rolls to the cartons for the game and the top onto the bottom of the carton to make the computer.

And here’s the finished game!  Instead of catching a ball in the cups he wanted to try and catch jelly beans — and his little sister agreed that was a wonderful idea!

Other than making a computer for their pretend play the oldest didn’t have an exact plan for how they were going to use it until it was done.  Since then they have used it in their “office” to work on their website, to practice “typing” colors, and as part of an I Spy game that all three of them understood the rules too even though I never did.  Upcycled, simple to make, and full of pretend play opportunities – I love it!

So far neither of the little two have caught a jelly bean in their “catchers,” but they have had lots of fun (and eaten lots of jelly beans) trying!

To see what other bloggers and their kids have done with egg cartons check out:

Tinkerlab’s Creative Challenge: Egg Carton post

What have you created using an egg carton?  We’ve still got some left.  :)

Paper Bag Playground (for Batman!)

We had a blast participating in Tinkerlab’s Paper Bag Creative Challenge!  I talked up the Paper Bag Challenge all morning and then gave my 3 1/2 and 2 year old each a leftover red paper bag.  They picked out some art supplies and I left them alone to see what they would come up with…

And a playground for Batman is what the 3 1/2 year old eventually created!  And while I was seriously impressed with his construction skills, what was even more exciting was watching his creation evolve from a dog leash to an octopus to the playground.  I had planned on taking more pictures, but ended up getting so caught up in what they were doing I missed documenting a lot of it.

Here’s what they started with…just a couple items at first.  The 2 year old immediately put a hole through the bottom on her bag and started wearing it on her arm as a bracelet and the 3 year old twisted it up into a dog collar for his favorite stuffed animal.

Until he spied the straws!  Then he un-twisted it and began to create an octopus!

And then after he almost had an entire octopus together he began to take it apart and brace it with the paper towel roll.  And then before nap time we had a very fancy arm warmer and a slide and see saw for Batman!

When my kindergartener got home she joined in the fun and tried to help solve the how-to-make-the-swings dilemma.  After a couple tries they were finally finished!

The bracelet/arm warmer!

And a playground for Batman!  So fun!  And very useful.  The superheros have had a lot of fun on the slide and see saw, but sadly the swings didn’t really stand up to the demands of the superhuman!

Join the fun!  Head over to Tinkerlab and take the challenge!  This time there is even a cool giveaway based on the number of Pinterest repins each project gets – a project and Pinterest, what could be more fun!?!