Keeping the Kiddos Busy

Papier mache is easy to make.  All you need are old newspapers, water, and flour or glue.  And you can make a lot of things with it:  masks, vases, bowls, animal models, jewelry, etc.  When it is dry, you can paint and varnish it. Here are some instructions on how to make papier mache, and here are a lot of projects you can do with it.  Children may need help with big projects such as those that involve chicken wire frames, but there are many small projects that are easy enough for children to do. After you have some experience doing some of the projects in those websites, you can experiment with some of your own.

If you have a garden or a backyard or even just a few indoor plants, you and your children can gather a few leaves.  There are so many activities you can do with them. Just from among the activities that were featured in this blog, you can make leaf rubbings , leaf prints , or negative leaf prints using the splatter painting technique . Then, you can also press them and make projects with them. Just insert them between the pages of an old telephone directory, put some heavy books or other heavy items on top of the directory for weight, and leave the leaves alone for a few days.  When they are already dry, you can use them to decorate cards, book marks, or other items.  Or you can simply make pretty pictures with them. Another thing you can do with pressed leaves is to make an herbarium. "Herbarium" is just a fancy name for a leaf scrap book.  Just mount  the leaves on one sheet of paper each and write descriptions of each plant, and then bind the sheet...

(Photo credit:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_silhouette.svg) Silhouette art looks simple but dramatic.  And you can easily make silhouette profiles of your friends and family members.   You will first need a sheet of paper that is big enough to accommodate the side-view shadow of your subject: manila paper, construction paper, the backside of old gift wrappers, etc.  Tape the paper on a wall, light a lamp or a flashlight, and have your subject sit between the paper and the lamp or flashlight.  Station the subject so that the light casts the shadow of his or her profile on the paper.  While your subject sits, trace the outline of her shadow with a pen or crayon. Cut out the profile.  You can either trace it on a white sheet of paper and then color it a dark color, or trace it on good-quality, dark-colored paper, cut that out, and mount it on a sheet of white paper.  You can add any decorations you want (like borders),...

Splatter painting is fun and easy. Just dip an old toothbrush in paint, flick the bristles towards you, and let the paint droplets fall on a sheet of paper. (This can get messy, so you would want to protect your table or other nearby areas.) You can experiment with different color combinations.  Or you can put a leaf or a paper cut-out of any shape you want on a sheet of paper and then splatter-paint over it.  When you remove the leaf or the cut-out, you will see a silhouette of the leaf or paper cut-out. Splatter painting can be used to decorate cards, bookmarks, and other paper items.  You can also display your splatter painting as stand-alone art.  Whatever you do, you can easily make something beautiful with splatter art.

This is another art project which is easy to do but which yields stunning results.  Cut pieces of string, soak them in paint make patterns with them on a sheet of paper, cover the string with another sheet of paper, then pull the string.  You can experiment with different colors, patterns, and string textures.  See how different kinds of string yield different results. Here are some other ideas. Warning: this activity can get messy -- but in a fun way!

Perhaps in your garden, backyard, or even in your garage, you might find some spare rocks.  With some imagination, as well as paint and glue and some odds and ends, you and your children can make nice sculptures out of them.   After you gather the rocks and wash them, examine them:  perhaps their shapes might remind you of some animal? See what combinations of rocks you can put together to make the shape of the animal you have in mind.  Once you have mentally composed the figures, glue the rocks together.  You may use white glue; cement glue would even be stronger but it should only be applied by an adult and in a well-ventilated area. After the glue dries, you can paint the rocks to add other features.   Here are some ideas .     

(Photo credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Paper_beads.jpeg) Stringing beads into a necklace or bracelet is another craft that is considered easy enough for children.  However, I originally did not think of it as a good lockdown activity because while most households have sewing kits with a stash of thread in them, obtaining beads is a different matter. But I learned that it is possible to make beads out of paper.  The procedure is simple: cut the paper into narrow triangles, add glue to one side, roll them up with the aid of a toothpick or barbecue stick, seal them with glue or clear nail polish.  By making variations on the procedure , you can make beads of different shapes and sizes. You can use any kind of paper you want.  You can even use the pages of old newspapers and magazines for a unique look.   You can also make sophisticated jewelry patterns . Making jewelry out of paper beads is fun, but wearing it is even more fun. Who ...

Explorers of long ago made bestiaries, or books with drawings and descriptions of the strange new creatures they encountered in their voyages.  You and your children can pretend you are explorers and make bestiaries of your own. For your bestiary, you can use an old notebook or diary that still has blank pages, or you can make and bind your  own  book .   You can make your bestiary about real animals.  Perhaps you have done the other nature observing activities featured in this blog, like bird watching or observing indoor wildlife , and you would like to make a bestiary as a way to record your observations.  You can fill your bestiary with your observations -- in words and in drawings  of how various animals look like and behave.  Or you might want to fill your bestiary with animals of your own imagination, like what Matthew Mehan did in his book entitled Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals .  Ask yourself what your imagin...

The idea behind stamp printing is simple: apply paint to your stamp, and then stamp it on the surface you want to decorate while the paint is still wet.  You can get creative with the stamps you make and use. A common stamp printing project is potato printing , where you carve out your design on a potato half and use the potato half as a stamp.  You can try printing the natural textures of other vegetables and fruits .  You can also make stamps from recycled materials.    You can also be creative with the surfaces you decorate.  If you have textile paint, you can use stamp printing to decorate shirts. You can decorate wooden surfaces too.  You can use stamp printing to make cards, book marks, gift wrappers, and other similar items. Again, the possibilities are endless.

Maybe you and your children have been following this blog ever since the beginning of this lockdown, have been trying the activities featured here, and have written a sizable collection of haiku , cinquains , or clerihews ; or a collection of zines that you want to bind in one volume;  or a well-researched family history ; as well as various art works.  Or maybe you want to compile heirloom recipes in a beautiful handmade cookbook. Or perhaps you just want a unique-looking personal diary where you can record your experiences of the day or your secret thoughts and feelings.  Whatever the case, making a handmade book is another good project to do.  There are many ways of hand-binding a book. Instructions can be found here .  Whether you choose the simplest or most elaborate method of making and binding your homemade book,  you will end up with a precious keepsake which you will enjoy leafing through again and again.

What would your ideal city, town, or village look like? You and your children can make a paper model of it. The architectural firm Foster and Partners has released templates for children to make paper models of houses and other structures.  The templates can be downloaded here .  You and your children can assemble and decorate the models using paper, scissors, paste or glue, and any other supplies you have at home.  Then you can arrange them to look like the city, town, or village you like.  You can even share photos of your creations by sending them to fandpmarketing@outlook.com Lockdown is a good time for sone healthy dreaming about the kind of world your children want to build.  Who knows?  Some future architects, engineers,  and urban planners might be inspired by this project and one day actually build that world.

Crayon etching is easy to do and requires few tools.  You and your children can make stunning designs with it. The first step is to color a sheet of paper with different color patterns, using crayons.  It is best to use light colors at this stage. Then, using a black crayon, color over the color patterns. Once the sheet of paper is all black, use a popsicle stick, a barbecue stick,  a tooth pick, or any other etching tool of your choice to scratch out your design. A more detailed tutorial can be watched here . You and your children will be fascinated to see your design as you etch it. The colors will seem to glow out of the black background.

Tin cans are not the only things that can be made into pretty crafts.  Most likely, you have a stash of used glass jars in your house.  You and your children can make a lot of things with them. After you wash the jars and remove their labels -- as well as any traces of the adhesive that was used to attach the labels -- there are countless ways of decorating them. You can paint them, tie ribbons around them, stick things on them, drip melted crayon on them... Just be careful that your kids don't break them and injure themselves . Then, you can use the finished product for many things. You can use them as organizers for various items, flower vases, or even as lanterns .  Here are some ideas of things you can do with glass jars and bottles .  Again, the limit is your imagination. 

A few days ago, I blogged about how you and your children can make serious music using recycled items like tin cans.  But music is just one thing you can make with tin cans.  You can also decorate them to reuse them as pencil holders or organizers for other items. Older kids can make lanterns out of them by boring holes in them and adding a lighted votive candle inside.  Tin cans can also  be transformed into toys like toy phones and stilts. You can paint them, glue things on them -- the limit is the imagination! Just be sure to remove jagged edges or cover them with layers of masking tape, for safety. Here are some ideas of things you can do with tin cans, with instructions. But like I said, the limit is the imagination!

A joke is going around in social media that with all the canned goods we are eating during the lockdown, we can play tumbang preso.   While that is a good idea, another thing you and your children can make with all those used tin cans is music.  Cans and many other throw-away household items can be recycled into homemade musical instruments. Here are some ideas. Most of the instruments you can make with recycled materials will be percussion instruments.  Your children will have fun playing them to accompany songs, or even to experiment with their own rhythms.  It may seem like childish play, but believe it or not, serious music has been made using recycled instruments.  Take this video for example: Soon, you may be able to enjoy a free concert in the comfort of your own home.

This portrait of John F. Kennedy is made mostly of eggshells . Indeed, you and your children can make art using them if you do not throw them away.  Eggshell mosaics are easy to make, although you can also make them as complex as you want them. To make an eggshell mosaic, draw first your template on a sheet of paper. Decide what color you want for each part. After cleaning your eggshells, paint them your desired colors and sort them out.  Spread glue over each part of your template, then attach the eggshells according to your desired color scheme.  When the glue dries, you're done! Here is a Youtube tutorial showing how it's done. You can also use the same eggshell mosaic technique to decorate items like vases . Eggshell mosaics are an accessible version of an ancient art form , something you and your children will enjoy making at little or no cost.

A zine is just a homemade magazine.  It is a lot of fun to make, and you and your children can make it about any topic you want:  stories, poetry, artwork, hobbies, life during ECQ...All you need for a basic zine are sheets of paper, writing materials, and a pair of scissors.  Of course, you can make a more elaborate zine using additional materials if you want. This article describes a simple method for creating a zine.  Here are some other ideas. After you make your zine, you can scan it and e-mail it to family and friends. Or you can just keep it, for the whole family to read, enjoy, and be proud of.

Image credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Einbanddurchreibung_von_Stempeln_%280116%29.jpg "Tripsigraph" is just a fancy term for "rubbing". A rubbing is very easy to make. Put any textured object - a coin, a leaf, a doily, etc. - under a sheet of paper, then, using a crayon or a soft-grade pencil, rub the surface of the paper that covers the textured item. You will end up with an impression of the item on the sheet of paper. Your kids (and most likely you too) will enjoy making rubbings. And there are many things you can do with them. They can stand alone as works of art, or you can mount them on thicker paper or cardboard  to make cards, bookmarks, gift tags, place cards, and other paper crafts. Have fun!

UPDATE: Philstar  already revised its article about this initiative. Dr. Nicole Perreras, a doctor in RITM, is requesting kids to make hand-made get well cards for Covid-19 patients. The cards can be scanned and emailed to covidletters@gmail.com . Someone will print them out, and the patients will each get a card as part of their breakfast trays. Some ideas for making cards can be found here . But any hand-made card, no matter how simple and made with whatever materials you have at home, will brighten the day of someone who needs it most. Who knows? Perhaps the smile that your kid's card brings to the patient who receives it may just be that push the patient's body needs to fight and defeat that virus.

With so many museums and art galleries putting up virtual tours these days , and with the extra free time your children (and possibly you) have, it is a perfect time to learn art appreciation. Looking at paintings together with your children is a rewarding way to spend time with them. ( Note: it is the same with paintings as with movies: some subjects may require additional parental guidance for children. ) Learning art appreciation is not about the boring memorization of the various art movements through history, although it would be cool too if your kids could learn them. Rather, it is learning how to look at paintings and what to see in them. In her article entitled "How to Look at Art with Your Children" , Cindy Ingram suggests asking kids three questions when looking at art with them: She suggests having fun with the paintings: posing like the characters, for example. ( The Qeddeng Family posing as the Spoliarium .) Another way to look at paintings...