This week, our Smock Rock students at TLB Music are creating Carmen-inspired paper fans and handmade castanets while listening to music from Bizet’s opera Carmen (The Habanera) and Flamenco music!

Student Materials:
2 small rectangular pieces of cardboards (1.75 x 5” each)
4 bottle caps, glue, glue stick, scissors
small items for decorating top of castanets (I used small paper circles)
2 pages of Carmen sheet music (with folding lines printed on the back)
Get Carmen sheet music here (pages 30-31) | download lined paper template here
glitter glue sticks (we use these washable glitter glue sticks by Elmer’s)
paint brushes, tape for making fan’s handle

Teacher Materials: -stapler

Teacher Prep: -cut cardboard into 1.75 x 5” pieces
-print sheet music with folding lines printed on back

Project Intro:
Today, our art project is inspired by Carmen! What is Carmen? Carmen is an opera by French composer Bizet and Carmen is also the name of the lead character in the opera. Opera is a kind of theatre where the story is told through music and song. Elements of opera that help tell the story: stage and scenery, costumes, opera singers and a musical ensemble. Today, we’re going to create Carmen-inspired costume accessories: a paper fan and castanets! The story of Carmen takes place in Spain so, while we craft, we’ll listen to beautiful Spanish Flamenco music in addition to our music from Carmen. Ask students: what do we do with a fan? How do we use? What are castanets? Show classroom pair of castanets and demonstrate how to use. Show craft sample and discuss how we can create castanets out of cardboard, bottle caps and glue!

Castanet & Fan Materials

Pass out 2 pieces of cardboard, 4 bottle caps, glue and gluesticks.
Step 1 (fold & decorate castanets): Fold cardboard pieces in half, then unfold to decorate. Use small pieces of paper or paper cutouts to decorate the top of each castanet.
*Keep in mind, our castanets will be drying decorated side down so be careful not to use too much glue.

Folding & Decorating Castanets

Now we’re going to glue bottle caps to the inside of our castanets so when we close them, they make a clicking sound.
Step 2 (glue bottle caps to castanets): First, put a line of glue around the inner rim of each bottle cap and press onto your cardboard, holding in the correct position for a few moments. This is the tricky part! We careful not to let the bottle caps slide. Once they’re stuck in place, line the outer edge of each bottle cap with more glue to seal. You could also put a couple small decorations on the inside of your castanets!
(I used a heart on each side!) Set aside to dry, bottle cap side up.

Gluing Bottle Caps on Castanets

Pass out sheet music and glue sticks. Tell students: this is the music from Carmen! What do your students see on the paper? (Notes, symbols, words) Let’s turn our sheet music into a fan! First we need to attach 2 pieces of music.
Step 3 (glue sheet music piece together): Use a gluestick to glue 2 sheets of music together along the short end.

Gluing Sheet Music Together

Now, let’s make the folds in our fan. Turn sheet music over and, using the lines as a guide, accordion fold from one end to the other. Slowly explain how to make accordion folds in paper and ask adults to help children!
Step 4 (accordion fold along lines on back): Accordion fold from one end to the other.

Making Accordion Folds in Sheet Music

Our fan needs a handle!
Step 5 (staple & make a tape handle): Pinch together one side of your paper and ask an adult to help you staple together. Next, wrap tape around the stapled end to create a handle!  We used duct tape, but any tape will work!

Creating a Fan Handle

Our last step is to decorate the top edge of our fan! Let’s use sparkling glitter glue! Ask adults to help children squeeze just a little bit of glitter glue onto a plate. (the glitter glue comes out quickly so it’s better to use a paintbrush to distribute)
Step 6 (decorate top edge of fan): Paint with your glitter glue at the top edge of your fan! *Use a light coating so fan isn’t weighed down.

Decorating the Fan

Finished Castanets & Sheet Music!

This week’s TLB Music Smock Rock project theme is Jazz music! We’re creating a Charlie “Bird” Parker-inspired saxophone collage! While they craft, our students are listening to Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing”, Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing”, Louis Armstrong’s “Basin Street Blues” and Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology”!

Student Materials:
a sturdy sheet of white paper
tissue paper in a variety of colors cut into small shapes (mine were rough squares, some pieces I ripped!)
1 yellow paper saxophone (get the saxophone & mouthpiece template here)
1 paper saxophone mouthpiece (can be any color, use about template)
small 1/2” circles for saxophone keys (can be any color)
1 paper oval for saxophone bell (can be any color)
Charlie Parker sheet music (printed 4 per page, links below)
Ornithology Sheet Music | Yardbird Suite Sheet Music
black music notes confetti or small paper music notes
glue stick, scissors

Teacher Materials: scissors, 1/2” circle hole puncher, bird hole puncher

Teacher Prep: -cut saxophones -print sheet music 4 per page and cut
-punch 1/2” circles for keys -cut mouthpieces -cut bell (kids can help cut an oval here if you’d like)

*view hole punchers, music notes and tissue paper used at the bottom of post!

Project Intro:
Today, we’re going to listen to Jazz music while we make a collage inspired by a very famous Jazz musician, Charlie “Bird” Parker. Show picture. What instrument did he play? Does anyone know its name? Now, can kids find the saxophone in the classroom? We’ll include a bird in our collage because Charlie’s nickname was “bird”- isn’t that funny? Several of his compositions reference birds: “Yardbird”, “Ornithology”, “Bird Gets the Worm”, and “Bird of Paradise”.

Pass out piece of tissue paper, glue sticks and white paper. Let’s make a beautiful background by gluing pieces of colorful tissue paper on the paper. Layer the different colors, noticing how the areas where you overlap make new colors!
Step 1 (create background): Using a gluestick, glue your piece of tissue paper on your paper, covering the entire paper. It’s ok if you go over the edge: adults can help children trim the excess by turning the paper over to see where the extra paper is!

Creating the Background

Decorating Materials

Pass out small sheet music. Charlie Parker wrote these songs! What do kids see on the paper? (Notes, words, symbols!) We’re going to decorate our collage at the end with lots of music notes!
Step 2 (sheet music): Glue sheet music to your background.

Adding Sheet Music to Background

Pass out saxophones. Ask children to help you identify which is the top and the bottom. Look at real saxophone to see which way it goes!
Step 3 (saxophone body): Glue saxophone to background. (I let mine overlap the sheet music a bit)

Saxophone Body

Our next step is adding the bell’s hole.  This is where the sound comes from!
Step 4 (saxophone bell): Glue bell on saxophone.

Saxophone Bell

To change the pitch on a saxophone, musicians need to press the keys to cover the holes on the saxophone! Show with real saxophone. Pass out small paper circles for keys.
Step 5 (saxophone keys): Glue keys on the neck of the saxophone.

Saxophone Keys

To make a sound, saxophone players need to blow into a mouthpiece attached to top of the next. Show saxophone mouthpiece. Let’s add a mouthpiece to our saxophone!
Step 6 (saxophone mouthpiece): Glue mouthpiece to saxophone.

Saxophone Mouthpiece

Time to add our bird in honor of Charlie Parker!
Step 7 (bird): Choose a bird and glue it to your collage.

Adding the Bird

Our last step is adding the music notes! Notes are symbols that tell musicians what to play. It can tell them to play a low note or a high note and tells them how long to hold the note.
Step 8 (music notes): Glue music notes to your collage.

Music Notes

Finished Collage!

End of class activity, if time:
Let’s play along with Charlie Parker on our own wind instruments! Pass out a recorder for each child. We play our recorders very similarly to our saxophone: we need to blow to make a sound and move our fingers over the holes to change the pitch. First, warm up with a simple song like “Mary Had a Little Lamb” then jam out along with a recording of Charlie Parker!

This week, our Smock Rock at TLB Music students are creating Hawaiian leis and grass crowns while listening to some of our favorite Hawaiian songs like “Aloha ‘Oe”, “One Paddle, Two Paddle” & “Lovely Hula Hands”.

Student Materials:

Lei: hole punched flowers in a variety of colors with holes punched in center for stringing
green paper leaves with hole for stringing, string, a variety of colorful straws, scissors, green crayon

Crown: 2 strips of green cardstock paper (3” x 11”) attached
scissors, glue stick, paper flowers

Teacher Materials: -scissors
flower hole punchers (shown at bottom of post), small circle hole puncher

Teacher Prep: -punch flowers in a variety of colors and cut green leaves
-punch holes in flower and leaves for stringing (leaves some flower without holes for crowns)
-cut string to appropriate lengths – cut 3” x 11” green cardstock strips
-glue strips of green paper in pairs to double length -precut straws if using heavy weight paper straws

Project Intro:  Today our art project is inspired by hula dance and music! Hula dance comes from the Hawaiian Islands. Show pictures. What do kids see? Beach, ocean, palm trees, dancers, etc.  The dancers wear grass skirts, flower headbands and leis and dance using graceful arm movements and swaying their hips. Demonstrate briefly. Hula dance is most often accompanied by accompanied by chanting, ukuleles, guitars, drums, puili sticks and other rattles. Today, we’ll make our own flower leis (a necklace of flowers!) and grass crowns while listening to beautiful traditional Hawaiian music!

LEI:

Lei Supplies

Ask children to choose about 20 flowers and a few leaves for their lei. If using 2 types of flowers like I did, choose 10 of each flower. Now we need to sort them. We’ll be stringing the flowers 2 at a time so we need to pair our flowers in pretty combinations!
Step 1 (group flowers): Group your flowers in piles of 2, choosing a variety of different color combinations!

We’re going to use pieces of straws to separate our pairs of flowers and leaves. Let’s cut straws into 1.5” pieces!
Step 2 (cut straws): With the help of a grown-up, cut 2 to 3 straws into 1.5” pieces.

Now we’re going to use green crayon to draw details on our leaves to make them more realistic. Look at pictures of Hawaiian leaves and notice the veins!
Step 3 (crayon leaf details): Using a green crayon, draw a line down the middle of each leaf then draw veins (lines) on each side.

It’s time to put our leis together! Choose a pattern to follow.
I used this pattern: 1. pair of flowers 2. straw 3. pair of flowers 4. straw 5. leaf 6.straw
Step 4 (thread flowers, leaves and straws): Thread flowers, leaves & straws on string following a pattern.

Step 5 (tie string): With the help of a grown-up, tie a knot with both ends of string to complete your lei!

GRASS CROWN:

Grass Crown Supplies

Ask children to choose 1 strip of green paper to make their crown. To create the look of grass, we’ll be making little cuts on one side of our paper strips.
Step 1 (make grass): With the help of a grown-up, cut one side of your green paper to look like grass. If initial cuts create wide pieces of “grass”, continue cutting those wide pieces to create smaller pieces!

Ask adults to help children measure their grass strip around their heads to decide where to glue it together.
Step 2 (make crown with strip): Wrap your crown around your head to decide where to glue then glue together to create your crown. Hold in place for a few second to seal in position.

It’s time to add flowers to our crowns!
Step 3 (decorate with flowers): Glue colorful flowers to your crown!

This week’s Smock Rock students at TLB Music are creating Beatles-inspired “Octopus’s Garden” collages complete with yellow submarines! This project is amazing for practicing fine motor skills: it includes cutting, pasting, pressing, drawing, bending, threading and manipulating small pieces.  As children craft, they’re listening to some of our favorite Beatles’ songs like “Octoptus’s Garden”, “Yellow Submarine”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Good Day Sunshine”, and “Hello, Goodbye”!

Student Materials:
ocean scene printed on sturdy sheet of white paper (PDF below)
printed octopus template on sturdy purple paper (PDF below)
2” circles: 1 red (for crab) & a few more in a variety of other colors to create fish
small white 1/2” circles for eyes
2 small red crab claws (precut by teacher)
small paper hearts for fish tails
small paper shells (precut by teacher)
1 paper yellow submarine (precut by teacher, image below)
small tissue paper pieces to create coral
crayons, glue stick, scissors

Teacher Materials: scissors, circle hole punchers

Teacher Prep: -print ocean backgrounds, octopus templates, and yellow submarines
-precut crab claws, shells, heart tails -cut octopus templates out, leaving legs for students to cut
-hole punch 2 inch circles and small circles for eyes (add black dot on eyes for pupils!)

Project Intro:
This art project is inspired by The Beatles! The Beatles were a very popular band! Has anyone heard of them? Show pictures. What are their names? What instruments do they play? Today, we’re going to create an Octopus’s Garden in honor of their song “Octopus’s Garden”. What other sea animals do your students know? Other songs we’ll listen to today: “Yellow Submarine”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Good Day Sunshine”, and “Hello, Goodbye”. To begin, give each student an ocean background. What do they see? (ocean floor, sand, water, seaweed, coral)

Supplies

Click for Printable PDF

Click for Printable PDF

Click to Print

Pass out an octopus template for each student. Ask students, how many legs does an octopus have? Count together using sample!
Step 1 (create octopus): Cut along the dotted lines to create the legs then, in the center of your template, paste 2 eyes and draw a smile with crayon. Wrap the template up, attaching at the tab with glue, to create the octopus body. Hold in place for a minute until it is secure then curl the legs up! With the help of an adult, hole punch 2 small holes on each side of your octopus, thread a string through and tie above. Set aside.

Ask everyone to find a big red circle. We’re going to turn this into a crab! Can kids find 2 red crab claws and 2 white eyes?
Step 2 (create crab): With the help of an adult, cut your red circle in half. Glue in the center of your ocean floor with the rounded side on top. Next, let’s give our crab 2 eyes at the top of his head. Glue 2 white circles on your crab’s head. What is our crab missing? (Legs!) Using a red crayon, draw 8 crab legs from the crab’s body to the ocean floor. Draw 2 more front legs on the top of your crab and attach your red claws!

Next, let’s create fish using circles, triangles and hearts!
Step 3 (create fish): Round fish: cut triangle mouth out of circle & use triangle for tail.  Add eyes.
Fish with heart tails: cut the bottom of a circle off, following the curve of the circle, creating a slimmer fish. Add a heart tail and eyes. Ask kids to get creative and create a 3rd type of fish!

Another famous Beatles song is “Yellow Submarine”. Does anyone know what a submarine is? Let’s add a yellow submarine to our ocean!
Step 4 (yellow submarine): glue a yellow submarine in your ocean.

Look at picture of coral. Coral lives on our ocean floor! Let’s create coral with tissue paper.
Step 5 (coral): Crumple up small pieces of tissue paper to make different colored coral and glue to ocean floor.

Our last step is adding details to our octopus’ garden. Shells, bubbles, more fish, etc!  Sit your octopus in the garden or make him dance, holding him by the string! 
Step 6 (ocean details): Add details to your ocean. Ideas:
*draw bubbles coming from mouth of fish
*glue shells to ocean floor
*use fish stamps to stamp extra fish in your water
*stick fish stickers to your background
*glue sequins to ocean floor
*glue rice “rocks” to ocean floor

This week, our Smock Rock students at TLB Music are creating watercolor seahorse collages inspired by the art of Eric Carle! In particular, the beautiful artwork from his book, Mister Seahorse.   While we craft, we’re listening to ocean-themed music including “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid, Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea”, Aquarium from Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and The Beatles’ “Octopus’s Garden”!

Student Materials:
sturdy sheet of white paper with seahorse outline printed on it
blank sturdy sheet of white paper for background (can use watercolor paper for both if you’d like)
crayons: orange, blue, green, magenta, white and black
watercolor paint, paint brushes,water
glue stick, glue, scissors
*all supplies used are listed at bottom of post!

Teacher Materials:
scissors
copy of Eric Carle’s Mister Seahorse

Teacher Prep: print seahorse outline on white paper (download outline below)

Project Intro:
Before starting the craft, flip through the book. Has anyone read this book?  How do you you think Eric Carle created his art?  Eric Carle uses watercolor and painted paper collages to create his distinctive style! Ask children to help you identify colors, shapes, animals and anything else that interests them.

Inspiration:

Click to enlarge and print!

Let’s start by using crayons to draw details that will show through our watercolor paint. To begin, let’s draw orange stripes on our seahorse’s dorsal fin! Can kids say “dorsal fin”? This fin helps the seahorse stabilize and propel in the water.
Step 1 (orange stripes on fin): Using orange crayon, draw stripes on the seahorse’s dorsal fin.

Next, let’s draw spots in various colors on the seahorse’s body. Use one color at a time, asking children to find each color crayon as you go: blue, green, magenta and white. Explain that even though we can’t see the white dots now, they will show up with watercolor!
Step 2 (dots with crayons): Using blue, green, magenta and white crayons, make polka dots on the body.

Now we’re going to use watercolors to paint our seahorse! Using Eric Carle’s illustration as a guide, let’s paint color by color. First orange (on his belly!), then yellow, green, blue, magenta (or pink) and purple. Before painting each color, take a moment to look at Eric Carle’s seahorse and discuss where we see the color. Thoroughly rinse brushes in between.
Step 3 (watercolor paint): Paint with orange, yellow, green, blue, magenta and purple then set aside to dry.

While our seahorse is drying, let’s paint a background. Look at the cover of Mister Seahorse and notice how Eric Carle created a simple background using yellow and blue watercolor on white.
Step 4 (paint background): Using yellow and blue watercolor, paint simple wavy lines for the background.

Step 5 (draw eye): Use a black crayon to draw a small circle for the eye on your seahorse.

*While papers are drying, spend a few minutes reading some of the book and/or teach some fun facts about seahorses.
-Did you now that male seahorses give birth!? The female seahorse lays her eggs into a pouch on the male seahorse’s belly and he takes care of the seahorse eggs until they’re born!
-When 2 seahorses fall in love, they dance, swimming together. Sometimes up to 8 hours!
-A baby seahorse is called a “fry” and a group of seahorses, a “herd”.  -Seahorses have no teeth!

Step 6 (cut out seahorse): With the help of an adult, cut seahorse out.

Step 7 (glue seahorse on background): Using a gluestick, paste your seahorse to your background.

The last step is to cut and paste small paper details on the seahorse’s neck and back like in Eric Carle’s art.
Step 8 (cut & glue details on neck): Using your painted paper scraps, cut small triangles or rectangle shapes. Use glue to attach to your seahorse’s neck and back like Mister Seahorse!

This week at TLB Music, our Smock Rock art students are creating handmade maracas while listening to Cuban music!  These maracas are easy for little hands to make, help students practice fine motor skills and they sound great to play!

Student Materials:
masking or duct tape, in a few colors or patterns
2 plastic spoons, 1 plastic easter egg, about 1-2 tsp of rice

Teacher Materials: scissors

Teacher Prep: -place a small of of rice in a cup for each child
-cut strips of tape for students or help students cut

Make Your Own Maraca! Materials

If you have a real set of maracas, start by looking at them and asking students to identify the parts of the maraca (maraca head and handle!). What is making the noise? (little beads inside the maraca head!). To make our maraca head, we’re going to use a hollow, plastic egg. Do kids have any ideas what we could put inside to make sound? Let kids contribute ideas. Today, we’re going to use uncooked rice to fill our eggs. To create a handle, we’re going to sandwich the egg between 2 spoons and secure them together! Show finished model.

Let kids pick 2 spoons to use as their handles and one plastic easter egg. What colors did everyone choose? Everyone should have a little bit of rice in front of them. To begin, we’re going to put rice in our eggs.
Step 1 (fill plastic egg): Carefully add 1-2 tsp of rice to one side of your egg and close!

Now we need to seal our egg closed with a little bit of tape. Give each child a small piece.
Step 2 (secure egg with tape): Use tape to cover one side (opposite hinge) of your egg to secure.
Shake to test the sound!

Let’s add a little piece of tape to the inside of each spoon to help hold the egg in place. Show kids how to roll up a small piece of tape and place one at a time in each spoon.
Step 3 (tape rolls on spoons): Place a small roll of tape on bowl of each spoon

Now let’s add handles to our egg shaker!
Step 4 (place egg between spoons): Place the egg on one spoon, pushing firmly in place, then add the 2nd spoon on the opposite side so that their handles align and touch at the bottom.

Next, we have to secure our handles with tape! Help kids choose & cut tape in a variety of widths and lengths.
Step 5 (tape spoons around egg): Use tape to secure egg in place! Wrap around the center of the egg, beneath where the egg sits and at the bottom of the handles.

This week, TLB Music‘s mini camp theme is Little Artists!  One of our campers craft activities is creating a water lily pond using Monet’s famous series Water Lilies as inspiration.

Student Materials:
a large green paper plate, green lily pads, pink tissue squares, crayons (green & white)
a glue stick, sponge brushes, paint (purple, dark blue, light blue, green & white)

Teacher Materials: scissors

Teacher Prep: -cut lily pads out of green paper in a variety of sizes
-cut small squares of pink tissue paper (I used 1” and 2” squares)

Project Intro:
Claude Monet was an impressionist painter from Paris, France. Impressionism is a 19th century art movement. (ask kids to try to say “Impressionism”) This movement was actually named after one of Monet’s paintings, Impression, Sunrise! Small, thin brushstrokes are one of the main characteristics of these paintings.  Look at Monet’s works of art. What do kids see? Monet’s most famous series of paintings is Water Lilies, which depicts Monet’s garden in France.  There are approximately 250 paintings in this series! Today, we’re going to create our own water lily ponds using the technique of Impressionist painters.

Inspiration:

Pass out paper plates and one brush per child. Let’s start by painting small, thin brushstrokes in purple. Leave the rim paint-free so kids can handle while painting!
Step 1 (purple paint): Using bouncing motion, paint small thin brushstrokes in purple.

Now, repeat the same painting technique in dark blue.
Step 2 (dark blue paint): Using bouncing motion, paint small thin brushstrokes in dark blue.

Next, paint with light blue! Try to fill in the empty spaces on the plate while you paint.
Step 3 (light blue paint): Using bouncing motion, paint small thin brushstrokes, filling in with light blue.

Now, let’s create the reflection of a few trees in the water.
Step 4 (green paint): Using bouncing motion, create a few spots of green in the water.

Now, let’s add a few spots of white to create reflecting light!
Step 5 (white paint): Using bouncing motion, create a few spots of white in the water.

Next, we each need 3 lily pads each. Pass out 3 lily pads per child. (count 1, 2, 3 for each) Ask kids, what color are the lily pads? Let’s use green, light green and white crayons to create texture on each lily pad.
Step 6 (crayons on lily pads): Color small spots in green, light green and white (similar to painting technique) on each lily pad!

Now we need to create the flowers! Hold up a square of tissue paper. Ask kids to identify the shape and color. For each flower, we need 2 square of tissue paper. So…we need 6 squares each!  Count 1-6 as you pass out.
Step 7 (tissue flowers): Place one square on top of another and pinch from center, wrinkling sides to make “petals”. Create 3 water lilies.

Pass out glue sticks and glue flowers to lily pads!
Step 8 (flowers on lily pads): Glue one flower on each lily pad.

Last step- time to glue the lily pads on the water!
Step 9 (lily pads on water): Glue lily pads in the water.

This week, TLB Music‘s mini camp theme is outer space!  One of our campers craft activities is creating a spaceship collage using colorful shapes.  This is a great activity for young kids to work on concepts like shapes, colors, counting and how to draw objects using shapes as your guide.

Student Materials:
a variety of colorful paper cut into rectangles, squares, triangles and circles
a black piece of paper, a glue stick, a circle moon, and orange & red crepe paper streamer pieces.

Teacher Materials: circle hole punch, scissors, paper cutter (optional)
All craft supplies used are at bottom of post.

Teacher Prep: -punch 2” circles out of paper with printed moon surface
-cut or rip strips of orange and red crepe paper streamer into various triangles sizes
-cut shapes in a variety of colors (windows: 2” circles | doors: 2.5” squares |
cabins: 5.5” x 3” rectangles | roofs: triangles made by cutting 3” squares in half |
wings: triangles made by cutting 2.5” squares in half)
*If students are older, they can help with the “teacher prep” section!

Pass out black paper. Let each child choose one rectangle for the main cabin of their spaceship.  Ask kids to identify the shape & color before gluing.

Step 1 (main cabin): In the center of your black paper, glue the main cabin.

Now, let everyone choose a roof. What shape is it? (triangle) What color did they choose?

Step 2 (roof): Glue the roof on top of the cabin.

Let everyone pick a window to put at the top of the cabin beneath the roof. What shape is it? (circle) What color did everyone pick?

Step 3 (window): Glue window on spaceship so astronauts can look out the window!

Next, everyone need to put a door under the window so that the astronauts can enter the spaceship! What shape is the door? (square) What color did everyone choose?

Step 4 (door): Glue square door beneath circle window.

Now we need to create fire coming out of the engine at the bottom of our spaceship. Ask kids to choose some small pieces of orange and red crepe paper.

Step 5 (fire): Wrinkle the pieces of crepe paper for texture then glue at bottom of spaceship.

Next, let each child pick two triangles to create the wings for the ship!

Step 6 (wings): Glue wings to the bottom on each side of the ship. Cover a bit of the fire with the wings!

Our space ship is heading to the moon! Pick one moon each. What shape, color? (circle, gray)
*Find moon surface pictures to print on Wikipedia!

Step 7 (moon): Glue moon on top of the black paper.

These are the craft supplies I used:

My business, TLB Music, is hosting a mini-camp summer series for NYC kids 18 months – 5 years and this patriotic windsock project is one of our campers’ activities of the week!  This craft is perfect for young children and the end result looks great as a decoration for the Fourth of July.  Follow these easy instructions to create your own and scroll to the bottom of this post to see the craft supplies I used!

Student Materials:
blue paper, white paper stars, red and white crepe paper streamer strips, glue stick, string

Teacher Materials: star hole punch, small circle hole punch, scissors

Teacher Prep: cut 8 1/2 x 11 blue paper into 7 x 11 pieces (2 per child)
punch white stars (12 per student)
cut strips of crepe paper streamer into strips  (8 per student, 4 red, 4 white)

*If students are older, they can help with the “teacher prep” section!

To begin the project, make sure to look at the American flag and identify colors and shapes! 

Pass out 2 piece of blue paper and a glue stick to each child.

Step 1: On one piece of blue paper, cover one short edge with glue.

Step 2: Attach the other piece of paper on the short end, pressing down firmly.

Pass out 12 white stars (count together!) and discuss how our real flag actually has 50 stars!

Step 3: Glue white stars to one side of your big piece of blue paper. Spread out evenly and make sure to leave the area near the short edges bare. (We’ll be glueing those edges together.)

Pass out 8 strips of crepe paper streamer to each child: 4 red, 4 white. Count together!

Step 4: Turn blue paper over (stars facing down) and attach strips of crepe paper at the bottom (long edge) with glue. Follow the pattern: red, white, red, white, etc.

Step 5: Turn blue paper over (stars facing up) and coat one bare short edge with glue.

Step 6: Attach the side with glue to the other bare short edge, creating a cylinder!

Step 7 (teacher!): Hole punch a hole on each side of the top of the blue cylinder, about 1 inch down from the top.

Pass out 1 piece of string per student.

Step 8: Thread a piece of string across the two holes and tie the string into a knot at the top.

Step 9: Hang your patriotic windsock near a window or fan!

Click the link below to download and print the free PDF.

Upper East Side, NYC Scavenger Hunt for Kids PDF

Want more scavenger hunts? CLICK HERE

These activity sheets are perfect for beginning violinists! Use the guide to teach the basics of bowing (up vs. down bow) then practice on open strings with the sheet music.  Click on either image below to download the free, printable PDF:

Up Bow & Down Bow Guide

Up Bow & Down Bow Practice

Looking for more violin activity sheets?
Parts of the Violin & Bow: Guide and Activity Sheet
How to Draw a Violin

Did you know that January 29th is National Puzzle Day?  I love puzzles!  I snapped the picture above on New Year’s Day, at the start of our 1000-piece challenge.  Puzzles give your brain a fantastic workout- making them extremely beneficial (for both kids and adults) and SO satisfying to complete!

Cognitive Skills:  When kids work on a puzzle, they practice identifying colors, letters, and develop spatial awareness.  Puzzles also encourage kids to work on their memory.

Hand-Eye Coordination:  Getting the pieces to fit just right requires this valuable skill!

Fine Motor Development:  Picking up and placing puzzle pieces benefits fine motor development immensely.  The smaller the pieces get, the greater the challenge!

Problem Solving:  You have one goal in sight when doing a puzzle.  This requires children to think logically and come up with a plan to complete the task!

Social Skills:  Working in a group to complete a puzzle encourages kids to practice sharing, taking turns, and working in a team to achieve a common goal.

In honor of today’s holiday, I put together a list of some of my favorite puzzles for toddlers, big kids, and adults.  The toddler puzzles by Melissa & Doug have withstood years of play in our playspace and music studio’s lobby- I highly recommend them.  As kids get older, increase the number of pieces and decrease the piece size to keep up the brain-boosting power of puzzles!

Puzzles for Toddlers to Big Kids

1.  My First Puzzle Set: Shapes by The Learning Journey (2, 4, 6, 8 piece | ages 2+) view on Amazon
2.  Chunky Wooden Puzzle: Construction by Melissa & Doug  (6 piece | 2+) view on Amazon
3.  Chunky Wooden Puzzle:  Dinosaurs by Melissa & Doug (7 piece | 2+) view on Amazon
4.  Chunky Wooden Puzzle: Alphabet by Melissa & Doug (26 piece| 3+) view on Amazon
5.  Chunky Wooden Puzzle: Safari by Melissa & Doug (8 piece | 2+) view on Amazon
6. Chunky Wooden Puzzle: Numbers by Melissa & Doug (20 piece | 3+) view on Amazon
7.  Endangered Animals Floor Puzzle by T.S. Shure (24 pieces | 3+) view on Amazon
8.  USA Map Floor Puzzle by Melissa & Doug (51 piece | 6+) view on Amazon
9. Building a House Puzzle by Ravensburger (100 piece | 6+) view on Amazon
10. Railway Station Puzzle by Ravensburger (60 piece | 4+) view on Amazon
 

Puzzles for Big Kids to Adults

1.  Candy Lane Puzzle by White Mountain Puzzles (500 piece | 12+) view on Amazon
2.  Flags of the World Puzzle by White Mountain Puzzles (1000 piece | 12+) view on Amazon
3.  Hollywood Puzzle by White Mountain Puzzles (1000 piece | 12+) view on Amazon
4.  The 1980s Puzzle by White Mountain Puzzles (1000 piece | 12+) view on Amazon
5. Rock ‘n’ Roll Puzzle by White Mountain Puzzles (1000 piece | 12+) view on Amazon
6. Empire State Building 3D Puzzle by Ravensburger (216 piece | 10+) view on Amazon
7. Van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night Puzzle by Ravensburger (1500 piece | 12+) view on Amazon

This activity sheet is perfect for learning the C major scale on the piano or xylophone!  At TLB Music, we teach young children how to play a scale on the xylophone using a simple song like “Doe a Deer”.  I highly recommend this toddler-friendly xylophone by Hohner.  It is fantastic because you can first use the colors as your guide (a color-coded song book is included) and as the children get older, they can begin to read the notes marked on the bars.  After mastering the scale on the xylophone, our students graduate to playing it on their own keyboards!

Click here to get the free activity sheet:  The C Major Scale on the Piano and Xylophone

Related piano activity sheets:
Notes C, D, and E on the Piano and Keyboard
Identifying C, D, and E
One Two Sheet Music for Piano (using notes C, D, E, F, and G)
C Major Scale Activity for Kids
Musical Spelling Activity Sheet (Level 1)
Musical Spelling Activity Sheet (Level 2)

Click the link below to download and print the free PDF.

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A reader from Australia asked me to give my “Nature Walk” scavenger hunt an Aussie update for her daughter’s 5th birthday party.  Here it is!  Download the free printable below!

Scavenger Hunt- Aussie Nature Walk PDF

Want more scavenger hunts? CLICK HERE