Creating projects with beads and altoids tins @WBCL

I have such a stash of beads and people give me more plus I have been known to buy a bag here and there like the beautiful gold ones from Oriental Trading that doing a project with them is always a creative surprise. The kids and adults are told at the beginning that these are what ever has been thrown into the bag left from other projects so who knows what is there. I gave the tins a quick coat of flat paint then put out beads in bowls and plastic lids of Aleene's tacky glue. There was some trading between tables to get a specific bead here and there too. The results are really nice and it is easy for kids of any age to do this with help from an adult--some of whom did their own boxes.

Making sharks & whales @WBCL

Sharks and whales are certainly popular with the younger set! I got a donation of many 100s of small styrofoam cups so they were great to use for making this project. I glued 2 together and cut egg cartons up into strips so they could make fins and tales. the ends are easy to pierce with scissors to insert the tail and make teeth. a bit of gray paint and we were there. We had magazines that my helper Jolanda brought for inspiration too.

Making a mosaic tile @ WBCL

This is one of the best mosaic projects I have had the kids do. It involved making a design on the back of a tile using tile adhesive then filling the surrounding space with pebbles to make the design stand out. The kids quickly figured out what tiles would make their design and then picked out the stones that would make it look best. Lots of parents with fingers in this one too. Even the youngest kids got a good tile done.

Stars & stripes or Patriotic fun mini-camp @ WB Annex

Finally a week where the 4th doesn't fall in the middle of the week so we grabbed it and did a camp. We started the week with a drawing session of a flagged street scene in the Picturing America series by Childe Hassam, an impressionist. The main feature of the week was construction of the 3 small floats from start to finish - one of Uncle Sam and one of Lady Liberty. Along the way we made flags, confetti eggs, tp poppers and long wands with stars. We capped the week off marching in the parade in Wells Branch.

Batman collages @ WBCL

In honor of the 75th anniversary of Batman comics we did a project that mimicked a theatre marque poster. The kids covered the paper with strips of comics then cut out a batman mask and mounted it over a spotlight strip complete with bubble and bat. Some of the kids were quite meticulous in selecting background pictures and cut around each frame to choose exactly what went on the background.

Draw a tiger @ WBCL

we again used the grid drawing method and the tigers were fantastic. the kids then colored them with pencils.