The Foundry - Preschool Art Camp

During June, I helped teach a preschool art class at The Foundry, formerly known as The Crossroads Worship Arts Academy.  One of my best friends and her husband reopened the building and are serving as directors - and they are doing a great job getting it back up and running.  (If you didn't know, David Rinehart, or church's former worship leader {that was killed in November by a drunk driver} had plans to reopen The Foundry under it's new name this past January.)  I felt honored to get to be a part of anything at The Foundry!  

My friend and I picked out 5 cute kids books and planned fun, messy crafts for the kids to do.  It was 9-11, Monday-Friday.  There were 5 kids total and 2 just happened to be mine :)  All the kids got along great together and had a great week!

These were 3 of the books we read/planned art actives from.  I thought they were so cute and I decided to buy them for our collection at home.

*Krissy & Austin*

One craft was making monsters.  We read "If You're A Monster And You Know It."  We squirted paint on the kids papers and they took a straw and blew the paint.  Once the paint dried, they went back and added eyes, mouths, antenna, arms, legs - basically whatever they wanted to!

*Krissy & Austin*

Another book we read was "I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean."  My friend colored elmers glue, we let the kids decorate their watercolor papers with it and then the next day, once the glue was dried, they used water colors to paint an ocean picture.  This was one of my kids favorite crafts. :)

*Krissy & Austin*

This elephant craft was used with the book "Elmer".  I cut out the elephants, and had pre-punched paper shapes.  We also left paper and scissors on the table for the kids to cut and decorate with.  They all spent a lot of time on this craft and really enjoyed making their elephants!

*Krissy & Austin*

When we read "Only One You," we let the kids pick out rocks and paint them like the characters in the book.  We also gave the kids a canvas and told them to paint a self portrait.  You can tell Austin wasn't as into this craft! Haha!  I love how Krissy's turned out - blue eyelashes and all.

*Austin & Krissy*

This craft went with "Beautiful Oops."  We let the kids color on these ceramic tiles.  Once they were finished, we took an dropped rubbing alcohol with an eye dropper on them.  It bled the colors together and the kids thought it was fun!  We clear coated them once they were dry.

In addition to the crafts, my teaching partner, Susanne planned lots of fun/messy things for the kids to do between activities!  The kids loved the shaving cream on the mirros, the water beads, and snack time!  On the last day, we let them each decorate a cupcake for snack.  They were a hit!

After our last class Friday, we had a little art show and the parents got to come and see all the things the kids created.  Hayden and Allie also went to an art/music camp at The Foundry the same week I taught the preschool camp.  They had so much fun and loved doing their music performance and art show on the last day!  

We also did fly swatter painting, we traced the kids and let them color themselves, they got to build clay statues... it was really a great week!

Hayden and Allie with their art displays!

If you are interested, there's still week long camps going on this month!  Hayden has also started taking guitar lessons once a week at The Foundry.  We are so glad they've reopened! :)

Slip N Slide

This weekend was beautiful!  It was 80s/90s on Saturday and Sunday and the sun was shining all day!  I could just sense it coming.....Hayden and Allie on the verge of telling me they were bored, so I told them once they helped me pick up inside, we ate lunch, and I laid Austin down for his nap, I would get out the slip n slide Hayden got for his birthday.  

They were both so excited and ready to be outside and kept asking how much longer.  As soon as the house wasn't a disaster, they had some food in their bellies, and Austin was laid down, we started getting set up.  Krissy came outside with us during the set up.  She had scratched her leg earlier in the day and the gnats wouldn't leave her alone and she had no desire to be outside.  Once I got the water connected, I left the oldest two out to play and laid Krissy down.  Then I grabbed my camera and took these. 

After about an hour (I don't even want to guesstimate my next month's water bill!), I turned off the water and shut down the slide.  They kids weren't happy with me, but when we started rolling up the slide, we realized all the worms that were in the ground under the slide decided to come up and play.  I was completely disgusted, but the kids went crazy grabbing them by the handfuls.  I told them to make themselves useful and at least take them to my garden!  So I have about 5 or 6 handfuls of worms now working their way through my raised bed. 

Summer Fun List

I have been pinning all kinds of "summer to do lists" on Pinterest for the last couple months.  I wanted to be intentional and make sure to work in plenty of fun things for Hayden's summer break.  I had recently bought some chalkboard paint, so I gave our chalkboard a new coat and then got to work on my list!

The kids were so excited to see all the fun things I listed.  I read it aloud, and they squealed and shrieked after every thing I said.  I sent the list to Kevin and he said, "You're going to camp out?".  Oh the things I agree to for the sake of making memories :) 

Hope you and your family enjoy your summer too!