Category Archives: Kids

Make: Little Things

Posted in Kids, Paper, Recycled materials, Stuff to make by

I spent the rainy weekend making miniatures. I have made a tiny chest of drawers before (although never with leftover torrone boxes), but the wee gum ball machine was a moment of pure Lilliputian inspiration.

I’m planning to bring my creations to school and install them in the shoebox house that the students have been building in our library makerspace. Fingers crossed that they will flip out.

If you are so inclined to make your own mini gum ball machine, you need one of those plastic bubbles (which, yes, come from gum ball machines); colorful teeny beads, and some sort of spool. I think you can intuit the rest but make sure to arm yourself with a hot glue gun.

Happy 2016, folks~

 

Creative Kid: Shoebox House

Posted in Kids, Paper, Recycled materials, Stuff to make by

I recently opened a “maker space” in the school library where I work. In some libraries, maker space refers to a spot for a 3-D printer; in mine, it means something more basic: recyclables, masking tape, glue sticks and scissors.

The kids (grades 3-5) decided to make a shoebox house for a library elf–a mythical creature they hope to lure to our library with some luxe real estate. The project is collaborative, with each group of kids adding to what the others started. I’ve been amazed, watching as the structure grew and grew–the pad even has a pool and barbecue. Although I’ve only had a light hand in the project, I do occasionally get out my glue gun to solidify the foundation.

Our maker space rules are simple: share the space; build, don’t break; and when class is over, clean up the blizzard of little bits of paper scattered all over the carpet.

Creative Kid: Sand Art Bottle

Posted in Kids, Recycled materials, Stuff to make by

This one’s a crowd pleaser. There’s something about funneling layers of rainbow sand into an old glass bottle that brings out the mad scientist in everyone. There’s not much to it:

Materials

Colored sand (you can also use natural sand or salt and color it with food dye)

Recycled bottles

1″ to 1 1/2″ corks (recycled wine bottle corks also work)

funnel (we only had a single metal one so we also rolled paper into funnels)

That’s it. You just pour and layer!

 

See what I mean about mad scientists?

bottle sand art by homemadecity.com

 

 

Creative Kid: Make a God’s Eye

Posted in Kids by

After a morning of cannonballs and pencil dives off the dock, followed by an epic Wiffle ball game, we were finally ready for some quiet time at the lake. The cousins, ages 7 through 9, helped me try out this camp favorite, the God’s eye. We had about 6 skeins of yarn and a bunch of sticks from the pine forest. We followed the directions from wikihow.com and Aunt Annie (the illustrations at Aunt Annie were helpful). Our process was only a little different from the directions: we didn’t use glue, so to bind the sticks together, we wound and wound the yarn around them (making for messier centers) and to secure at the end, we just tied off the yarn.

Tips for kids:

  1. The kids said it was easier when I got the whole thing going first so the sticks were bound well before they took over.
  2. For those with less dexterous fingers, I helped by holding and rotating the sticks, so smaller hands could focus on weaving.

God's Eye by homemadecity.com

Tried It: Friendship Bracelets!

Posted in Kids, Stuff to make by

My friendship-bracelet skills were a little atrophied after (at least) a couple decades of disuse . . . but in celebration of the soon-to-be-here slow, lazy days of summer, it was time to dust them off. I found a great tutorial (with photos) for the “summer camp chevron” bracelet at Honestly WTF.

Molly’s Sketchbook at purlbee.com also offers ideas for fun color combos (fluorescent) and monochrome (friendship bracelet meets mature, grown-up restraint!).

I’m sure there are ways to make clasps or ties for removable bracelets but that betrays the whole idea of the bracelet, which is that if you truly, deeply value your sisterhood then you tie the thing to your wrist until death do you part, or at least until it is a sorry string, bleached and frayed from sun and salt water.