Treasure chest for kids

I made this treasure chest for the kids of my friend.
I used a wooden chest, green woodpaint, a brush and some wooden sticker.

Funniest pots of all - handmade canpot

You will need a can, some paint, a brush, some paper ornament (i used yellow stars) a plant (i used baobab plant because it is easy to take care of in a flat too although i can be a tree as i saw it in Catalunya) and of course the most importaint is to have two little hands to help.

 

My son helped me with the paintig (with brush and hands too) of course with placing the stars (gluing with sticky glue) and he did the watering at the end. You can make as many ornaments and colours as much you want and of course you can update it to be seasonable (for example:in the summer we put flower ornaments on it and i used green and pink colours).

Painting - from the begining

My son adores paints, brushes, papers (of different colours) so it was obvious to try them at the age of one.
Kids like mixing colours so i used tempera paints (the base colours, not more : red, blue, yellow) and different papers of different sizes. Pour some of the paints into plastic plates and prepare a kerchife made of textil (a useless, small shirt can be perfect too) and water. First you have to show how it works so paint lines or simple circles of one colour on the paper than give a brush to the kid. Importaint to explain all the time what you are doing and why to make the children understand what he sould do with the unknown things.
(Look, these are paints and we are going to paint a nice circle on the white paper. Which colour wold you like? Red? That is nice! Look, i put the brush first into the water, just a bit, than into the red paint. Look, i can also make circles in the paint. Than i put the brush onto the paper - look it's red colour on the paper and i'm making a nice circle.)
First time you should guide the tiny hands with yours but as time goes by (months) the moves will be so sure that there will be no need of help.
At first you should try handpainting, as well. The first big picture i did with my son was a picture of santa. I used 6 papers of the same size. 3 of them were the sky so my son painted them blue (with hands!) 2 were christmas tree, so all the paper were green (from top to the bottom) and the last one was santa itself with red handpaint on the paper. I helped with a black colour to draw the eyes and the stocks of the trees and i glued the papers into one huge picture (with cello tape).
With older kids you can make a picture of an angel or santa claus.

First of all

Staying at home with kids seems so easy of course because it is shown (on tv and in papers) like the easiest job of all. Celeb moms take the kids out for an icecream, or have fun in an adventure park. No babysitters, nanny or granny on the pictures, just laughing and happiness.
I used to be a private teacher (English teacher) in kindergartens, infantil schools and at families. I had to teach during an hour that can be difficult with kids at age 4-7.
I started to make small periods (5-10 min.) with different activities and that worked really well.
When my son was born i had to find out more to entertain him (entertain means - keep him interested in something).
This blog is about these activities which - i hope - will help a lot of teachers and mothers staying at home with the kids.
Don't forget - staying with kids can be very frustrating so don't feel ashamed if you have bad day.