Creative Kids Summer Class: Dinosaurs STEAM Play

We fit a lot of fun activities into our day of STEAM play with dinosaurs, and I probably could have done a dinosaur theme for all three days of the session. There are a lot of great dinosaur STEM ideas out there!

Dinosaur Fossils

We used salt dough to make dinosaur fossils. The children played around making different prints first, and then picked the one they wanted for a permanent print. 

I cooked them at a low temperature for a few hours, and then the kids painted them the next day. 

Dinosaur Eggs

I made two different kinds of "dinosaur eggs" for the kids to excavate. 

These baking soda eggs were fun to watch fizz and bubble.

We also enjoyed trying to melt these ice eggs. 

Dinosaur Bones

A simple invitation to explore x-rays and dinosaur bones with q-tips and dinosaur heads. 

Dirty Dinosaur Play

We made some mud and let our dinosaurs get nice and dirty, then gave them a bath in the water table. This was inspired by a fun (new-to-me) book, I'm a Dirty Dinosaur.

Melting Colors Dinosaur Art

For this art process we used shavings from old crayons and melted them inside wax paper to create colorful dinosaur art. 

Creative Kids Summer Class: Camping STEAM Play

This week was our last session of Creative Kids Summer Class, centered around STEAM play. 

On the first day we used a camping theme to guide our experiences. 

Mountain Wildlife Sensory Bin

 

Marshmallow Campfire Painting

Fishing Play

This classic fishing game is fun for dramatic play, as well as counting and sorting practice.

Engineering Invitation: Can you build a tent or cabin? 

I helped with the hot glue gun for this activity. :) It was fun to see the different designs and creations the children came up with.

Streams, Rivers, and Boat Sensory Play

Bear Hunt Maps

We made these maps after we sang about going on a bear hunt.

Creative Kids Summer Class: Collage Art Play

Our last project for this session was inspired by two books: Perfect Square and Toy Boat

On the first day I set up an easel with blue and white paint for the kids to explore, and that resulted in beautiful sheets of blue paper.

I cut the pieces up into smaller squares, and later we ripped and cut those up into smaller pieces again, after reading Perfect Square. We layered those pieces onto canvas to be our ocean/water/lake backdrop.

Then we cut up other squares and shapes to create boats. I resisted the urge to jump in and make sure everyone's boat actually looked like a boat, and instead let them freely create and enjoy the process. One student worked very hard to create a true sailboat, and another little guy was beaming at the end because he was so proud of his "boat" that he made all by himself. :)

I just love all of our creative boats! Collage art is my favorite. :)

Book Love: Swatch: The Girl Who Loved Color

I once again send some thanks to KidArtLit - they are such a wonderful resource for combining books and process art in fun and meaningful ways! Awhile back they did a live video all about this book and I was inspired yet again to try out the art activity that they created to go along with it. I saved it for my summer art play class, and it was just perfect.

This book is imaginative and bright, with illustrations that seem to move and come to life. I love the way that it relates colors to everyday objects, but with a child-like perspective. After we read it, we looked back at the techniques the illustrator seemed to use in her artwork with black lines and swirling colors.

Connecting Activity: We called this activity creating wild colors.
First- we drew lines and shapes using straight edges, circular lids, and our own creativity.

Then we mixed together some paint with a little water. I added some cotton balls and fly swatters to the table, and we started to play. The kids experimented with dropping the cotton balls and watching them splatter, slapping them with the fly swatters, and moving the cotton balls around on the paper.

The process was very engaging, and the results were so fun and colorful.

Creative Kids Summer Class: Outside Art Play

I love taking art outside in the summer time, and we had a lot of fun getting out during our art play session of summer classes.

Car Slides

While exploring lines, we sent painted cars down a slide to see what kinds of lines they would make.

This naturally led to some car washing play. :) 

Chalk

Chalk play is kind of an obvious, go-to outside art activity, but there are so many ways to use it! Both my students and children become so much more engaged with chalk when it's paired with water, so we paired it with the water table. We also read this great, imaginative book Chalk.

Squirt Gun Painting

The favorite outdoor art activity this year was definitely squirt gun painting. I just filled dollar store squirt guns with a paint/water mixture. Now, if you are going to do it (and you should- it's so fun!), just be sure to set clear boundaries for how you are going to play with the squirt guns. For us this year, that meant we were squirting the paper (not each other, or the house, etc.), but maybe you are braver than I was this time around. ;) The kids stayed at this for a long time, and got a great fine motor workout in the process!