Cozy Cottage Child Care
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Happy Fourth of July!!! ** Suggested Reading: Fourth of July by J. McDonnell Happy Birthday America by M.W. Chall Pooh and the Storm That Sparkled by Isabel Gaines ** Bulletin Board Cover your entire bulletin board with a white paper background. Add blue horizontal strips over the whole thing to make it look like part of the flag. Cut out large red stars (enough for each child) Add a child's picture to the middle of each one. Add the words "America's Stars" for a caption. **Fireworks Needed: Black or Dark Blue Construction paper plastic kitchen scrubbers (those round ones that look like a ball of plastic strings) all colors of paint baking pan with shallow sides (jelly roll pan) or disposable sheet cake tin pan Pour circles of different colored paints all over the pan. Let the children dip the scrubbers into the paints and then make prints on the black or blue paper. Label it with a white crayon "Fireworks". **American flag Needed: red paint approx 2 inch narrow paint roller (brayer) or 2 inch wide paint brush white or silver sticker stars blue construction paper square large white rectangle shaped construction paper Laying the paper the correct way, have the children use the brayer or brush to make red paint stripes on the white paper rectangle. While it's drying, let the add stars to the blue square paper. Glue the square paper onto the white paper in the corner. **Fireworks Use liquid watercolors or thinly mixed paint and make drops all over paper. Use a straw to blow the paint all over the paper to make fireworks. **Stars Use star shaped sponges to sponge paint red, white and blue stars all over black construction paper. **Firecracker Paint toilet paper tubes or toilet paper tubes with red, white and blue paints. When dry, tape or glue red, white and blue crepe paper strips to the inside edge of one end. Cut the strips in half or fourth first to make them smaller. I would use about 6-8 inch strips by 1/2 inch wide. Now you have a beautiful firecracker that looks lit when you shake it around! Variation: The kids decorated the toilet paper tubes with markers. Then I let them put star stickers on it. Instead of using crepe paper, I bought those pre-made curly strings - the kind that you would place on a gift. WalMart had them for 98 cents a piece. I bought 3 and it was enough for 12 kids. The kids stuck the ends of the sting/ribbons on sticky packing tape and then stuck the packing tape inside the tube. We called them fireworks because of the season, but they could easily be called birthday party decorations too. **More Fireworks!! Spoon three to four blobs of paint onto black paper for each child. Paint should be fairly thick. Have them use a Q-tip to make "spider legs" from each blob of paint. When it's done, tell them they just made some fireworks exploding in the sky!! **Uncle Sams These kits can be found through Oriental Trading Company. I did some of the gluing the night before and the kids finished the rest. A digital camera comes in very handy with these types of projects!! **Firecrackers Shown above and below, these kits can also be found at Oriental Trading Company **Cookies Needed: Favorite sugar cookie recipe two star cookie cutters of different sizes red and blue food coloring Make up a batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough and divide in half or thirds. Color one part red, one part blue, and if using thirds, leave one plain as is. Roll out all three and use the largest cookie cutter star to make a few of each color. From those stars, use the smaller cutter to cut out a star from the center of the larger ones. Replace the center star with another color dough. Bake as directed and repeat until all the dough is used up. Cool and eat!! Back to the Themes Page or Back Home