<Living Crafts Blog

This Wind Waver project from Oak Meadow’s Kindergarten Curriculum is perfect to make at home or outside while at a picnic or camping.  With a little summer breeze it works great and is a great item for the porch or above your tent while camping.  

Materials:

- Round cardboard container (like Quaker’s Oatmeal)

- Construction paper

- Paper glue

- Crepe paper or fabric streamers

- Scissors

- Paper punch

- String

- Crayons

- Wind

Instructions: 

1. Cut the end out of an empty round container.

2. Using construction paper, glue and crayons, cover and decorate the container.

3. Using the paper punch, punch several holes around the bottom of the container.

4. Cut streamers about 3 feet long.

5. Thread one streamer through one hole until both ends are even, and tie a double knot that secures the streamer near the hole. Repeat with the other holes.

6. Punch four holes in the top of the box.

7. Cut four pieces of string about 2 feet long.

8. Lace one piece of string through each hole, knotting the end on the inside of the tube. Tie all four strings together on top. Tie to a longer piece of string.

9. Hang your Wind Waver outside where it can move freely
and watch the wind play with it!

This tutorial is courtesy of our friends at Oak Meadow Curriculum and School.  You can find more simple crafts in Oak Meadow’s First Book of Crafts or Book of Nature Crafts.

The art and craft of bookmaking creates a special space to hold our words, drawings and ideas.

Here is a wonderful book binding craft to share with the children in your life, compliments of Oak Meadow Curriculum and School.

Bookmaking fosters an appreciation for the beauty of language.  Handcrafted books can be used for stories, reports, or journaling–or be given to someone as a special reminder of the joy of writing.  This thoughtful article, Hardwired for Writing: The Intelligence of the Hand  explores both the cognitive benefits and charm of handwriting.


For more crafts and articles on creating a lifestyle of learning at home, visit back issues of Oak Meadow’s Living Education Journal.

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Giveaway!

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Oak Meadow Curriculum and School has generously offered a complete homeschooling curriculum package for one K-8 grade of your choice. That’s a value of $120-$420! It’s a great time to plan your curriculum for next year, and this package will give one Living Crafts reader the perfect start!


Simply visit Oak Meadow’s latest issue of Living Education, a quarterly journal that inspires and informs home learning with strategies, tips, and crafts. Leave a comment here with feedback and/or suggestions for future issues and you’ll automatically be entered in the giveaway!

We will pick one lucky Living Crafts winner on Thursday, April 12 Midnight PST and announce on this same post.

by Sonya Bingaman

One of our favorite Winter traditions is making colorful stars out of various sizes of kite paper and giving them to friends and neighbors.  Our children love to make the stars and then walk around the neighborhood, giving away stars, sharing love and peace.  It is especially sweet to see the children giving gifts to older neighbors who don’t have grandchildren nearby.  I love to watch the warm smiles both from the giver and the receiver!  We can see the stars taped on our neighbors windows and know it brings joy throughout the year.  Making huge stars using the large pieces of kite paper in the roll, is especially impressive.  For smaller stars the children use a glue stick, for larger stars, they like to use tape.  Sometimes they make a simple 6 or 8 sided star.  Sometimes they get inspired and make a complex 32 pointed star.  Stars can be sent to grandparents, aunts and uncles, children in college or living far from home, brought to group homes to decorate children’s rooms, or given to neighbors or teachers.  We carry Large Rolls in a rainbow of colors, small blocks of paper in rainbow or Christmas colors. Enjoy!

The Star in the picture above is made from 6 1/4″ squares of Kite Paper.  This paper comes precut in this size.  It also comes in large, 27″ x 20″, pieces which can be cut to make many large pieces.  Stars are beautiful with a few colors or even in solid colors.

You can buy these stars online.  The paper used for this project is from A Toy Garden.  Click here to purchase or find more information.

This great Postcard Tutorial from Design*Sponge is also perfect for Valentine’s Day cards. I love the hole punches and the sewing, great for small children.

This is such a smart way of making Valentine cards for all your loved ones! Recycling old paint strips … by Country Living magazine.