School-age

Invisible Ink: A Citrus Painting Experiment

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Can you tell me what you think? I’m playing around with my header design (procrastinating away from other important things, no doubt) and would love to hear your opinion on it. Do you like it? Is it legible? Does it need anything? What do you think about the sub-heading? When you think about Tinkerlab, what [...]

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Explore Modern Artists: Painting with Edward Hopper

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Welcome to the first project in our newest series: Explore Modern Artists. Today we’ll take a look at one of my favorite American Artists, Edward Hopper, with a preschool-friendly painting technique. The Q-tip painting technique that we used could be applied to the work of just about any 2-D artist, so definitely take this as [...]

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How to Make a One-minute Bubble Solution

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I’ve been so busy with all sorts of parenting/household/traveling/social things lately, and love to find easy projects that make my kids happy. This is one of those things. My daughter’s preschool has a big bubble table set up all summer long, and it’s a magical place where the kids can chill out and regroup while [...]

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Easy Art: Air Dry Clay

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Material: Air Dry Clay Have you ever noticed that kids don’t need a lot of bells and whistles and fancy stuff to get creative, have fun, and feel on top of the world? Yesterday we foraged some cardboard boxes from a neighbor’s move because 4-year old Nutmeg has a vision of building a space station. [...]

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How to Make Paint: Sweetened Condensed Milk

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This recipe is a keeper because it comes together quickly, uses ingredients you probably have on hand, and it expands the way children think about art supplies. When children have the opportunity to invent things and imagine new possibilities (in this case, making their own paint, inventing colors, and imagining what they can create with [...]

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Explore Modern Artists: Paint like Jasper Johns

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Today on Explore Modern Artists, we’re taking a close look at the work of American Artist Jasper Johns. For the art historians out there, Jasper Johns is technically a contemporary artist, but the piece that my four-year old and I looked at falls into the time-frame of modern art. I spent years working in modern and contemporary art [...]

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DIY Water Wall

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Does it feel like summer in your part of the world? It’s heating up here, and my kids have been enjoying this easy and inexpensive new backyard water feature. All you need is a nearby water source and a wall to attach it to. I’ve been inspired by Let the Children Play once again! Last summer Jenny [...]

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Painting Birdhouses

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The last time my in-laws visited, they left my girls with these cute little wooden birdhouses. I tucked them away to paint on their next visit, but my 3 year old couldn’t wait that long. In fact, about a month after I stored these, and an hour before leaving the house to meet friends in [...]

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Word Drawing Game

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Do your kids like to draw? Do you ever play drawing games? The other day my kids and I were cleaning out the garage. Well, really it was me while they loitered, moved things around, and made a lot of noise. My 3-year old found an old, but never-before-opened game of a Cranium. She adores opening new [...]

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