Posts tagged ‘Chipper Crafts’
Chipper Recycle Craft: Paper Plate Frog
This week, Chipper created this fun paper plate frog! Not only can this craft be made from materials lying around the house, this craft also incorporates a fun science lesson!
Here’s what you need:
-kid-friendly scissors
-tape or glue (Chipper used double-sided tape!)
-three pieces of construction paper (one red, one green, one white)
-a green and black marker
-a paper plate
First, color the back of the paper plate green with a marker. (You can use a crayon, paint, or any other medium as well.)
Fold the paper plate in half. Draw and cut out four frog feet from green construction paper. Draw and cut out a tongue shape from red construction paper. Draw and cut out eyes from white paper. Attach to folded plate with tape or glue like so:
And voila! Here is a fun and cute paper plate frog.
Along with this craft, teach your child about frogs! Here are some fun frog facts:
-Frogs hibernate in the winter
-Instead of drinking water through their mouths, frogs absorb water through their skin!
-A group of frogs is called an “army”!
-Frogs can be found on every continent except for Antarctica
Also, you can do frog-jumps around the house/park/backyard to reiterate the importance of exercise to your little one! Here’s a fun video on various animal exercises:
Let’s Go Chipper for Frogs!
Chipper Craft & Snack: Celery-printed flowers!
Happy Sunday! This week, Chipper snacked on and played with one of his favorite nutritious foods, celery! Normally, Chipper picks up some celery every week at the super market. Did you know that celery provides anti-inflammatory health benefits? Or that the crunchy vegetable contains antioxidants such as vitamin C and flavonoids that help protect us from unwanted oxygen damage to our cells, organs, and blood vessels? It does!
This week, Chipper created flower prints from celery. It is an easy craft that can be created with materials that are lying around at home. All you need is: celery, a knife, paint, and a piece of paper! Here’s how:
First, take your bunch of celery and cut off the bottom.
Then, dip the bottom portion of the celery stalk in to paint and stamp away! Chipper used red paint.
The celery stalk ends up creating these fun, flower shaped objects.
Here’s Chipper‘s end product.
Chipper cut up the rest of the celery stalk and enjoyed it with some peanut butter.
According to an article by Harvard Health Publications, peanut butter has fiber, vitamins, and mineras, among other nutrients. Unsalted peanut butter contains a terrific potassium-to-sodium ratio, which “counters the harmful cardiovascular effects of sodium surplus….even salted peanut butter still has about twice as much potassium as sodium.” In addition, many research studies have concluded that people who “regularly include nuts or peanut butter in their diets are less likely to develop heart disease or type 2 diabetes than those who rarely eat nuts.”
With this craft and snack, teach your child the importance of being creative and snacking right all at the same time!
Let’s Go Chipper for creativity and healthy snacking!
Chipper Craft: Celebrate Earth Day
With Earth Day inching closer, now’s a great time to start thinking about good ol’ Mother Earth. Held annually on April 22, Earth Day is a world-wide support day for environmental protection. Earth Day began in 1969 when John McConnell, a peace activist, proposed a day to celebrate the environment and Earth’s beauty. The reason why Earth Day is on April 22 is because of the abundant amount of youth activism in the 1960s: April 22 is a likely day for college students to be available because it falls between Spring Break and Final Exams. Interesting, right?
In celebration of the upcoming Earth Day, Chipper made an Earth Day craft this week! Not only is this craft simple, it will teach your little one about the importance of loving our planet.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Firstly, draw a circle on blue construction paper and cut it out. This will be the water of planet Earth.
Secondly, cut out arbitrary land-like shapes out of green construction paper and glue (or tape) them onto the blue circle. Your planet Earth is starting to take shape!
Then, place your hands into a heart like shape like so. Trace your hands and cut them out.
It will end up looking like this:
Using glue or tape, adhere your hands onto your already-made Earth. Voila! This craft symbolizes the importance of using your hands in activity to love on the environment around us.
Optional: Using red marker, draw a heart in the middle like so. This could further solidify the link between using hands to actively take care of Mother Earth.
Let’s Go Chipper for Earth Day!
Chipper Tips & Crafts: Safe, Outdoor Fun on Halloween!
The Harvest Season is here and Halloween is right around the corner! Let’s Go Chipper and get outdoors to enjoy the cool weather with some of these fun activities!
Halloween is a time for tradition and connection–not just Christian connection of the All Saint’s Day tradition, or any older pagan or Celtic traditions that have blended into our present day vision of Halloween. But today’s traditional rituals of costumes and candy and our connections of community and family. Halloween’s grand tradition of Trick or Treating encourages people to knock on strangers’ doors. It connects us to the ritual of meeting our neighbors and knowing our community. Being outside is not only about communing with nature. It also is about having an appreciation for the place you live. For kids, Halloween is a fun-filled holiday of make believe and tasty treats, but it is also a time to walk around and get to know our neighborhood.
Have a wonderful Halloween and make sure you are safe and visible! Safety reflectors help you be seen and be safe in the dark so cars can see you. If your child uses a reflector you can reduce the risk for being hit by a car by 85%. Without a reflector the driver of a car may only see you when you are 25-30 meters away, but a reflector can be seen 140 meters or more in the headlights. This can give the driver 8 more seconds to see you and react!
Connect with Family, Friends and Nature this Halloween:
1. Go pumpkin picking to your local pumpkin patch!
Learn how they grow, get outside, have some fun! Pumpkin harvesting happens in late September and October so find a local pumpkin patch near you today! Here are some tips to choosing the perfect pumpkin:
- Look for a smooth, evenly colored pumpkin free of bruises and mold.
- Make sure it has a flat bottom.
- Don’t carry it by its stem.
- For children, try to select a lighter-colored, softer pumpkin. Although they don’t last as long, they’re easier to carve.
Try carving a different image into the back to have a dual-image Jack-o-Lantern!
2. Carve a Jack-O-Lantern! After you have your pumpkin, break out your Exacto knife and a black sharpie and then get creative. There are so many types of styles and designs, the hard part will be choosing what to carve! If you have a younger child that can’t handle a knife, there are tons of kits full of stickers and decorations you can buy or just let them go crazy with some permanent markers!
Here are some tips for carving, lighting and preserving your Halloween Jack-O-Lantern:
- Carving
- Draw a lid on top of the pumpkin.
- Draw a “tooth” at the back of the lid as a guide for replacing it. Cut along the lines and angle the blade toward the center of the pumpkin.
- Clean out seeds and strings.
- Scrape inner pulp away from the area you plan to carve until the pumpkin is about 1-inch thick.
- If using a pattern, trim it, leaving a 1/4 inch border around the design. Tape the pattern to the pumpkin. You can make your pattern fit any size pumpkin by reducing or enlarging it on a photocopier, or take it with you when you’re pumpkin shopping to get the right size/shape.
- Make your dots small and close together. For detailed designs, try using a corsage or push pin. If you’re having trouble seeing the pattern you’ve transferred, rub flour over the dots to make them more visible.
- When you’re ready to carve, hold the pumpkin in your lap. Hold the pumpkin saw like a pencil and saw steadily in an up-and-down motion. Saw at a 90-degree angle using gentle pressure.
Lighting
- When using a candle, cut a hole on the upper, back part of the pumpkin. The hole will work like a chimney, allowing the candle’s heat to escape.
- If you want your opening on the bottom of the pumpkin, rather than the top, attach the light source to the bottom lid and place the pumpkin over it. Try drilling a hole to secure the candle. This provides more stability, helping with the flickering effect.
- For a multicolor display, use a battery-operated light with LED bulbs.
- A flashing light, like the Pumpkin Masters Ultimate Strobe Light, helps create a spooky look.
- Sprinkle a little cinnamon, nutmeg or pumpkin spice on the bottom of the pumpkin lid for a seasonal scent.
Preservation
- Pumpkins are 90 percent water. Depending on the weather, an untreated, carved pumpkin can last anywhere from a week to just a day.
- To make it last longer, coat cut edges with petroleum jelly, inside and outside.
- Spray the pumpkin with water, cover it with plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator when it’s not on display.
- Soak or spray the pumpkin with water mixed with a little bleach to ward off mold and kill insects.
- To revive a shriveled pumpkin, soak it in water in a bucket or bathtub for one to 8 hours. The worse it looks, the longer it should soak. After removing it, let it drain for 30 minutes and then dry carefully with a towel.
3. Make a Pumpkin Scarecrow!
Fill an entire weekend based around building pumpkin scarecrows for the perfect combination of playing, house chores, family outing, harvesting and lots of arts and crafts!
Challenge your kids to find pumpkins that are the same size as their heads! Then you can make kid sized scarecrows together. Another component for scarecrow building is lots of leaves to stuff with. Raking leaves will suddenly become more important than just a cleaning exercise–it’s fun! Of course, spend some time playing in the leaves and invite the neighborhood friends to join the play!
To make your Scarecrow you’ll need:
- Leaves for stuffing
- Old clothes, pants and shirt or baby sleeper
- Stick
- Wire, twine or nails
- Pumpkins
- Wig
- Black marker
First, tie knots in the ends of the pants and stuff with leaves. Sew the shirt to waist of the pants. Make a whole in the crotch of the pants.
Second, make a cross out of sticks and shorten the length to match arms. Put the vertical stick through pants and stick in the soil. Put the horizontal stick through the shirt arms. Stuff it with leaves.
Third, measure pumpkin on the scarecrow. Make sure you do a cut where the head fit best on the scarecrow. Make a hole in the lower back part of the pumpkin so the stick can hold the head up.
Fourth, start carving and scooping out the seeds and pumpkin flesh. Use a marker to make a face on the pumpkin or carve it! Add decorations to make it scary or happy. Plan on carving out faces on Halloween day and putting lights in them to make them scary!
4. Make a Halloween Branch!
Go for a walk in your community, and look for fallen branches. When you are home, tie your branches together with fish line. Hang it up at your porch or by your door. Decorate with spiders and spider webs and get ready for your spooky visitors!
What you need:
- Good shoes and clothing for the weather
- Spider Web decorations
- Some home made or store bought spiders
- Fish line
5. Make a Chestnut Spider!
You will need:- 1 chestnut
- 8 pieces (3 cm each) of pipe cleaners
- 1 Pair of scissors
- 1 string or steel wirer
- 7 toothpicks
First, use a pair of scissors to poke holes in the chestnut (paint the chestnut for a bit of added color).
Second, cut one end of each toothpick and push the sharp end of the toothpicks into your holes.
Third, put string or wire around the toothpicks, until it looks like a spider web.
Fourth, bend each pipe cleaner into the legs of your spider. Fold each pipe cleaner from the chestnut and wrap it around the spider web. When you have done all 8 of them you, have a spider in a web!
Let’s Go Chipper into the Great Outdoors this Halloween!!!
Chipper for Fall: Changing Colors,Tree Craft, and Photo Contest!
Fall is officially here and the evidence is all around us! From shorter days, to falling leaves, to the coming Harvest Moon–Autumn is one of the most beautiful seasonal changes! Show us your photography skills and enter your best photo that shows the changing season or how you enjoy the Autumn season in Chipper’s Fall Photo Contest! The winner will receive Let’s Go Chipper’s Fall Fun Package along with our Get Ready to Fly Kit! Fly like a Leaf with our kit that includes a cute plushy back-pack and a fun activity book for the next time you travel with the kids. Plus, we’ll add some surprise Fall goodies for you and the kids! Don’t forget to vote for your favorite entry and share once you’ve entered!
We all enjoy the colors of autumn leaves. The changing fall foliage never fails to surprise and delight us. Have you and your little one’s ever wondered why and how fall leaves change colors? Why a maple leaf turns bright red? Where do the yellows and oranges come from? To answer those questions, we first have to understand what leaves are and what they do.
Leaves are nature’s food factories. Plants take water from the ground through their roots. They take a gas called carbon dioxide from the air. Plants use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen aneaves are nature’s food factories. Plants take water from the ground through their roots. They take a gas called carbon dioxide from the air. Plants use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. Oxygen is a gas in the air that we need to breathe. Glucose is a kind of sugar. Plants use glucose as food for energy and as a building block for growing. The way plants turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar is called photosynthesis. That means “putting together with light.” A chemical called chlorophyll helps make photosynthesis happen. Chlorophyll is what gives plants their green color.
As summer ends and autumn comes, the days get shorter and shorter. This is how the trees “know” to begin getting ready for winter.
During winter, there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. The trees will rest, and live off the food they stored during the summer. They begin to shut down their food-making factories. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. As the bright green fades away, we begin to see yellow and orange colors. Small amounts of these colors have been in the leaves all along. We just can’t see them in the summer, because they are covered up by the green chlorophyll!
The bright reds and purples we see in leaves are made mostly in the fall. In some trees, like maples, glucose is trapped in the leaves after photosynthesis stops. Sunlight and the cool nights of autumn cause the leaves turn this glucose into a red color. The brown color of trees like oaks is made from wastes left in the leaves.
It is the combination of all these things that make the beautiful fall foliage colors we enjoy each year!
Helping Hands Fall Tree Craft:
Take your little one’s outside to observe and find some colorful Fall leaves! Se if they can name all the colors, and for older children, help them identify what kind of tree each leaf comes from. Once you’ve collected some Fall leaves, you can dry and flatten them in some thick, heavy books while you make a your Helping Hands Fall Tree!
Autumn is the Harvest season so let’s harvest healthy habits with Chipper’s Helping Hands Craft. Print out some some hands from this link or copy and save this image:
Then get some recycled cardboard and brown construction paper and make your tree! We just used some scissors and tape for this one:
Have your children write or draw how they help family, their friends, their community or the planet on their Helping Hand. Then color it and cut it out and tape or glue to your tree! This is a great project for teachers to do in the classroom and you can even add some of your real Fall leaves you found to the tree!
Here’s a beautiful Autumn video to inspire your for Chipper’s Fall Photo Contest! Have a very Chipper Harvest Season!
Chipper Recycle Crafts: 3 Things You Can Do With Buttons
It’s amazing what you can do with various objects accessible around the house. For example, who doesn’t have a ton of buttons lying around? Every time you buy a new jacket, the extra buttons go into the sewing kit! Here are a few great ideas you can try out at home with the kids or just for fun!
They are quite simple and a great way to recycle old buttons! Crafts aren’t only enjoyable and rewarding, they can be educational and mentally beneficial. Crafts are especially unique and sentimental when made from stuff around the house. Next time you or your little one’s are bored and stuck inside, explore your house or apartment and have a craft material treasure hunt! You’ll be amazed by the craft ideas you come up with and make!
1. Mark a page!
Bookworms of all stripes will love these bright place markers!They make sweet stocking stuffers — and they’re fun and easy for kids to create. Simply cut lengths of ribbon (12 to 14 inches long, to fit a standard-size hardcover book), then attach buttons to the ends using tacky glue or a glue gun.
Shown here are just a few of the decorating options: sandwiching the ribbon’s ends between two buttons; stacking smaller atop larger buttons; and grouping several small buttons in a pattern. Get creative!
Make a customized book mark for as a great gift to friends or family that love to read. These would also be a great seller at the local craft fair. Remember, with crafts, the sky’s the limit!
2. Flip i!
This Button Skee-Ball game is fun for all ages and a great party game
! To make the target, use 2-inch-wide poster board rings (OR just use strips of plain old card board and construction paper or markers to color) 28″, 21″, 17″, and 8 inches long, secured at the seams with double-sided tape. Attach printed point values 
(or simply write them on) and assemble the rings as shown, securing them with more double-sided tape. Cut out a felt launchpad or just use some thick old cloth. Players take turns using a large button (white in picture) to flip 10 small buttons toward the target. The player with the highest total score wins!
3. Jazz up a window!
A button mosaic becomes a cheery sun catcher when it’s sandwiched between layers of clear Con-Tact paper. To make one, cut out a square of Con-Tact paper, remove its backing, and lay it sticky-side up. (If you like, slide a drawing beneath the square as a guide.) Place buttons on the square to create a shape, leaving at least a 1-inch border on all sides. When you’re done, cover the mosaic with a second Con-Tact paper square. Smooth the edges with a cotton swab and cut out the mosaic, leaving an -inch border on all sides. Stick your creation to a window with glue dots or tape!
What can YOU do with your old buttons? Please tell Chipper so he can share! Happy Craft-Making
Chipper Tips: Community Helpers of Labor Day Weekend
As most of us know, Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in September. It’s a day dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday tributes the working class contributions to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday in 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.Following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. Military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland reconciled with Reyes, leader of the labor movement. Fearing further conflict, the United States Congress unanimously voted to approve rush legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday; Cleveland signed it into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. Learn more about Labor Day’s origins here.
Helping hands made by Girl Scouts at their 100th Year Anniversary. How have you helped out today?
This holiday is usually celebrated with summer activities – swimming, camping, picnics, etc., and is the unofficial end of summer in the Northern part of the U.S. Most schools usually start sometime during the week after Labor Day. Elementary teachers use this holiday to introduce the concept of Community Helpers to small children. In an ideal society – everyone plays a role, or works a job that supports the community.
Chipper teaches kids all about helping out each other, family, and their communities in his latest book, Helping Hands. By positively reinforcing the good that comes when we all work together, children will be ready to lend their hands and hearts around the home, school, and community. Try out our Helping Hands craft! Print out the helping hand coloring page and have your child color it and write a few things they have done to help out around the house or for the environment. Then hang up on fridge with a magnet (check out our cool home-made mini-magnet craft!) so your kids can be proud of their accomplishments and encouraged to do more!
Have a Chipper Labor Day weekend and help your community in anyway you can! Find a place to volunteer your time and give back to your community here.
Chipper Recycle Craft: Save those egg cartons!
Don’t throw away your old egg cartons next time your finished with your dozen eggs! Instead, have fun with the kids and try some of these ideas to recycle or re-use the containers! Not only are these cartons great for organizing jewelry or desk items, they can be used to hold small round craft items when doing crafts or make a great Rock Collection holder! Egg cartons also work great for holding and protecting Christmas decorations. 
Get creative and paint your carton to your liking or simply use it as a paint palette! You can also make a project out of it and use your carton as plant containers or seed starters and teach your little ones how to grow plants. Just poke a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Fill about 3/4 with potting soil and vermiculite. Plant seeds and set in a sunny window. Then have your children follow their growth and have them help you transplant and harvest when ready! It gets you all outdoors, spending quality time together, while teaching them about various plants.
Here are a few other great ideas. Share some of yours with us!
Make Tulips with Old Egg Cartons
This is an easy project kids can do by themselves or with very little help, and these flowers make a great Mother’s Day present. Or, make a bunch for a lovely Spring bouquet!
You will need:
- Clean cardboard egg cartons
- Scissors
- Green chenille (pipe cleaners)
- Elmer’s glue
- Paint
Cut the egg carton into separate cups, leaving some of the middle “pop-up” sections. Cut the main cups into the pointed shape of the tulip petals. With the point of the scissors or a sharp pencil, poke a hole in the bottom of each cup. Paint and decorate each cup however you like.
Cut the little center “pop-up” sections between the egg cups into small pointed shapes that will go beneath the tulip cups. Poke a hole in the center of each and paint green.
When the pieces are dry, poke a piece of green chenille through the holes. Tie a loop on the end in the cup so it can’t pull back out, and add a dab of glue between the two sections. Shape the chenille into leaf shapes and leave a few inches at the bottom for the stem.
You can stick the stems of several flowers into some clay or floral foam in the bottom of a pot. Or just tie together and wrap with pretty paper and a ribbon to give to mom!
Chipper Recycle Crafts: From Old CD to Rainbow Fish!
With the 21st century mp3 player revolution, most of us have plenty of old CD’s lying around the house, either outdated or scratched and eroded. Keep these toxic disc’s out of our landfills by recycling them. They are perfect for making crafts! One idea is to stick your old J-Lo CD in the microwave for about 5 seconds. There will be some crackling but it’s quite safe. DO NOT put it in longer than a few second though! When you take it out, the silver film will have spider webbed out. Get some string and hang them up in a window for a gorgeous stain glass-like ornament! You can even use paint of markers to color them. Or, make this cute and easy fish craft from a used CD! If your kids like the Rainbow Fish book, they’ll love this simple craft!
Materials needed:
1 CD
Construction Paper
Craft glue or hot glue
Sequins
Instructions:
Cut the fin shapes out of construction paper. Glue the fins to the back of the CD (except for the front fin) so you wouldn’t see the cut edge. Cut the eyes out of construction paper, or you could use a purchased googly eye instead. Place dots of craft glue around the CD and place sequins onto the glue. Now you have your very own Rainbow Fish! Read them this classic story or check out this video of it before or after making this craft to teach them all about sharing and caring for one another. Chipper’s Helping Hands book is another great resource for teaching your little one’s about helping out where they can and sharing with their family and peers. Get Chipper and creative with some crafts today!
Chipper Recycle Crafts: Custom Mini Magnets
Recycled crafts not only make great gift for friends and family. Making and buying recycle crafts benefit our environment and reduce waste! Recycle crafts also help promote traditional crafts that are fading as people opt for cheap mass produced items. By buying or making handcrafted gifts, you can help keep those skills alive! All crafts, not just those that are made from recycled material, also encourages originality and creativity. Whether you are starting with the materials and find a suitable product to create from them, or you start with the product and have to figure out what recycled items can be used to create it, it requires ingenuity. This can only benefit art and crafts in general!
Instead of tossing out bottle caps, which are not recycled and go strait to a land fill or the ocean, create cute magnets with your kids! All you need are some caps, some magazines and a pair or scissors, magnet tape (very easy to find and inexpensive), and glue!
Cut out cute images or letters to spell your little one’s name or initials to fit inside the bottle caps then glue in. Then attach a small piece of magnetic tape to the back and stick to the fridge or other metal surfaces. These custom mini magnets are great for hanging your young artists’ drawings and paintings. They can be used for spelling out messages (or spelling practice!) and also make a great gift! There’s no better gift than one made with your own to hands for someone you love. Get Chipper today and get crafty!
