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… so we were in need for some ideas for making birthday cards that our 3-year-old could help with so that she learns to put some effort into presents for her friends. While searching online, we found this fabulous website which is full of absolutely wonderful ideas: http://www.basteln-gestalten.de/ . Unfortunately, the site is only in German. So I will share some ideas here with translations so that you can try them. Of course, don’t forget to cover your child’s clothes with our Baggino Learner’s Bibs that can also double as art smocks ( http://www.baggino.com/LearnersBibs/).
Here are the end products of our Saturday Arts & Crafts projects that I will describe below.
Paper Windmill
For images that visualize the process steps below, please look at http://www.basteln-gestalten.de/windmuehle-basteln. Your toddler can best help with this project by decorating the paper before you fold it.
· Cut a square out of paper. The size of the square depends on how big you want the windmill to be.
· Have your toddler decorate the paper by coloring it or by decorating it with stickers.
· Fold the paper in a diagonal from both sides and then unfold the paper so that the diagonal lines are visible.
· Cut along the diagonal lines from each of the 4 paper corners towards the center until about half the way to the center.
· Glue one of the corners onto the center point of the paper where the two diagonal lines meet. Afterwards also glue every other corner onto the middle point (see image). Using a sticker to hold the corners in place worked best for us and it looks pretty too.
· Attach the windmill onto a wooden stick with a pin or small nail (ensure that there are no dangerous sharp or pointy edges your child could hurt herself with). NOTE: make sure to put something between the paper windmill and the stick (a small piece cut from a plastic straw works very well) so that the windmill can easily rotate.
· If you want to use the paper windmill as a “birthday card”, write or glue the birthday message into the inside of the windmill.
Paper Ladybug
For images that visualize the process steps below, please look at http://www.basteln-gestalten.de/kaefer-basteln. Your toddler can best help with this project by decorating the paper with color or by gluing dots onto the ladybug’s “body”.
· Take a paper square and fold it along the horizontal middle line. Unfold the paper and fold the vertical middle line. Unfold the paper. You will now see 4 squares.
· Turn the paper and fold both diagonal middle lines. Unfold the paper.
· Push the sides of the paper into the middle (see the third image in the German instructions) so that you get a multi-layer triangle like shown in the picture on the site.
· Draw a circle on the paper right above the “small” point (see image). It’s best to use a cup as a guide when you draw the circle. Cut out the circle but leave the pointy nose.
· Paint the head black or glue black paper onto the body in the shape of the ladybug’s face. Draw or glue on the eyes.
· Have your child decorate the ladybug’s body – she can color it or glue the circles onto the body (we glued Swarovski stones onto the body).
· Cut the legs out of black paper and glue the body onto the legs.
· If you want to use the ladybug as birthday card, write the birthday message into the folds or on the bottom of the ladybug. Note: these ladybugs can also make very nice table decoration.
I hope you will enjoy these projects as much as we did! It would be great if you let us know how you like them!
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