Painting Space Nebula Using Soft Pastels - Art Tutorial For Kids

Ever wondered to introduce a new art medium to your kids other than crayons, water colors, acrylics etc? Here is a quick tutorial on painting a Nebula in space using Soft Pastels for kids. 

We do a lot of arts in our Homeschool! We have a Montessori Inspired arts corner set up for my 3 year old and he is free to access any art supplies.

Related Read - What Is Open Ended Art & How To Encourage It In Toddlers.

We do unstructured as well as guided/structured art and the pics of our artworks are spread all over my phone. Not every art activity go on to this blog. You might see many art posts on my Instagram & Facebook accounts.

This is our latest guided art work using soft pastels from Kokuyo Camlin. We tried to recreate a nebula from Natgeo book of space for kids. 

Here are our resources that we used in this project - 

Soft Pastels, Natgeo Book of Space, Black Paper, Sponge for smudging, White Acrylic Paint, Old Tooth Brush. You can go for any of the variants of soft pastels as mentioned below. It is suggested to use a fixative spray on top of your soft pastels art work so that it remains intact. 

My son chose this picture to paint. 

This is our first attempt using soft pastels. We got inspiration of such artwork from @acraftedchildhood on Instagram. Thanks momma!

My 3 year old son basically used soft pastels on a black chart paper as per the colors seen in the nebula. He did couple of layers.

This is what it looked after a bunch of colors he did.

Related Read - How To Encourage Creativity Through Art.

Then he smudged the colors using sponge when done.

He again layered with red soft pastel with its entire length on to the paper to get a wider & smooth stroke.

And then he sprayed white acrylic paint to recreate stars.

Here is the final version.

How do you like it? Hubby said the painting looks better than the original image, yes he is biased because it's done by our son!

---

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

---

Read More »

Waldorf Inspired Wet on Wet Water Coloring With Kids - Duck

        

Me & my 3 year old son did wet on wet water coloring together for some art therapy! In Waldorf philosophy of alternative education, wet on wet coloring is very popular. This is a free hand style we did together. It is Spring season right now & we are reading about nature & birds these days, so my son chose to paint a duck.

Here are some bird related books I am reading to my 3 year old these days because it's spring time and my boy has been listening to koyal and other birds these days during our nature walks. We also made a nest using twigs & weaved them into pipe cleaner few days back.

Do you have any favorite kids books related to birds? I would love to know, do share in the comments below.

Since we are reading about birds these days, my son wanted to paint a duck. So we took this page as reference and did our wet on wet painting.

Here is our humble setup.

Products Used -

The brand of water color paper we used isnt showing up online, so I am linking up a similar water color paper of another brand for your reference.

This is how we started our work on the floor.

Our work midway. Left one is my 3 year old son's work & right one is mine. It was done free hand on wet paper. I am actually happy the way my son's artwork turned out to be. It is difficult for a child to do free hand painting. Of course I was guiding him verbally how & what to make.

After the painting was dry, I outlined both the paintings using black gel pen. This is our final outcome & I am very happy about it!

Have you done wet on wet water coloring?

---

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

---

Read More »

Book Review & Giveaway - iDiwali - Interactive Diwali Story & Activity Book For Kids From Your Learning Capsules (VLOG)

iDiwali is an interactive Diwali story and activity book for toddlers & kindergarteners with crafts, coloring, greeting cards, lanterns and sensational Diwali stickers. Watch the inside pages & review in the video below. Do not forget to avail the limited time discount of 10%.

About The Book

The Ramayana story summarized in 10 chapters, with hands on activity in each chapter. Additional Diwali experience activities - Rangoli, fireworks, sweets and more!!! 18 activities packed in one engaging book.

Publisher - Your Learning Capsules 
Age Group - 2.5 Years +
Price - Rs. 299 (FREE shipping anywhere in India)
Get 10% off till 19 Oct 2017. Use the discount code "kjunc10"

Try your luck & participate in the GIVEAWAY HERE where a lucky one can win this book for FREE! Giveaway will close on 11 Oct 2017 11.59pm.

You may like more of our featured products & discounts related to early learning for kids HERE.

The Author Talks
"Love interactive apps, but not the media time"
As a mother I am always trying to balance between the interactive and engaging experience of the digital world and just simple story telling, I present this experiment of mine to you - an interactive hands-on book!

Review
Watch the inside pages of the book & my opinions here in this video



What I Loved About The Book

• Absolutely engaging
• Designing is really nice
• Entire story of Diwali is covered in the form of activities
• Whole range of activities for different age group kids - coloring, tracing, stickers, numbers, writing, sequencing, storytelling etc

• Extra stickers so that if few are lost by kids, the activity can still be completed

• Good quality thick pages & stickers are easy to peel off & use without getting frustrated
• Even after all the activities have been done by the kids, this book can still be used next year as a simple storybook, so this book is going to serve you for the next couple of years surely & you can combine it with other storytelling setups with blocks or figurines etc

You may also like this "Story Of Diwali" book, a fun, non-preachy, simple-to-read rhyming storybook which talks about how five days of Diwali are celebrated. Review & buy links of the book HERE.

What Could Be Improved

• I would have loved if the pages were of laminated quality so that the stickers could be reused couple of times & the book could be reused next year too. But with this competitive pricing, I would not mind the existing type.

All in all, a must have for little kids this Diwali season!

Buy Links

BUY NOW so that the book reaches you well before Diwali this year! This will certainly give your kids an enriching experience!

You might want to check out YourLearningCapsules.com for more such awesome stuff for your kids and some free printables of activities! 

---

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

---

Read More »

How To Make Eco-Friendly Ganesha At Home With Kids - Workshop

This Ganpati festival, I conducted a workshop for kindergarten kids on how to make eco-friendly Ganesha at home. I used the ingredients available in the kitchen to make these idols. 

Ganpati Festival in Indian, specially in Maharashtra is very popular among kids as well as adults. People bring Ganpati idols to their homes and offer Him prayers everyday for 10 days before visarjan into the water. Now a days with the environmental crisis all over the world, it is necessary to be more aware of what we put into our water bodies.

You can check out this video on how to make your own eco-friendly Ganesha & do not forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel!



Here are some lovely moments that were captured during the workshop that I took. Kids loved this sensory experience!

There were kids from Nursery, Junior and Senior KG and I loved how they enjoyed and chatted all the way making their own Ganeshas.

 

Here I am giving finishing touches to all the idols.

Check out all the 18 imperfect yet beautiful Ganeshas!

After few days, these kids did the visarjan of these chemical free Ganeshas by putting the idol in a tub of water and then using the water for plants. Absolutely sustainable, right?

I would like to thank Little Wings International for helping us with the venue & logistics!

Hope you like this version of the beloved Lord Ganesha. Do share how you made your eco-friendly Ganesha. I would love to see the pics!

---

Do not forget to follow us on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

---

Read More »

Holi Themed Fun Hands-On Activities For Kids

We did some #holi themed activities, basically had fun with colors!

Painting with bursting water balloons (arts & gross motor)

Painting with syringe - a mini pichkaari (arts & fine motor)

Holika dahan at home (science experiment)

Marble painting (arts & gross motor)

Making eco friendly colors - Click HERE to know the recipes.

Letter matching activity (language)

Book reading

You can read more details about the activities here at My Article On BabyChakra

Read More »

How To Encourage Creativity - Open Ended Art Projects For Kids

Open ended art projects are very essential for the expression of the child! They help sp much in encouraging creativity & imagination in children of all ages! They also serve as great prewriting exercises. It gives the toddlers exposure to different textures & finger grips. A great sensory activity.

It is not about the end product of such art exercises but the enrichment during the art making process. It is therapeutic for even adults. Try it out some time :)

Here are 4 engaging & open ended art projects for kids of any age, starting from toddlers!




To facilitate arts in my home for my toddler, I had recently set up an arts corner for him. Check out this video how you can do the same in a budget friendly way!

Happy Parenting :)

Read More »

Montessori Inspired Valentine's Day Theme Activities For Toddlers & Preschoolers (VLOG)

Love is in the air with the Valentine's day approaching!

Sharing our set of Montessori inspired Valentine's day theme activities for my almost 2 year old son :) Have a look & pick any ideas you like for your child! I have tried to cover almost all key areas of Montessori in this set.

Fine Motor Skills

Practical Life Activity - Montessori Flower Arrangement

Maths

DIY Logic Puzzle

Craft Work Using Cotton Balls From Activity Above

Practical Life

Quick Science Experiment - Sink & Float

Stamping & Sticker Peeling - Fine Motor

For more details about the activities & explanation, watch this quick video, which also shows my son in action for some of the activities :)

These activities were also featured on BabyChakra.com, If you prefer reading text than the video, then check out my article HERE!

Happy Parenting :)

Read More »