Octopus and Pizza Crafts

For BLOOM, my Tuesday morning Bible study for moms, I shared a couple of easy-peasy craft ideas.

Things you could make without much preparation and using just a few items. 

I've seen similar octopus type crafts before, but we just kind of did it our own way.

I drew lines on the paper towel roll first, so I would be sure to cut 8 semi-even sized arms.

Then, I cut the arms and let Annette paint the octopus her favorite color. Purple. I think everyone goes through a stage where their favorite color is purple. I sure did. And my mom ended up buying a purple car because of my obsession. Crazy. It was technically a light purple called Heather : )

 I talked to Annette about a few octopus facts. 8 arms. Squirts ink. 2 eyes. Lives in the ocean. God made them.

After it dried, Annette and I glued on pom poms and googly eyes to complete the octopus. Charlie will still try to get his hands on this thing just to pull the pom poms off. Silly boy.

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The second easy craft was just a paper pizza, inspired my school teacher days. In first grade, we would write out the steps for how to make a pizza along with creating this paper version. I've made actual edible pizzas with Annette before, and this paper version is almost as fun as the real deal:) And requires less assistance from me and it will last much longer!

Re-use. My favorite R from the three arrowed 'green' symbol. I used a brown paper bag and a bowl to trace a circle. Then, I rolled up the edges to create a crust.

Then, Annette painted the red sauce on.  While it dried, she cut up 'cheese' pieces. I cut out some circles for pepperoni. I tried to use words like, 'first, second, third', and  'Finally, we will add the pepperoni', to build in some indirect vocabulary teaching along the way.

Voila! Finished paper pizza. We have played with it in her play kitchen, and now that I've already shown the BLOOM moms the final product, I may cut it into slices so we can play with it in a different way. I may even throw around some fraction language while doing so.

Several people have told me they have already done these crafts at their house since Tuesday, too!

 My friend, Amanda, sent me these cute pics of Jack making his own paper pizza.

Who knew brown paper bags could look so yummy?? :)

~morgan