DO-IT-YOURSELF FOAM PAINT
14/11/2020
Source: dabblesandbabbles.com
Keep your kids entertained with creative crafts, like mixing and painting with this homemade foam paint!
Materials
- Shaving cream
- White school glue
- Food colouring of your choice
- Thin cardboard or other semi-rigid canvas material
Directions
- Mix equal parts shaving cream and white school glue in a large ziplock bag. Squish them together well!
- Add a few drops of the food colouring of your choice and continue to squish everything together until you get your desired colour.
- Prep whatever cardboard or other material you want to use for your canvas by drawing a scene, some shapes, or some words. Then, cut off a small corner from your ziplock bag and squeeze to form thick lines of foam paint. It’s a bit like using a piping bag for icing! Follow and fill in your design with different colours of foam paint.
- Once the art has been completed, set aside so the foam can dry and solidify overnight.
LOVE LOCAL: SPARK CREATIVE LEARNING IN WINNIPEG
11/11/2020
Source: Manitoba Museum
Check out these remote learning opportunities from our Winnipeg friends!
Join the Manitoba Museum for a Virtual Field Trip and explore the universe with them on November 17. Using the Planetarium’s DIGISTAR software, you’ll explore the planets and stars, visit distance galaxies, and use Canadian technology to see the universe in a different light. Virtual Field Trips take place on Zoom and last approximately 45 minutes. Register here!
The Conseil Jeunesse Provincial is holding a French language remote Trivia and Game Night on November 26. To participate, bring two connected devices (computer, tablet, smartphone) and make sure that your devices are well charged. You’ll need one device to access Zoom and one to play the game. Register here!
ALL ABOARD: WE’RE GATHERING STEAM
10/11/2020
Source: Mazaam
Today’s STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math – post includes resources for parents to help their kids develop STEAM-based skills outside of the classroom.
Mazaam is an app that introduces children (aged 4 to 6) to classical music. Through seeing, touching, listening, and making connections, your children will experience a multimodal music game . The game’s music comes from the recording catalogs of Canada’s leading classical music labels and is performed by the greatest classical musicians in Canada. The app and its developers are Canadian, and it’s available in both French and English. Get it for Android or iOS.
The Michigan Engineering Center for Digital Curricula ran a series of BrainVentures for students in grades K to 6 last spring. While they’re not currently producing new BrainVentures, their previous BrainVentures are still available. These are visually guided, scaffolded learning adventures that accommodate different learning preferences and engage the learner in constructing animations, videos, photo albums, and stories while taking them on field trips and having them play games and run simulations. Learn more.
Stay tuned for more resources to help spark kids’ creative learning!
SHOP FEATURE 5
09/11/2020
(For the week of November 9, 2020)
Check out this week’s Feature 5 – a list of top-selling products from Shop, the Children’s Museum’s gift store, now with FREE shipping in Winnipeg on orders over $25!
Tangram Brain Teaser
Price: $4.99
Entertain endless possibilities with the Toysmith Tangram Brain Teaser. Compact-sized for a pocket or bag, take this puzzle along on road trips and other adventures. Store the puzzle in its convenient matching box. Arrange the seven puzzle pieces in a multitude of combinations. Challenge yourself and your friends with the included puzzle ideas for hours of fun.
Suitable for ages 5+
The Jar of Happiness
Price: $24.99
The Jar of Happiness is a sweet story about a little girl who concocts a potion for happiness and carries it around to share with the people in her life. When she loses the jar, those same people show her that happiness does not come from a jar.
Suitable for ages 3+
KidzLabs Super Moon Torch
Price: $22.99
View the moon’s fascinating seas and craters with this amazing moon torch. The torch also transforms into a light-up animated zoetrope, a glowing lightsaber, and a spooky night writer.
Suitable for ages 8+
Mould & Paint Sealife
Price: $16.99
An easy-to-do kit for children to make fridge magnets and badges for themselves. The kit contains 6 different moulds and includes all the materials they need to make 12 badges or fridge magnets, including plaster and paints, magnets, and brooch pins.
Suitable for ages 5+
Wacky Tracks
Price: $6.99
Toysmith Wacky Tracks keep idle hands busy and stimulate hours of imaginative play. This articulated chain can bend into countless shapes. Create letters, numbers, symbols – even a bracelet or necklace. Lightweight plastic construction is designed to withstand hours of intense play.
Suitable for ages 5+
POPPY CRAFT FOR REMEMBRANCE DAY
07/11/2020
Source: mommyingmonkeys.blogspot.com
Make some paper poppies this Remembrance Day as you explain the significance to your kids.
Materials
- Construction paper in red and black
- Wooden skewers or craft sticks
- Scissors
- Glue
- Tape
- Paper cups for vases
Directions
- Trace and cut poppy shapes, about 6 inches wide, from the red construction paper
- Cut out flower centres from the black construction paper, then tape or glue them to the red flowers
- Tape skewers to the backs of the flowers – these are your flower stems!
- Turn the paper cups upside down, then use the skewers to poke holes in the bottom of each paper cup vase. Stick your flower skewers in the holes so they’ll stay stable.
- Arrange on your windowsill or whenever you’d like.
LOVE LOCAL: SPARK CREATIVE LEARNING IN WINNIPEG
04/11/2020
Source: Miriam Rudolph / Destination Winnipeg
Enjoy First Fridays in the Exchange this Friday, November 6 with a livestream Art Talk with scholar and curator Dr. Heather Igloliorte. She’ll talk about the WAG’s Qaumajuq (formerly known as the Inuit Art Centre) and will help viewers discover new ways to connect to art.
The Winnipeg Public Library’s Check It Out: Indigenous Family Centre mobile library programming returns on November 24 from 11:00AM to 1:00PM at the Indigenous Family Centre at 470 Selkirk Avenue. Drop in, get a free library card, and borrow adult, teen and children’s books and movies.
ALL ABOARD: WE’RE GATHERING STEAM
03/11/2020
Source: Babble Dabble Do
Use an empty juice pouch as a homemade launcher and create your own mini rocket!
Materials
- Empty Capri Sun pouch or other plastic juice container
- Flexible Drinking Straw
- Coloured Paper
- Pencil
- Tape
- Scissors
- Glue Stick
- Washi Tape (optional)
Directions
- Snip off the end of the flexible straw so that it has a point. Remove the straw that came with the juice pouch.
- Insert the pointed end of the straw into the straw hole of the empty juice bag. This will be your launcher.
- Cut a 3″ by 3″ piece of paper for the rocket body. Roll it over a pencil to make a paper tube. Tape along the seam and remove the pencil from the tube.
- Cut three equal strips of paper (approximately 3/4″ wide x 2.5″ long) to make fins. Glue two ends of two strips together. Tape the rocket body to the two fins. Glue the third fin to the flaps of the other two fins. Trim the ends at an angle.
- Add a piece of tape to seal the top of the rocket.
How to Launch Your Rocket
- Inflate the juice pouch by blowing into the flexible straw.
- Place the straw rocket over the end of the juice pouch straw. Bend the flexible straw to aim the rocket up.
- Place the juice pouch rocket on the ground.
- Stomp down on the juice pouch to launch the rocket up and into the air. Alternatively, use your hand to press down and push to launch the rocket.
This activity supports the development of the following STEAM skills:
Science and engineering: What is powering your rocket? Does it make a difference in how far your rocket goes if you stomp or press down on the launcher with your hand? What happens if there’s a hole in the juice pouch or the straw?
SHOP FEATURE 5
02/11/2020
(For the week of November 2, 2020)
Check out this week’s Feature 5 – a list of top-selling products from Shop, the Children’s Museum’s gift store, now with FREE shipping in Winnipeg on orders over $25!
Bag Buddy – Payton the Puppy
Price: $4.99
Hang this adorable silicone puppy mini bag on a back pack, lunch tote, or handbag. Perfect for stashing cash, notes, lip gloss, and more.
Suitable for ages 8+
Mini Rainmaker
Price: $16.99
Simply turn this colourful, plastic rainmaker over to watch and hear the “rain” fall. Makes a great gift!
Suitable for ages 6 months+
Easy-To-Do Crochet Kit
Price: $22.99
This crochet kit is a perfect beginner’s set to teach children the fundamentals of crocheting. The kit includes two crochet hooks, one plastic needle, and seven colours of yarn, plus a 14-page instruction book covering three different crocheting projects. Create up to three of the following items to keep or share with friends: a coaster, a handbag, a place mat, or a belt.
Suitable for ages 8+
Pop Art 123!
Price: $26.99
Pop Art 123! from Mudpuppy teaches counting from numbers 1 through 10 while also introducing young readers to Keith Haring’s colourful world of pop art.
Suitable for ages 3 months+
Kaleidoscope Making Kit
Price: $19.99
Stimulate imagination and creativity with this easy-to-use Kaleidoscope Making Kit. Craft 4 different styles, including holographic, glow, snow, and colour. Includes everything you need to build and decorate a customized kaleidoscope.
Suitable for ages 7+
CUPCAKE LINER OWLS
31/10/2020
Source: Artsy Craftsy Mom
Materials
- Paper cupcake liners
- Craft paper sheets in yellow, orange, brown, and blue
- Googly Eyes
- Chalk Markers
- Scissors
- Glue
- Leaf embellishments
Directions
- Start by flattening out the cupcake liners to get circles. Be careful not to tear them.
- Fold the liners inward from both sides, leaving a narrow gap in the center. The gap should be narrower at the top and wider at the bottom.
- Make a small fold from the top facing downward. Bring out your chalk markers and go nuts decorating the owls’ wings and tail.
- What’s this owl missing? A beak! Cut out small triangles from the orange and yellow craft paper for beaks. Then cut out a branch from the brown paper so your owls have a place to sit.
- Time to put everything together! Attach the googly eyes and beak on the owl’s head. Assemble the branch and leaf embellishments on a blue background and finally fix your owls on the branch.
LOVE LOCAL: SPARK CREATIVE LEARNING IN MANITOBA
28/10/2020
Source: Oak Hammock Marsh
Fall programming for families at Oak Hammock Marsh includes a songbird banding demonstration on November 7 and astronomy night on November 19. With your Children’s Museum membership, you can get 10% off the price of annual membership at Oak Hammock Marsh.
New exhibition Inuk Style is now open at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Drawn from the collections of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Government of Nunavut’s Fine Art Collection, Inuk Style presents a dynamic range of clothing items spanning the Western to the Eastern regions of the Canadian Arctic. In celebration of the next generation of Inuit designers, this exhibition also presents a selection of fashionable accessories and jewelry handcrafted with delicate care and precision using sewing skills passed down through many generations. Children’s Museum members save $1 on one admission per visit to the WAG and get $5 off a WAG annual membership.