Quick and Easy Christmas Tree Ornaments For Toddlers

momstown Oakville's monthly Art & Play program at the Oakville Soccer Club combines crafty fun with some free play.  Kids go home with their own craft creation and also get a chance to burn off some energy and be social while they play with other Oakville kids.

This month's craft provide kids lots of materials to get creative and make quick and easy Christmas tree ornaments to add to their tree at home.  We made popsicle stick Christmas trees, gingerbread men and snowflake ornaments! Kids had the option of using bingo dabbers, colourful foam stickers and shiny cut out pieces to really let our trees, gingerbread men and snowflakes sparkle.

As always there was still plenty of Christmas magic to burn off so we headed on to the soccer field for some soccer play, followed by the reindeer hokey pokey and frosty and Santa parachute games!  Join us in the New Year for Art & Play or any of our other monthly events you can find on our jam packed calendar. Your one year momstown Oakville membership includes a 12 month subscription to Today's Parent magazine, member discounts and access to our active 24/7 message board.

Spray Bottle & Frozen Paint Painting With Kids

momstown Oakville moms and kids are still taking advatage of all the beautiful summer weather and holding our events out doors to enjoy the sun.  This morning we tried a new type of messy painting,  a perfect activity for outdoor space. The bright beautiful paintings that were created made me think that this would be a perfect activity at a rainbow themed birthday party for kids!

Spray bottles and frozen paint popsicles ready to go!

Loved the look of all the bright colours

To make spray bottle paint, pour some washable paint into the spray bottle and then add water until the bottle is about 1/3 full.  Shake well.  Another great option is to pour water into paint containers that are almost empty, put the cap on, shake it up and then pour that mixture into a spray bottle.  Great way to use end of the bottle paint that is hard to get out!

To make frozen paint, pour washable paint so that each ice cube spot is about 3/4 full.  Add about 1/2 tsp of water to the top (helps the popsicle stick stay in).  Stick the tray in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes until partially frozen and then put in the popsicle sticks (they should stand up straight, if they don't, they need a bit longer in the freezer).  Once the popsicle sticks are in, put the tray back in the freezer overnight (or at least for 8 hours).

The spray bottles produced really neat splatters that resulted in quite an artistic picture!  The frozen paint started out more like a crayon and then as it melted, got more and more fluid.  This was a pretty simple activity to prepare and the kids had lots of fun.  We'll have to do this one again soon!  As an added side benefit, one mama noted that using the spray bottles would help the kids increase their grip strength, a great precursor to writing with a pen or pencil.

Kids always enjoy a painting activity and its fun to go outside of the normal paint and paint brushes routine sometimes.  If you'd like to get in on the painting fun, be sure to join us next time.  momstown Oakville takes care of all the supplies, the prep and the clean up - you just come for the messy fun!