This wonderful activity which involves the salt dough preparation and then making of flowers using them and then making magnets with these flowers is very interesting. Though a long process, children will enjoy doing it for their mothers. To start with the activity, you can simply ask the children if they could correlate their mums with flowers. Let them speak out and say what they find common in both – the flowers and their mums. This will build their capacity to form sentences and speak out their thoughts. At the same time, we are introducing them to the activity as well.
Materials Required:
- Salt dough
- Glue
- Glitter
- Flower shape cookie cutter
- Acrylic paints and brush
- Photos of kids
- Magnetic strips
- Mod podge
Method:
- Prepare the salt dough using flour, salt and some oil. Mix required amount of water and make the dough.
- Now roll it out with a thickness of around ½ centimetre.
- Using the cookie cutter, cut out flower shapes.
- You can also cut a smaller flower inside this bigger flower cut outs.
- Now place them in a baking tray and allow them to bake in the oven until you get the desired consistency.
- After they are done let them cool.
- Then paint these flowers with colours of your choice.
- Once the paint has dried up, you need to seal it using Mod Podge. This is to be done by the teacher.
- Now apply some glue on the centre flower cut out border and pour some glitter over it. Let it stick and then you can tap the flower to remove the excess glitter.
- Now apply some glue on the border of the back portion of the small flower cut out. Stick the photo of the child onto it.
- You can take the magnetic strips and glue them to the back portion of the flowers.
- Your flower magnets are ready.
Hints And Tips:
- Involve the kids in making the salt dough as it is great muscular activity for the hands of the kids.
- The activity as a whole aims at improving the fine motor skills of a child.
- It also builds the hand eye coordination in them.
- Use a baking sheet on the tray while you bake to avoid sticking of the flowers.
- Remember that the Mod Podge is to be used by the teacher alone. It prevents the flowers from cracking in the near future and also keeps the moisture away so that it doesn’t get mouldy.
- If you are unable to make the flower shape in the middle, you could cut out a small circle using some small lid.
- You could even keep the flowers as it is without cutting them at the centre. For such flowers, we can apply glue at the centre and sprinkle glitter over it.
- The thinner your flowers are the better it is as it will take less time to dry and not be very heavy to hang on your fridge.
- These act as an excellent gift for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Parent’s Day or even Grandparent’s Day.
- As the kids are busy doing this activity, you could ask kids about magnets. Ask them if they have handled one before, how do they behave, why do they stick to metallic surfaces alone, etc.
Reference:
Thebestideasforkids.com
