Great crafts for summertime fun, day camp, and school.
Looking for some great crafts to do with your kids? Need inexpensive projects that use items that you can buy at your local hardware store? Wind Chimes and Whirligigs by Renée Schwartz (Kids Can Press, ISBN-10 1-55337-868-6) is the perfect craft book for summertime and classroom fun!
There are twelve exciting projects to do in Wind Chimes and Whirligigs. Each project either makes noise or whirls in the breeze. There is the Crazy Kitten, Ring-a-ding Bug, Clothespin Fly, Caterpillar, Flutterfly, Crested Key Bird, Whirli-bug, Racing Snails, Spiderweb, Big Fish, Little Fish, Wind Dragon, and Whirli-bird.
It is difficult to choose a favorite project in this book. The Racing Snails, for instance, are made from a 16 inch wooden board, locknuts, three steel cable straps, metal washers, wing nuts, screws, and a few other odds and ends. The finished project is so adorable that you will want to have these snails all over your garden and porch. The also look great on the windowsill.
There is also the Spiderweb made from a metal coat hanger, galvanized wire, beads, and a few other bits and pieces. When finished, the web looks so awesome that you’ll want to make more for the Halloween season.
The Flutterfly is one of the simplest projects in this book and kids are sure to love it. You’ll only need a few things from the hardware store: wire rope clip, swivel, plumbing washers, and green covered stranded wire. For the plastic wings, you can cut up an unneeded plastic report cover or buy a stack of them from an office supply store. The end result is an adorable butterfly you can hang from your porch.
Some of the other materials you’ll need to make the crafts in this book include plastic bottles, old aluminum pie plates, a whisk, old spoon and fork, a wooden spoon, bottle caps, an old CD, old keys, clothespins, tennis balls, and table tennis balls. You probably already have most of these items lying around in your storage areas or recycling bin.
To hold everything together, you will need nylon fishing line, clear nail polish, glue, and glue gun.
Adult supervision is needed for most of these projects. For example, When gluing items together, a low-temperature glue gun works best. An x-acto knife will also come in handy when cutting out some of the items, however it is an optional item. You can use scissors instead of the craft knife.
What is best about this craft book is that its projects are inspiring. You can adapt them to the seasons or holidays. Take, for example, the Crazy Kitten whirligig. It can be altered into a bunny for the Easter season, a bear as part of a language arts study of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, or even a frog as a science activity.
