Toddler Art Class: Cheery Bird Feeders

Alternate title for this class: Toddler Fine Motor Skills Class.

Art Project: Cheery Bird Feeders
Supplies:
Cheerios (or similar cereal)
pipe cleaners / chenille stems / fuzzy wires whatever you want to call them

Book:   Nest / Hurley, Jorey

Toddler Art Class: Bright on Black

Sometimes the simplest materials yield the most satisfying results!

Art Project: Bright on Black
Supplies:
black construction paper
construction paper crayons

Book:
  Friends / Hout, Mies van
(This author has written several titles with this same art style and any of them would work fine.)

Craft Lab: Himmeli Shapes

Straws + wire = some really interesting (and beautiful) sculpture possibilities!

Today's project: Himmeli Shapes
Materials:
straws (tiny coffee stirring straws work great, bigger straws also work fine. Paper, plastic, whatever)
wire (I used a fairly thin, flexible gauge that could be easily cut with scissors)
scissors
rulers (optional)

Himmeli are traditionally Finnish Christmas decorations, but their beautiful geometric shapes can grace a home at any time of year in any country of the world. They take a little time to make and can be a little tricky to get the hang of, but if you're not a strict traditionalist, the sculpture possibilities are endless!

The Supper Club presents: Global Citizenship

Did you know that there are kids, all around the world, who have lots of things in common with you? In today's world, where communication with people from around the globe has become easier and more commonplace than ever before, it's important for our children to have a world view that is larger than their own neighborhood.  These apps are a mix of apps created in the United States and those from other countries, and all of them are great introductions to the conversation about people who may not live nearby, but who share many of our likes, dislikes, concerns and joys. They are a great first step on the road towards teaching our children empathy.

Up & Down by Mr. Garamond

One Globe Kids by Round by Design

Homes by Tinybop

Monki Chinese Class by Monkimun (if your child is struggling to learn to write the alphabet, try playing this one together to remind yourself how unfamiliar all those lines and squiggles felt when you first tried learning to write!)

A Day in the Market by Adarna House (Philippines)

Count the Animals by Appracadabra

Crocodile’s Christmas Jandals by the Ministry of Education, New Zealand

After checking out all the cool apps, we made these fun flag buntings from mr. printable so that we could learn what each country's flag looks like (especially important for the Appracadabra apps which come in over twenty different languages, each designated by the country's flag). 

For more (non-app) reading about world cultures, check out these resources:

This video has photos of different school lunches from around the world.

the bzzzzpeek! website will tell you what animals say in other countries (roosters always have something interesting to say!)

Books:

What the world eats / by Peter Menzel
Material World / by Peter Menzel
Hats, Hats, Hats / by Ann Morris
Children Just Like Me / by Barnabas Kindersley
This is the way we eat our lunch / by Edith Baer
Throw your tooth on the roof / by Selby B. Beeler
If you lived here / by Giles Laroche
Celebrations / by Kindersley, Anabel ; Kindersley, Barnabas .
What's for lunch? : how schoolchildren eat around the world / by Curtis, Andrea ; Duivenvoorden, Yvonne .
Bread, bread, bread / by Morris, Ann ; Heyman, Ken .
A life like mine. by UNICEF
On the go / by Morris, Ann ; Heyman, Ken .
Play / by Morris, Ann ; Heyman, Ken .
Toy stories : photos of children from around the world and their favorite things / by Galimberti, Gabriele .
Here's some more book ideas