Pet Rocks that Encourage Creativity and Entrepreneurship!

"Mom, what can I do?"

Yesterday I was riding along, going to one of my homeschool sessions and I saw two young children in at a little make shift "Lemonade Stand" the only thing is they were not selling Lemonade.  The two girls at this stand were pleased as punch to sell me a bottle of cold water. Their mother also thanked me.  Bottled water was an awesomely profitable idea, someone thought of.  It took a creative thinker to say, hay, lets take something that everyone has running in their home, bottle it up and sell it!  I don't know who thought it up but you can bet it was a creative person. America actually bought water that they already had, and sometimes it even came from the same places that they were already getting it!  I make it a point to stop and buy from little kids who are trying to sell something. As an art teacher I encourage entrepreneurship because it is creativity.  It takes a creative thinkers to produce and and to go about advertising and working out the details of selling things.  These two little girls who sold me the water were not bored, they were having a blast.  Next time your children are bored have your kids think of a good idea and try it out. Here is what I have done with children - It helps introduce Gary Dahl's 15 million dollar creative mind and encourage small children to be just as creative!

Sell Pet Rocks Like Gary Dahl!

Tell them the story of the "Pet Rock Ridiculously Rich Person" named Gary Dahl.

Gary made a Profit of about  $15 Million in just the first six months of his pet rock idea! The idea of selling a rock was thought by some to be about as ridiculous as it gets!  I remember my dad saying what a dumb idea this was! But Gary Dahl  didn't think so, he figured out how to market rocks and made millions in just a few short months. Gary Dahl was a former advertising executive who sold the rocks as  " A Pet" that didn't take much by way of maintaining. He created an old fashioned type pet carrier, and a card telling the "owner" of his new "Pet Rock" how to take care of it. He sold his rocks for about $3.95.  The rock (which was not painted) and the straw they sat on and the box they were sold in along with the training manual only costed him .95 cents to produce per product sold.m Each sale earned him a net profit of three bucks!  The rocks were an instant hit and turned into one of the greatest fads of all time!

I love to paint rocks with children!  We have done many.  They are not plain pet rocks but they are the type that you create with acrylic paint. They really do look like a pet! 

Materials Needed

1.  Rocks about 2 or 3 inches diameter.  Find them in a gravel driveway - works good. 

2. Acrylic Paint - a wide variety of  colors. Delta is a good brand.

3. Good Paint brushes - synthetic that come to a point. 

4. Sponge Brush -for the base coat.

5. Clear Coat Spray Gloss Acrylic

6. An empty clean margarine or sour cream container. (pet carrier)

7. Shredded Colored Paper - from a paper shredder. (to rest the rock on)

8. A cup of water for each child.

9. Paper Towels for clean ups and spills and brush cleaning

10. Paper Plates - use as a pallet to put wet paint on (makes clean up easier)

I usually tell the children how important it is to clean brushes  and to do it often while painting with acrylic paints because if the acrylic paint drys the brushes are ruined. 

Clean up the rocks and let them dry.  I use a garden hose, this is a good outside activity all around.   Next, let the rocks sit and dry.  The rocks need to be dry to work, don't let the kids paint them wet. 

Now, choose a color that is the base coat of the rock.  I tell the children a base coat is the color that most of the rock will be.  ie if they are doing a red lady bug then most the rock will be red. Don't add water for the base coat.  The base coat needs to dry so is a good idea to do about 3 rocks at a time.  Children can paint another rock while the others are drying.  Depending on the color and the quality of paint you may need to do 2 or 3 base coats. 

The next step is to add details. Tell children to work from the largest amount of color to the smallest amount.  Also, let the colors dry between each application.  This will stop mistakes and smudges. This is why doing three rocks works well.  Cleaning the brush between each application of color also helps with impatience. 

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Add one color on one rock and move to the next and then the next, cleaning the brush completely in the cup of water each time with a water and then drying it with a paper towel.  By this time the last rock is done the first rock will be dry.  Explain that big blobs of paint won't dry! It is a fine line for the kids to make sure to add a bit of water to the acrylic paint when detailing but not add too much. Too much water will drip! The key is just a titch of water to make the brushwork smooth, but not too much because it will run.  The transparent color on this bee's wings are done by adding more water. Have the kids practice on a newspaper making smooth thin lines with the right amount of water. 

 I usually do eyes last.   For the eyes of whatever animal  simply have the child dot the end of a brush in a color and then place it on the rock where they want them. A smaller brush end or a pin head can be used to make the dot for the center pupil. Lady bugs are easy because the dots for the bugs are also made with the back of the brush. Even little ones can make dots. If your child is younger simply make a dotted rock.

Work from one rock to another until the rocks are finished. When the rocks are dry spray with Gloss Spray Coat Acrylic. Let that dry for about an hour and Volla!  A pet rock! While the rocks are drying clean up.  

Place rocks in margarine container on a bed of shredded colored paper. Your child may want to keep their rock, give it away as a gift or even design a pet rock stand to sell their wares.  If I am around I will have my quarters ready to stop and buy one!  

  

Easter Egg Carton Crafts

Creativity for Easter....
So many children love to make Easter eggs but did you know that there are even more things that you can do with the carton.  I had a wonderful Grandmother, her name was Bernice but many of the grand kids called her Grandma Bunny.  She was the Easter Bunny Carton Queen. She always had a bunch of egg cartons on top of her refrigerator for crafting. She often used the styraphome kind, sometimes you can find this type and skip the painting part, but then, where is the fun.  She could make about anything you wanted out of an egg carton.  Her favorite things were Turtles and Tulips - something for the little girls and something for the little boys.  She was an awesome grandmother!  I love her so much so this blog is for her.

Turtle Necessities
Egg Carton - the paper kind
Green, Red, Blue or Whatever Color you wish - Tempera Paint
Scissors
Craft Foam - Green is traditional but other colors if you wish
Sticky Backed Google Eyes
Paint Brush
Water Cups
Markers
Sharpie Marker
Pencil
Glue Dots (Better than hot glue=NO BURNS)

Tulip Necessities
Egg Carton - the paper kind (again)
Pink, Blue, Red, Yellow - or whatever color you wish Tempera Paint
Craft Foam - Green
Pipe Cleaners (some call chenell stems) in Green
A button
Paint Brush
Water Cups
Sharpie Marker
Pencil
Glue Dots (Better than hot glue = NO BURNS)

Turtle

Cut out around each little egg cup.  then lay the egg cup on the craft foam. I simply have the kids draw a  head, 4 legs (2 on each side) and a tail.  No big deal, each one will look different but it is super OK, creativity is key to fun, so don't worry about a pattern and stuff.  With a pattern no one makes mistakes, and mistakes are how we learn!  Let a few mistakes happen and then try to solve them creatively. Don't cut through the craft foam until you have drawn the image of the turtle exactly the way you would wish - in pencil.  Then I have the kids go over the lines they like with a sharpie marker.  Mistakes can be made into wonderful dots of color with markers - You can even use markers to jazz up the shell later if you wish.

Paint the Turtle "shell" which is the egg cup.  Green is traditional. Make sure the first coat isn't too wet.  Mix the paint thick or else you will have soaked turtle shells that never dry and may also simply end up as piles of paper yuck. After they dry you can flick the paint on with a toothbrush for a cool effect.  They can do this with a stiff brush.  If they are not the "Jackson Pollock"  type they may rather paint on some fancy dots or designs.  Let them choose. After this wait for the shell to dry again.  Then, "glue dot" the edges onto the craft foam pattern of the head, tail, and legs of the turtle. Add the Google eyes and Volla! Really fun and easy, and cute.


Tulips
These are the ones I loved to do.  Cut around the egg cups - leave the little legs on each cup, or the petals on each cup. We would paint the cartons any color we wished using the tempera

paint and the brush and water cups.  Don't make the paint too thin - they will never dry and the carton will be too wet to work with and may fall apart.  Simple paint job on these is the best.  Simply one color per carton cup.  But have each kid do three or more for a better bouquet. Now, simply push the pipe cleaner into the bottom of the egg carton.  Then, pull a little of the stem through the carton and make a nice ball.  You can add all kinds of things inside the tulip to hold the pipe cleaner in place - grandma usually used a button, but you can use a little pom pom or even just the pipe cleaner itself balled up.  Again, creativity is fun, encourage kids to use their own ideas. I always find that their ideas are better than anything I could ever dream up.  It is wonderful when ideas are different, remember God didn't make all flowers the same either, not even all tulips are the same.  So, don't stress.  Then cut out a little leaf pattern (works best to double the pattern and fold it over itself and use a glue dot to hold.  Put them all together and you can even tie a little ribbon around the entire thing, or put them in a painted toilet paper tube - again it is up to the artist to decide.  It is really a fun Easter Craft!

Thank heavens for the Easter Bunny (and in my case that was my Grandmother Bunny)!

Happy Easter Crafting~    

Luck O the Irish Math Tree in March!
I have been working on the funnest thing - a Luck-o-The Irish Math Tree.  Yes, it has been so fun and your home school or classroom would have a great time making the tree. You can teach math with this tree very easily - decimals, fractions, reducing fractions, addition, you name it. Math is fun when it is art.  Under the tree I put a large Pot-O Gold!  And on the Gold I put values, for each gold coin (we were working with adding decimals and money so I did .05, .50, .25, .50, 1.00 and so on... I made prizes for the kids who figured out the value of the gold coins in the pot.

Materials
Brown Paper Roll (you could even use brown packaging or wrapping paper -  it takes a whole roll)
1 Green Crepe Paper Roll  (any shade of green - it looks great if it is a different shade than the green colored paper.
Colored Paper (Green too, any shade) I think I used about 50 - 100 or so
Black Poster Board - For the Pot that the Gold is in
Gold Paper (I used a Bright Yellow) - a few sheets - less than 10
Sharpie Marker
Tacks, Staples or Packaging Tape

Snake rolled Brown Paper
Take your Brown Paper and cut it in long sheets, my paper roll was about 5 feet wide so I cut each sheet into 2 pieces vertically. (Time to talk about vertical and horizontal is now, because you use this concept a lot as you make your tree.) Each long snake is about 5 - 6 feet long. Precision is not as important in this area because trees are random.  Crinkle and roll the paper the long way.  If you are using tape make your crinkling will be more side to side and each snake should only be about 4 feet wide.This is going to be the bark, branches and roots of your tree.  The kids love to do this and you can have a number of kids doing it at the same time.  The rolls will look like long snakes.  I had the kids start at a corner so that the ends are pointed.  It isn't hard to do - anyone can do it really.  It takes approximately 20 - 40 of these long paper rolls to make the  tree, depending on class size and tree size.

Roots
Start fashioning the tree on the wall. You will want to begin with a few roots.  Simply lay the pointed end of each long snakelike roll horizontally (talk about horizon line and horizontal) along the bottom of the wall just above the floor. Staple or tack the end. the end. Packaging tape may work too, have students make small rolls of tape and put onto one side of each snake - but be careful that you don't remove the wall paint when you take down your tree. Come to the place where the trunk begins to go vertical and staple again. Keep stapling tacking as you go. If you are taping then have the tape on beforehand.  I found for the entire process staples were the best, you will need to fold out the staple gun the long way (there is a little tab on the bottom of most staple guns, kids don't know this, and make sure you tell them the dangers of stapling themselves or others, I let kids staple but only after telling the story of the kid who stapled his friends knee, some teachers choose to staple it all themselves but it is not easy to do alone, kids can hold the rolls as you staple) Make sure you staple where the paper is thinner, on an edge.  I made about 5 - 7 long roots that came together from each direction and began forming the trunk

Trunk
Tack each end and the middle of each long snakelike roll as you fashion your tree trunk.  It is fun.  Remember that each long roll should go up and down on the wall vertically. (Talk about vertical pointing upward)  To make the trunk simply put a number of brown snake rolls together without any spaces between. Make the trunk of the tree about a foot wide. begin another snake where one leaves off.  Don't make all snakes start and stop at one point, miss align snake beginnings and endings (this is the best).  Don't think about it too hard. Have students stand back and look at the work once in a while - helping others decide where to put each brown snake roll and make the tree look good.

Branches
Branches are made with the long brown paper snake rolls just like the trunk.  Remember, branches of trees begin wide and get smaller as the tree goes upward, so don't get too small too fast as you begin your branches.  Start by making 2 separate branches about 6" each (splitting off at the top of the trunk.) It isn't hard.  Then split these 2 separate branches into 4 branches - about 4" each or so.  Continue your visual division process. (This is a great time to talk about division.)  As you get to small 3" branches you will be working and tacking on the ceiling (you ladder, or table will be needed - I used some of the taller students at this point to tack things up - I was jsut too short!) You don't need a lot of ceiling branches - 4 or 5 long snakes is enough.

Willows
The long crape papers are the willows. Each student can make a few.  Crepe paper should be cut into 4 feet, 3 feet and 2 feet long. (again, it isn't a precise art, trees are rather random)  This tree looks like a willow tree and these long pieces of crepe paper strips will be tacked to the ceiling hanging down vertically around the branches. (great time to talk about vertical and horizontal when your make a tree)  I use one tack per strip, to hang them.  I made sure they were not too long so kids didn't mess with them. If the kids are helping they are proud of the tree and will usually not mess with it.

Leaves
Fold 2 pieces of the green colored paper in half the long way and fold them both again the long way.(we call this long way folding of paper the "hot dog bun" fold) Cut 3 1/2 heart shapes at the fold to make 2 hearts each fold and 6 hearts per sheet. Don't worry the size (again trees are not precise) just have students utilize the paper the best that they can - makes the least mess to pick up afterwords.

Combining Leaves to Willows
Staple the heart shape leaves onto the long crepe paper pieces.  The top bumps of the heart should be on the crape paper - the pointed tip will hang out - off the paper.  I stapled only one time per heart.  I also made sure there were a few hearts stapled to each side of the paper.  When you hold the crepe paper up the points of the hearts should slightly point at a downward angle. I put somewhere between 5-10 green colored paper hearts on each long crepe paper, depending on the length of the paper. Now tack the long willow leaves hanging down from the ceiling all around your branches - you don't have to have branches everywhere you tack.  I did an entire area kids love to read under the tree in the bean bag chairs that are there.

Pot 
Fold the black poster board in 1/2 cut out a pot like shape.  I made the top slightly curved downward and the bottom slightly curved up.  Cut between the top and bottom curve on the edge away from the fold in a slightly curved outward shape as well.  This makes a pretty big pot.  Use the entire poster board - only trim away little amounts.

Gold
Simply find a can the size you want for the gold.  Mine was about 4" diameter. Draw your circle and cut out each. These circles are your gold pieces.  Write whatever value you want for each coin on the circles with a sharpie marker. We were working with decimals and money so I made each piece a divergent monetary value, using a decimal point in each one.  Add the coins to the pot.  Put some coins falling out of the pot and put some coins in a pile under the tree. I make the smallest area worth the most value and the largest area worth the least, just to mix it up a bit and get the kids thinking. Each student can add a clover under the tree for that special touch. This is a great extra time activity, some kids get finished with the math questions early - if they do they can make more clover.
Oragami uses math principles as well.  Here is a video link to the ones that I did under my tree.

Math Questions that you could ask - about your Pot O Gold.
What is the coin of highest value?
What is the coin of least value?
What is the coin of highest value in each area?
What is the coin of least value in each area?
What is the value of coins in the pot?
What is the value of the coins falling out of the pot?
What is the value of the coins under the tree?
What is the value of all the coins together?
What is the value of the coins in the pot and under the tree together?
What is the value of the coins outside the pot together?
What is the value of the coins in the pot and falling out of the pot together?
What is the difference of the value of the coins in the pot and under the tree?
What is the difference of the value of the coins under the tree and falling out of the pot?
What is the difference of the value of the coins in the pot and under the tree?
What is the difference of the value of the coins under the tree and in the pot?
What is the number of coins in the pot?
What is the number of coins falling out of the pot?
What is the number of the coins under the tree?
What is the value of all the coins together?
What is the number of the coins in each area together?
What is the number of the coins in each area? (inside,outside and falling out of the pot)
What is the difference of the number of coins in and out of the pot?
What is the difference of the number of the coins in the pot and under the tree?
What is the difference of the number of coins falling out of the pot and under the tree?
Which area has the most coins?
Which area has the least coins?
Which area has the highest value of coins?
Which area has the least value of coins?
If the coins were real (inside, outside, or falling out of the pot) which area would you want to have?