Learn how to make a Punk Punk Pinata!

Once you’ve completed part 1 and have a nice, crispy paper mache balloon, you’ll be ready to finish up your masterpiece! Read on for the instructions on how to turn that balloon into an official Punk Punk pinata. 

1. When you are sure your 3 layers of paper mache are completely dry, pop the balloon using a needle or pair of scissors. Parents: This step should be handled by you.
2. Using a pencil, sketch designs for your Punk Punk’s eyes. Need some ideas? Try copying the eye shapes on the sketches below.
   

   Step 2 - a few "eye"deas!

    

3. Use the brown paint cover the entire Punk Punk except it’s eyes.
4. Use the black and white paint to add detail to the eyes…like this!
   

   Step 4

    

5. Allow the paint to dry completely. Add another layer of paint if the newsprint is still visible.
6. Use your brown construction paper and cut out some spikes for your Punk Punk’s crazy hairdo. We opted for wave shaped pieces, but Punk Punks are known for their unruly fur, so feel free to be creative!
7. Fold approximately 1/2 inch down along the bottom edge of each fur piece and cut 1-3 short slits. These slits will help you bend the paper around the curves of the balloon when you attach them.
   

   Step 7

    

8. Use your glue to attach each piece of fur to the Punk Punk.
   

   Step 8

    

9. Cut out some nice wide feet from your construction paper and paint on some white toenails.
   

   Step 9

    

10. Your Punk Punk is almost complete! If you’d rather not use your Punk Punk as a pinata, simply attach the feet to the body with glue and you’ll be all done. If you would like to use your Punk Punk as a pinata…head on to step 11.
11. Take your wire hanger and gently unravel it until you have a straight piece of wire. Next, bend the wire in the middle and gently shape to match the shape of the balloon, with an extra loop at the top for hanging. This wire will be inserted into the pinata for extra support. Parents: This step should be handled by you.
12. Gently poke a hole in the top of the pinata and slide the wire through. You should end up with a loop poking out from the top of the Punk Punk.
    

    Step 12

     

13. Peek inside the pinata and make sure that the wire is touching the inner walls. If not, use some masking tape to secure it in place. Parents: Make sure there are no sharp ends on the wire. Cover the ends with masking tape if need be. 
    

    Step 13

     

14. Now it’s time to load up the pinata with candy or other small treats!
15. Using extra construction paper wadded up into balls, create a stopper for the hole at the bottom of the pinata.
    

    Step 15

     

16. Attach the feet with glue.
17. Use string to hang the pinata and enjoy your fiesta!

In honor of the festivities at JumpStart.com, we though we’d share a fun and simple craft with you. Read on to learn how to create your own pinata modeled after the funny furry critters know as Punk Punks at JumpStart.com! When you’ve finished, you’ll be able to fill this crafty critter up with candy or small treats and have a fiesta of your own!

Learn how to make a Punk Punk Pinata!

What You’ll Need:

• 2 containers of liquid glue
• Newspaper
• 1 balloon
• Brown construction paper
• Brown, black and white paint
• 2 wire coat hangers
• Water
• Paper bowl
• Disposable plastic spoon
• String or ribbon

What to do:

Today, we’ll get your pinata started by paper macheing a balloon to create your Punk Punk’s body!

1. First, let’s get your dry materials ready.  Cut your newspaper into strips approximately 2 inches wide and inflate your balloon.
2. Things are about to get messy, so we recommend getting everyone into aprons and covering your table top to protect it.
3. In your bowl, create a paste mixture by combining 1 part water with 2 parts glue. Stir until the mixture is consistent.
4. Take 1 strip of newspaper at a time and dip it into the paste mixture until it is coated.
5. Squeeze the excess liquid off with your fingers and gently wrap the strip around the balloon.
   

   Step 5

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have completely covered the balloon (except a small circle around the knotted end) with strips of paper.
7. Tie your string around the knotted end of the balloon and find a spot where you can hang your balloon to dry undisturbed. Beware – your balloon may drip so make sure to place something underneath it to protect your floors.
8. Allow your balloon to dry completely.
9. Repeat steps 4-8 until you have covered your balloon with 3 separate layers of paper.

We’ll be back on Thursday with the steps for finishing up your Punk Punk pinata! Stay tuned!

We’ll teach you how to make these cute critters for the top of your pencil!

Here’s what you need:

• Red and black construction paper (one piece each)
• Small black pom-poms
• Scrap black pipe cleaner
• Tacky glue and scissors
• Black permanent marker
• One small brass fastener (optional)
• Wooden pencil (optional)

Here’s what to do:

1. Cut a circle that measures 3 inches in diameter out of the black construction paper.

2. Cut a circle out of the red construction paper that is just a little bit bigger than the black circle (maybe 3.2 inches in diameter).

3. Cut the red circle in half.

Step 3

4. Cut a small circle, about 1 inch in diameter, out of the black paper

5. If you want the wings to be able to flap, read this step. If not, follow step 6. Place the corner of one red semicircle over a corner of the other, and place this over the larger black circle. Once they are aligned, push the brass fastener through all three levels and flatten the ends against the back of the black circle. Color the top of the brass fastener black with the permanent marker. Younger children will need some help with this step.

Step 5

6. Follow this step if you don’t mind the wings being fixed. Glue the two halves of the red circle onto the larger black circle so that the corner of one semicircle is overlapping the other but some black is showing between the two semicircles. See the photograph after step 5 to get an idea.

7. Glue the pom-poms onto the red wings of the ladybug.

8. Glue the small black circle to the back of ladybug, leaving a little showing to form the head.

Step 8

9. Use two small scraps of black pipe cleaner for antennae by gluing them to the back of the ladybug’s head.

10. If you’d like to turn your ladybug into a pencil topper, simply glue or tape the top of the pencil to the back of the ladybug.

When you’re all finished, your ladybug should look something like this:

Done!

Beautiful Butterfly

Here’s what you need:

• A wooden pencil
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Markers, craft foam, and other decorative materials
• Pom-poms
• Glue

Here’s what to do:

1. Fold the sheet of construction paper in half. Draw the outline of half of a butterfly, with the fold down the middle of the butterfly. This will ensure that your butterfly is symmetrical.

Step 1

2. Cut out the half outline you just drew, keeping the fold in the construction paper intact.

Step 2

3. Unfold the butterfly and decorate it with markers, craft foam and anything else you can think of.

Step 3

4. Glue the pencil onto the front of the butterfly, right down the middle.

Step 4

5. Glue pom-poms to the pencil to form the body of the butterfly.

Step 5

Here’s what our finished pencil toppers look like:

Done!

What other spring pencil topper ideas can you think of?

Our first leprechaun craft is great for older kids, so they can have their own leprechaun cup to place coins in, as if the leprechaun is protecting his pot of gold!  The second, simple craft places a pot-of-gold at the end of a rainbow as a door handle decoration and is probably best for your younger children, but even older ones might find it fun!

The Crafty Leprechaun

The Crafty Leprechaun

What You’ll Need:

• 12. oz paper cup (like those used for coffee)
• 2 Green and 2 orange pipe cleaners
• Green, peach, yellow, and black construction paper (one small sheet each)
• Green paint
• One pair of googly eyes
• A black pen, black marker, and red marker (or pen)
• Glue

Here’s what do do:

1. Paint the paper cup green and let it dry.
2. Cut out a circle from the peach construction paper. Make sure it’s big enough to hide the cup’s rim when looking at it straight on.
3. Cut out a hat from the green construction paper and make sure the brim is a little bit wider than the peach circle that will create the head.
4. Use a black marker to make a band on the hat, but leave room in the middle for a buckle!
5. Cut out 3 small squares from the yellow construction paper and then cut out their middles for the hat’s and shoes’ buckles!
6. Glue a buckle onto the center of the hat and then glue the hat onto the top third of the peach circle.
7. Glue the googly eyes a little under the brim of the hat.
8. Draw a nose in black pen and a mouth in red marker (or pen) and then set the face aside.
9. Coil an entire orange pipe cleaner around a pencil or pen and slip it off.
10. Glue the ends of the coil onto the peach circle, making a beard.
11. Cut two small, straight pieces from another orange pipe cleaner and glue these above the googly eyes for eyebrows.
12. Glue the head onto the cup to cover near a third of the cup in length.
13. Take one green pipe cleaner and make a small loop at one end (secure it by wrapping a small part around).  Make a loop in the pipe cleaner right next to the one you just made and twist it so it stays in place. It should now resemble a flower stem with leaves. Take the straight edge and make a third loop that meets the other two in the center, making a clover shape!
14. Repeat the previous step again for the other hand.
15. Attach one on each side of the cup using tape or glue.
16. Cut out two small shoe-shaped pieces from the black paper and glue one yellow buckle to each shoe before gluing them to the bottom of the cup.

The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow

What You’ll Need

• Paper plate
• Scissors
• 1 sheet of yellow and 1 sheet of green construction paper
• Black marker
• Markers for each color of the rainbow
• Gold and green glitter (optional)
• Glue or tape

Here’s what to do

1. Cut a half-circle into the bottom of the plate.
2. Cut out two pie-shaped pieces on the edge of the plate where the half-circle’s corners line up.
3. Have your child color a rainbow that follows the arch of the half-circle
4. Color the rest of the plate with black marker and be sure to color in a pot rim at the corners of the half-circle
5. Take the yellow construction paper and cut out a shape that resembles a pile of coins, making it as long as the diameter of the half-circle.
6. Run a clear glue stick over the “pile of coins” and sprinkle gold glitter over the construction paper to make it look real!
7. Glue or tape this to the back of the paper plate with the glittery side facing frontward
8. Cut out the shape of a shamrock from the green construction paper and glue it to the center of the pot. Optionally glue green glitter to it.
9. Hang it on any door knob in the house!

Have fun making these crafts with your children! They are a pot-of-fun!

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Learn how to make a beautiful painting like this one!

This fun, easy art project is great for big kids (like all of us on the JumpStart Team) as well as young children who haven’t yet developed their fine motor skills. Just be sure to keep the marbles and paint away from young mouths.

You will need:

• Several different colors of paint
• A disposable (or easily washable) cup for each paint color
• A marble (or other small, round object you’re willing to get paint on) for each paint color
• Paper
• A shoebox or other box big enough to hold the paper

Start by assembling your materials

Get painting!

1. Place a piece of paper into the bottom of the box.

2. Squirt a dollop of your first color of paint into the first cup.

3. Drop a marble into the cup and roll it around to cover it in paint.

There goes the marble!

4. Drop the paint-colored marble into the box on top of the paper and roll it around to create lines and swirls.

Rockin' and rollin'

5. Repeat steps 1-4 with a few more colors of paint to create your masterpiece! Experiment with several marbles at once and see how they interact to create unique patterns. If you’re really adventurous, try bouncing the marbles for a different effect.

What a pretty painting!

Like snowflakes or fingerprints, every marble painting your child makes will be as unique as they are!

Share the fun!

A Simple and Thoughtful Craft

What you’ll need:

• Red and Pink construction paper
• Long piece of white yarn
• Your child’s photo or picture to be cut
• Markers
• Glue / Tape
• Scissors
• Optional: Hole Puncher

Directions:

1. Cut out a large heart from the red construction paper
   

   Base layer red heart

2. On the back of this heart, draw a pair of dots a centimeter apart. After you draw them, measure an inch away following the border of the heart and draw another pair.
   

   Centimeter separations between sister holes, inch separations between pairs.

3. Poke these dots with your scissors or use a hole puncher to make small holes
4. Beginning by going through the back of the heart, first, weave the yarn in and out of the holes you poked out! Make sure to secure the yarn with a piece of tape on the back. (If you are having trouble getting the yarn through the holes, tightly circle the tip of the yarn with a piece of tape, like the end of a shoelace.)
   

   Finish the lace effect.

5. Cut out a smaller heart from the pink construction paper and glue it in the center of the red heart
6. Cut your picture so it fits into the pink heart. (We used some pets from JumpStart!) You can also cut this into a shape of a heart.
7. Decorate the heart with more hearts, flowers, or whatever you want!
8. Write your Valentine’s Day message.

Have a super-special, fun-filled, absolutely amazing Valentine’s Day!

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A great Valentine's Day-themed activity!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Paper bag or gift bag (Try to use a color appropriate for your child’s animal choice)
• One pair of googley eyes
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue or tape
• Decorative materials (markers, crayons, paint)

Here’s what you’ll need to do:

1. Have your child choose any animal he or she wants to make. (If you are using a colored gift bag, skip to step 3.)
2. If you are using a brown paper bag, you’ll want to cut a piece of construction paper to cover the side that the bottom flap doesn’t fold toward. If the construction paper is shorter than the bag, this is fine, but be sure to cover the entire lower portion of the bag’s side. The remaining space at the top will be covered by the animal’s head.
   

   The entire bag face should become the animal's color.

3. Using the right-colored construction paper, cut out a circle for the head. Make sure it is larger in diameter than the bag.
4. Draw a good-sized half-circle on the head (this is for the mouth that valentines will be placed through) and cut this out as well.
   

   Size the mouth to be card-friendly!

5. On the bag, place the head where you plan for it to be. Trace an outline of the mouth. Cut out this traced outline.
6. Take the animal’s face and glue on the googley eyes wherever they need to go. For instance, this octopus’ eyes are further apart than the polar bears’.
7. Continue to decorate the face until you get the desired animal. For example, we had to cut out these heart shapes for our polar bear’s ears!
   

   We set this octopus’ eyes further apart than the polar bears’. To decorate, we cut out these heart shapes for our polar bear’s ears!

8. Now we need to make the legs! Although the number of legs will differ from animal to animal, the technique is the same. We used construction paper to cut long, rectangular strips and then folded these strips in an accordion-like manner.
   

   An accordion fold makes for fun limbs!

9. Glue the face to the bag, being sure to line up the open mouths. Also glue the legs to the bag wherever you think they look best! If you want more detail (like this Polar Bear’s paws) simply cut out what you need from construction paper and glue it on!
10. Decorate the animal with hearts, messages, or anything your child wants!
    

    Valentine-ready!

As this polar bear would say, we hope your Valentine’s Day is beary special!

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Build this crafty castle!

What You’ll Need:

• A cardboard box (The bigger the box, the bigger the castle)
• Scissors or a craft knife
• String
• Decorative materials (paint, stickers, crayons, etc.)

Directions:

1. Cut a slender, rectangular box out of all sides of the box for towers.


Repeat on the other sides, as well.

2. Cut smaller rectangular boxes on the longer sides for watch posts.
3. Draw a drawbridge on the front and poke two holes (using a pen or the scissor tip) on the door towards the top, for the strings (we will put them in later).  Cut out your drawbridge.


Drawbridge

4. Poke two holes on the wall the door is connected to, near the top of the door frame.
5. Pull some string through the holes you have poked in both the wall and the door and tie a knot at both ends of each string at a length that allows the door to lie flat.


Feed the string through and tie it off.

6. Decorate the castle with whatever your child’s heart desires!


A Royal Creation

While this particular castle is definitely fit for a princess, we know you and your children will enjoy making it match their own tastes.  We’re interested to know what kind of different ideas for decorations they came up with! Comment or send us pictures if you’d like!

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The Peacock Hat Craft

Peafowl are awesome birds. The word “peafowl” refers to the birds most commonly represented by peacocks; the word “peafowl” is used when discussing both males and females.  Males are called peacocks, and they are well-known for their brightly-colored feathers and amazing tails they use to impress females, which are called “peahens” and are mostly colored a more somber brown.  These photos were taken by a JumpStart Team member while visiting Arcadia, California, a lovely city in Southern California that features peafowl as its city bird, allowing them to roam freely throughout the city.

A peacock cruising down a residential street.

In our hat craft, we’ll be attempting to create a hat that captures the essence of a peacock for kids to enjoy and run around in, brilliant blue crest and all.  However, if your child has another favorite animal he or she would like to capture, feel free to take it in an entirely different direction after the first instruction.

The Peacock Hat Craft

What you’ll need:

• A bowl that fits over your child’s head
• 12 pages of newspaper
• Scissors
• Tape
• Tempera paint – blue, green, white, and black especially
• Paintbrush
• Glue stick
• Access to a working sink

Instructions

1. Place the bowl upside down on your workspace. Soak a page of newspaper in the sink and lay it over the bowl making sure the overlapping edges are pressed down flat.  Repeat with nine more sheets, shifting the direction of the page with each placement over the bowl so no gaps are left.
   

   Compress the soaked pages.

   Soak two  more pages and place them directly on top of each other, separate from the bowl pages; these will be used for the tail and crest.  Let them dry overnight. You should be able to remove the newspaper from the bowl the next day and have it retain the shape of the upended bowl.

2. Use scissors to trim the edge of the dried newspaper into triangular points. Don’t trim points into the area you decide to be the front; this part will be folded up to create the beak.
   

   Triangular Support.

3. Fold and the points up into the inside of the hat. To make the beak, cut a rectangle shape out of the newspaper’s overlapping edges that make up the front you decided on.  The rectangle shape should be made by dedicating one of the length-wise sides to remain attached to the main body of the hat, and fold the two opposing edge corners back towards the hat body, creating triangular folds. Tape these triangles together and then to the front of the hat (use double-sided tape or loops of tape preferably to hide the attachment).
   

   Make the triangle folds out of the rectangle's corners and bring them together.

4. Paint the hat like a peacock’s head!  Reference the photo of the peacocks below.
   

   Two peacocks moving through a front yard.

5. Add on some iconic features of the peacock from the two separate pages you molded together.  Use the upper half of the conjoined pages to create the larger, bright green tail.
   

   The extravagant tail.

   Use the lower half to create the crest; after you paint these with embellishment and let it dry, tape them to the body of the hat to complete the look.

   

   Time for some fun!

Enjoy your excellent peacock hat!

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