Kids Get Crafty – Eric Carle & Homemade Puzzles

We love Eric Carle in our house. His story books are so sweet, educational and have that distinct style and feel to it! Today we explored Head To Toe and decided to make some Eric Carle inspired puzzles using the children’s left over art work.

If you are an Eric Carle fan, no doubt, you will also adore the Very Hungry Caterpillar, my friend A Little Pinch of perfect has a great Counting Caterpillars Math Activity for you to try out!

On to our Art Puzzle project!

So, what did we get up to? First our book:

From Head To Toe, by Eric Carle. Read together age 2yrs+.

A great fan of the Hungry Caterpillar, I decided to get this book for Red Ted as you look at different body parts, as well as getting children to take part in actions. I had totally forgotten that I had ordered this book until it came sailing through our post box. It happened to be on a day Granny was visiting. Granny picked it up and seconds later, Granny and Red Ted were sitting on the sofa giggling away, wiggling toes, stomping feet and thumping chests! Need I say more? Well, just to add, that the book has the “classic” Eric call style: broad brushstrokes in a “mosaic style” assembly. Lovely.

That also gave me an idea. This another lovely way of making something out of toddler’s paintings. Though the craft that follows works for older ages too – you just do less and let them do more!! 😉

So, our Eric Carle inspired craft

Home made Eric Carle Puzzles

1) Red Ted did some painting after I showed him the book. He started off by painting a seal (see 2nd photo below)!  After that we went into toddler “free for all”.

2) Once dried, I kept the “seal” for his scrap book (see photos). I then selected a couple of sheets of paintings and matched them up (vaguely) against the book – there seemed to be lots of seal colour and red and green.

3) I cut out rough shapes and then with decoupage glue stuck them on to card. I added some glue underneath the cut outs. Let it dry. Then added two more layers (letting each layer dry first). Best to “dab” on the glue, else it can smudge, tear the paper a little. The poster paint also cracked a little, but I thought it looked nice and added to the texture.

4) Once dry, I cut it all out again.

5) Add googly eyes and details in marker pen and DONE!

I think our seal was the one that came out really well… but Red Ted enjoys them equally. I surprised him with the finished puzzle after nursery. You can see him in the photo feeding the seal pasta! Don’t worry, the monkey was fed too. It is probably less of a “puzzle” and more of a “where do things go” game. But I think that is fine too!

Ahem: you could of course just paint straight on to card and varnish it! Bit quicker,  less cutting!!!

Enjoy your puzzles!