(This post just kept growing and growing. Can you tell I really miss teaching and getting to come up with ideas for activities and discussing them with other people?
I hope there's something in here that someone finds helpful, at least!)
For Christmas, we sponge-painted a bulletin board for Daddy to hang in his office. It was a bit of a mess to do, but thanks to working on top of a vinyl tablecloth (spread on the floor) and having everything ready to go with little waiting, we managed to not get any paint on the carpet, which was really good since we used acrylic paints. I also stripped ds to his diaper and just wore an old t-shirt myself. Luckily, I thought to have the camera handy, so Daddy got photos of the project in process to hang on his new board! :LOL
For Grandpa and Pop-Pop's Father's Day presents, we're making frames. I got wide unfinished wooden frames at Michaels. We'll paint them, let them dry, and then glue on these little wooden cutouts I found. I got about 10 of them (for each frame), and they're of things that ds really likes, like cats and cars. Then we'll add a photo of ds, and we're ready to go.
For Daddy, I got an unfinished wooden plaque, about 16 inches long. We'll (I'll bet you can't guess
) paint it, then glue on some magazine pictures of cars (and I'll later brush over them with watered down white glue, to seal them a bit). I'll add hardware for hanging on the back, and screw-in 6 or so hooks in a row on the front. Ta-da! A place to hang our keys, so Daddy won't have to wander the house in desperation looking for them.
I think the secret to doing gifts with young toddlers is to find a way to let them do their thing without you having to hover or hand-over-hand too much. That's why we're doing/have done a number of projects where he can just paint to his heart's content, and it's just the base object that gives the function to the gift, if you kwim. I'd avoid anything where the child's work is supposed to add a structural element, basically.
Oh, one more idea! Okay, it's really two. When I was teaching, we had field day and had to make shirts with the kids. (Kids with autism, who had cognitive and fine motor challenges making art projects not too dependable.) These were what I did two years:
1. Use masking tape to make stars on the shirt. Don't worry about making them perfect. They'll look cute rough. Basically, use five roughly equal lengths of tape to make the outline of each star, then add smaller pieces to fill them in. Put newspaper/cardboard inside the shirt. Turn the child loose with fabric paint and a sponge. Encourage them to paint all over the entire front. You need to get paint at least all around the stars, but there's no need to worry about avoiding the tape. So, rather than trying to stop them from painting where they're not supposed to, you instead get to encourage more painting, which is much less stressful for both of you. When they're done, take off the tape. (I never waited till the paint was totally dry, but we did wait half an hour or so.) When it's dry, you can take paint/a fabric marker and write in the stars. "#1 Dad" "Happy Father's Day" etc.
2. Get a piece of contact paper big enough to cover the front of the shirt. Draw/trace whatever shape you want to paint. (You want an outline and it shouldn't be too detailed. We used a big brontosaurus stencil.) Cut out the inside of the shape, so you're left with a contact paper stencil. (You can also do this idea like #1, by using the shape itself, and painting around it.) Peel off the backing and put the stencil on the shirt. Paint as in #1, and take off the stencil like the tape. When it's dry, you can write with paint/fabric marker. What I did specifically was to write each child's name as a dinosaur. "Markosaurus," etc. You could make one for your child, too, and have (Child's name)osaurus and Daddysaurus.
