Unschool the Teacher: Princess Week: Toddler Friendly Stained Glass

When I think of princesses (and royalty in general), I think of castles, jewels, and elaborate architecture and furnishings. I wanted to find an easy way for M to recreate some of that majesty, so I decided that we would make some toddler-friendly stained glass.

I started with stained glass templates that I printed from here (turtle) and here (medieval patterns). The directions on this site described how to use colored glue to trace the lines on a pattern and then paint with watercolors. M doesn't have the dexterity to trace lines with glue, and I didn't feel like doing it myself, so I came up with a better (read: easier) plan.

I cut a piece of clear contact paper that was the same size as the printed pattern. I then traced the pattern onto the non-sticky side of the contact paper with a sharpie. I peeled off the backing to expose the sticky side, and taped the contact paper sticky side up on M's table.

I then gave M several sheets of tissue paper in various colors. I happened to have some tissue paper with glitter - bonus! M tore off small pieces of tissue paper and stuck it to the contact paper to complete her design. I cut around the outline of the template when she was done, and we were left with a super easy faux stained glass design to hang on the window!

I designed a stained glass castle, and M had a meltdown because she decided that she really wanted to do a castle too (I think she probably could have used a nap at this point...). I made a second castle (it literally took about 2 minutes to trace the design), and gave her some sequins to decorate the castle before adding the tissue paper. She was overtired at this point, so I ripped larger pieces of tissue paper to get her through the castle faster.

I preferred the look of the "glass" made with smaller pieces of tissue paper, but I did like that the overlapping of the larger pieces gave us the opportunity to talk about color mixing. I think it would be neat to make a kind of color wheel with tissue paper on contact paper to show how primary colors mix to make secondary colors. I'll have to keep that idea in mind for another time....

Here are a few pictures to show what we earlier that day:

Meetup with Friends:
We are members of a few different meetup and local Facebook groups, and I love how easy it is to find people to hang out with! It seems like there is always something going on (in fact, many times I have to choose between events happening simultaneously). What was that about unsocialized homeschool kids again?

M and two other friends played on a small playground, then we went on a short hike, and wrapped up with a picnic lunch.

Mini Hike with Sticky Bracelets
One of the other moms brought a roll of painter's tape to make sticky bracelets for the hike. She made quick bracelets for everyone with the sticky side out, and the kids had a blast collecting things in the woods to stick to their bracelets (and ours!). M had quite the collections of flowers and leaves by the time we returned!

Disclaimer: All Amazon links are Affiliate links.

To see what we did for the rest of the day, click here.
Check out the rest of our Princess Week activities!