Camp Mom: Fireworks Around the World

Our culminating Camp Mom activity this week was chock full of skyscrapers from around the world... and FIREWORKS! Although we know that the rest of the world isn't celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks... it was fun to make the sky light up next to these beautiful buildings... kinda like what happens on New Years Eve. 

We tried a few new-to-us firework making techniques too and some tried and true ones we love. We'll post a link up tomorrow and we'd love you to share your favorite Fourth of July crafts, activities, snacks, etc... especially any related to fireworks! 

Directions:

The first thing we did yesterday was decide which skyscrapers we wanted to include in our project. We narrowed it down to eight. Next, I drew a simple picture of each building with a pencil and went over it with a Sharpie. (You can download my skyscraper printables here... or draw your own) 

After the buildings were drawn... we got to work creating! Here are the methods we used: 

Puffy Paint Fireworks

We started off the with Empire State Building in NYC.

We cut it out and glued it onto colored paper.

Next we added fireworks with markers.

Then we got out our puffy paints and added some raised fireworks.

Tissue Paper Fireworks

Our next building was the Sears Tower in Chicago Did you know it is called the Willis Tower now? I can't seem to get myself to call it that. Did you also know that is it the tallest building in the United States? 

To make the Sears Tower pop, we took some tissue paper circles and then snipped them from the outside to the inside to make little lines.

It was great scissors practice. My son's little fingers were TIRED! He is still trying to figure out if he is a lefty or a righty... so I was tired too after this activity.

We ended up snipping AND scrunching the tissue paper. Then we glued it on. I loved the 3-dimensional effect!

Baby Handprint Fireworks

Next up was the Seattle Space Needle (Washington State in US), Shanghai World Financial Center (China), and the Petronus Tower (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). I know that the Space Needle isn't a skyscraper... but we HAD to add it in since we are going there this weekend.

We got the baby's little hands involved and helped her do some hand stamping!

She actually wasn't a fan of it... and surprisingly didn't try to eat the paint... but we did get some cute baby hand stamps. She was moving too much to get anything to look like it was a hand... but my son and I had fun trying.

Of course the little guy had to have a turn too.

Once the fireworks dried, we added the skyscrapers.

Muffin Liner Fireworks

This idea was one I saw around on a few blogs... so we decided to try it out with the leftover muffin liners from our Will & Kate wedding party. We used it with the Burj Al Arab... a super cool looking hotel in Dubai. Has anyone ever been there?

Anyways, we used the same snipping technique from the previous tissue paper fireworks... and then glued the muffin liners into the sky.

Toothpick Fireworks

Our last buildings were the CN Tower (in Toronto) and the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan. We used the toothpick painting technique I shared yesterday... and loved the results! 

It was fun to spend the afternoon talking about the different buildings, sharing facts about them... and then trying to recreate them with our blocks!! It was also cool to look at where the buildings are (on a map) and talk about so many different countries that my little guy knows hardly anything about!

If we'd had time, I would've loved to have done several more of these! There are so many other really tall skyscrapers we could've learned about... and plenty of other fireworks painting techniques to have tried out!

Hopefully at some point we can visit more of these impressive buildings!

PS- If I were to do this project again, we would've done the buildings as silhouettes (black or dark blue)... either by painting them or cutting them out of paper... but my little guy was adamant that we not do anything to them and make them white! So I obliged! Three year olds can be so opinionated sometimes!

Once we are done displaying our masterpieces on the wall of our kitchen, we'll be making these into a skyscrapers book and we'll add some basic facts to the bottom (or back) of each piece of art. Then we'll have our very own skyscrapers book to read!

I will probably just snap photos of the art pieces for the book... since I am not a clutter loving mom. Is that so terrible? 

Thanks for joining us at Camp Mom this week! We're signing off and planning to spend a wonderful weekend with family celebrating the Fourth of July. 

Happy 4th of July and Happy Canada Day (July 1st)... and just have a great weekend too... depending on where you are in the world!