Category Archives: Kwik Stix
Last minute parent gifts
If you’re like me, I wait until the last possible moment to work on parent gifts with my students. The last possible moment. 2:00 on the last day of school before our break and cross my fingers and hope that the paint and glue dries quickly kind of last minute. Not this year. 🙂
I am ahead of the game. For once. And I was able to wrap and send home these parent gifts on the same day as we created them.
I purchased some wood picture frames online and we used our favorite Kwik Stix to decorate them for our families! They were dry in under 2 minutes and my students LOVED creating their own designs for their families. Can you tell we were studying patterns at the same time? 🙂 My students each drew a picture to place inside the frames that can be taken out and replaced as each family desires.
These frames were SUPER quick and easy and I know each family will appreciate the thought that their child put into creating their frame. Each frame fits each child’s personality so well. 🙂
If you’ve waited until the last minute, grab some Kwik Stix and let your students decorate–you can send your gifts home in vivid color the SAME day! 🙂
Kwik Stix Fall Project
Fall has finally hit us here in the midwest and we are looking for someways to decorate our classroom that bring the colors of fall inside!
I was getting out materials of my “fall” file and wanted something quick and easy my students could make, and then like magic, a roll of bubble wrap fell out of the closet–it was the answer to the beginning of our fall project!
You need a few simple materials to make these fun Flint corn ears in no time!
- Kwik Stix
- Scissors
- Bubble Wrap
- Construction Paper (orange, yellow, purple, brown)
Begin by cutting your construction paper into the shape of ears of corn and making the tasseled tops by fringe cutting most of the length of paper.
Next, pick out the colors of Kwik Stix that you will use to color your Flint Corn. I used yellow, orange, brown, red, and purple.
Apply your first color of Kwix Stix paint to the bumpy side of your bubble wrap. I cut my bubble wrap down to a 6 x 3 piece so it was more manageable and so that I was coloring the space I needed and not much extra.
Because Kwix Stix dry so quickly, you will be able to layer two colors at once and then you will need to apply them to your paper.
Just flip your bubble wrap over, so that the size you colored on is now facing down and is on top of your construction paper. Rub the bubble wrap very well to transfer the color to your construction paper.
Lift off the bubble wrap and apply more color as desired. Rub the bubble wrap well each time to transfer the color. Don’t worry if the bubbles don’t line up exactly the same each time, it adds to the beauty of your Flint Corn.
When you are done with each ear of Flint Corn, attach the fringe to the top and display! This was a super simple craft we made and it took us no time at all thanks to the super quick dry time of the Kwix Stix!
Introducing Kwik Stix
Kwik Stix continue to be one of my most favorite supplies I have in my classroom. I think I am currently hoarding 6 to 7 brand new boxes of Kwik Stix in my supply closet!! I just love how versatile they are and because they come in 3 different “flavors”; classic colors, neon, and metallic, there is always a project we can use them on!
Enter the beginning of Kindergarten this year…we needed a way to decorate our letter D as we worked our way through the letters of the alphabet. Kwik Stix to the rescue! The paint surface inside was the perfect thing to help us make dots! Lots and lots of dots to decorate our D’s! We also used them to make zig-zags on our Z’s, squiggles on our S’s, and lines on our L’s! Sadly, I forgot to snap pictures of all those experiences. 😦
This was the PERFECT opportunity to introduce my students to Kwik Stix and how we use them.
Each student took a Kwik Stix and we practiced how to gently twist the bottom up to raise the paint up so they could use more. We also took the time to learn how to twist the paint back down so that we didn’t have any smooshed into the lids that would later bring us sadness. 🙂
Many times if we are all using our Kwik Stix for a project (such as in this case), I will pull the entire plastic case out of the box and leave one set on each table for my students to use. They will have access to a variety of colors that way, (learn to share!), and can easily get another color they need.
We also talked about where to put the caps! This is a perpetual problem we have and to solve this problem, we corral our Kwik Stix in an empty deli food container. Each time a student uses a new Kwik Stix, they place the cap in the container so they don’t lose it (and it can’t roll away)! I also save the caps anytime we have a Kwik Stix that runs out of paint. That way if we really can’t find the cap, we can look to the box of extra caps and find one that we can replace it with.
My students have access to Kwik Stix everyday during our free play time and they will always choose them over traditional paint and markers. 🙂 They get super excited that they can paint and that their paintings will be dry in less than 2 minutes so they can take them home on the same day!
I love that the short chubby size fits my Kindergarten students hands perfectly and that we don’t have to leave stacks of papers around the room to dry overnight! Right after my students are done, they just pop their papers into their mailboxes and go on with their next task–while their paper takes a few more seconds to dry. 🙂
Stay tuned for another way to use Kwik Stix next month–this one is going to be super cute and perfect for fall holidays!
A fun & easy Father’s Day Project using Neon Kwik Stix
Are you looking for a fun and easy Father’s Day project that won’t break the bank? Check out what my son and I were able to create in about 20 minutes!
We have a tradition in our house that started 11 years ago for my husband’s 2nd Father’s Day. Each year my son makes him art on canvas, personalized just for him. He’s painted DAD in so many different ways, that we wanted to do something a little different this year. 🙂
We created this one of a kind subway art in just minutes using the NEON Kwik Stix (with a few Metalix Kwik Stix colors thrown in too)! I’ve told you how much I LOVE the Kwik Stix since I received them at the French Lick Blogger Retreat in March–and I’m still LOVING them!!
All you need to complete this simple project is:
-a blank canvas (we used white, but I bet black would work too!)
-6 pack of NEON Kwik Stix
-6 pack of Metalix Kwik Stix
-pencil
Begin by writing out your words (LIGHTLY!!) with a pencil on your canvas. I had my son think up words to describe his daddy (Daddy-isms he called them!!) and I transferred as many as I could fit on to the canvas for him.
Then I set my son to work tracing over my letters. The Kwik Stix went on smoothly and we loved the texture they left on the canvas! My son traced over each work twice because he really wanted the words to stand out.
I’ll admit, at first I was a little bothered by my pencil line showing through his tracing–my OCD!, but the more we both looked at it, the more we liked the pencil lines showing through! ❤
I just love how it turned out and we are ready to go for Father’s Day!
We did use a few colors from the Kwik Stix Metalix 6 pack as well, my son liked the sparkle they added to the neon pack and he wanted to try to make every word a different color. 🙂
The edges on the Kwik Stix made it SO easy for my son to trace the letters and get the color right where he wanted it to be.
Right now The Pencil Grip Inc. is offering a discount on their Kwik Stix and their fabulous Pencil Grips!! You can get 15% off your entire purchase, just use the coupon code YOUWIN15 at checkout!!
Now it’s your chance to win some Kwik Stix! Enter this giveaway for your chance to win one 6 pack of NEON Kwik Stix and on 6 pack of PRIMARY Kwik Stik!!
Good Luck!
Kwik Stix and a Giveaway!
After attending the Spring Blogger Meet-up in French Lick in March, I was excited to go through all my new goodies! In the box at the very bottom, I found what has now become one of my MOST favorite new art mediums–Kwik Stix!
What are they? Kwik Stix are these amazing little glue stick type containers of tempera paint that are completely dry in 90 seconds! I LOVE the variety of colors that I got in my 12 pack. Every color my students could ever want!
After I tried them, I knew I needed to let my students explore with them and explore they did! After about 30 seconds of showing them how they worked (and how to not twist them all the way up!), my students were having a blast!
We are going on 3 weeks of daily use and still have plenty of paint left! I told ONE, just one of my students where to return the Kwik Stix to each day when they were done using them, and every single day in those 3 weeks, they have made their way back to my desk, in rainbow order! 🙂
I asked several of my students what they liked most about the Kwik Stix and they said:
“I love how its like we are painting, but you don’t have to wait for them to dry!”
“These make our art station much more fun!”
“Can we get some more??”
“I love that these paint sticks are smooth! When I’m using them, they just slide along my paper!”.
My assistant fell in love with them too and ordered a few sets for her nephew’s birthday!
You can get yours here, or you can enter my giveaway and win a set for your classroom! (Giveaway ends 4/21/16 at 12:00 pm EDT).
This giveaway is open to U.S. Residents Only! 🙂
I think you will LOVE using Kwik Stix with your students as much as I have!
All thoughts and opinions shared in this blog post are my own and were not influenced by or compensated by any company, person, or though payment.
Kristen's Kindergarten 