Gold Roses for Fairy Tale Friday

This is my second year of Fairy Tale Fridays and I thought I would get away with repeating my projects from last year, but then a couple of the stories I did last year had already been done and Ella was begging for a new project, so along came this one:
I love Fairy Tale Friday, because I find that the stories are referenced so often even in the books I read. King Midas and the Golden Touch definitely falls into that category and to give the kids the golden touch, we made golden roses. You really can do this with any color of tissue paper but we, appropriately, used gold. You need: gold tissue, gold pipe cleaners, and gold wired ribbon (optional)

Cut 5 " squares from the tissue paper. Each rose uses five pieces of tissue, one pipe cleaner and one 2" piece of ribbon.

Stack the squares of tissue paper and accordion fold all five pieces together. Round the edges with scissors so that it looks like a golden band-aid.

Pinch the "band-aid" in the center and wrap the pipe cleaner around the middle, leaving about a 3" tail one the other end of the pipe cleaner.

Fan the folds out, being careful not to tear the tissue (but don't worry if you do, you won't be able to tell in the end.)

Scrunch the top petals together to hide the pipe cleaner and begin...

separating the petals. I held one in one hand and one in the other and gently pulled them apart.

Push and pull your petals to make it look like a rose.

Fold the piece of ribbon in half, lengthwise.

Match the raw edges together, looping the ribbon around to form something that resembles a leaf.

Pinch the raw edges and place them between the two ends of the pipe cleaner about 2" from the base of the rose.

Twist the pipe cleaner above and below the leaf.

And you have a finished rose.

Kind of fun.

All the time with you...

Sadie made this for me and I think its easy to see why I treasure her drawing. What a wonderful gift from my budding artist.

Illustrating Childhood

Most often, no matter where we are, this is what Maisy is doing. She takes a book with her everywhere she goes. Usually she will sit and flip through the pages, laughing at her favorites.
So imagine my delight when I found this illustration. Maisy to a T, right down to the curls. She has others too and they all make me smile. I love the way this reluctant swimmer's toes are placed.
I am so happy I found her. (Yes, I bought the print. It is in Maisy's room and it makes her smile too. I think she knows its her. And Sarah Jane is a very nice person to boot.)

June Art

Tuesday was my last day working with Ella's class. We made books using the bubble paintings as our end pages. We read "Alice the Fairy" by David Shannon and talked about point of view and descriptive words. I love that book!

I will miss their craziness and imaginations. We had a lot of fun, and hopefully they learned something.
They made some of the cutest little books. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the stories they wrote, some of which only they could read. The pictures in "The Little Red Ant" were some of my favorites.
Ella made a beautifully textured tale of princess dresses. I swear someday we will be watching her on Project Runway. This girl loves fashion! I will miss my little group. Some of the kids will be moving to a new school next year.
Thanks for a fun experience and a chance to spend more time with my girl.

I Hart Phonics

There was a time when I didn't get phonetic spelling. I mean what's the point, you spell or you misspell. But I am now enlightened. I love receiving little letters full of phonetically spelled words of love. So this is me and Evan (the hart shows that we are lovebirds) flying over a toolip, with the grawnd beneath us and a rainclawd next to us. The rain has created a beautiful rainbow of red, ornge, and yellow. Thank you for such a lovely picture, Sadie.

May Project

Today I did bubble painting with Ella's class. They were so funny. We started out reading this book. It's a cute little book about a king and a dragon who clash on the idea of what a dragon should breathe. But Cinder can't seem to blow anything but bubbles, so the king interviews for another dragon and well, lets just say Cinder saves the day.

Then we talked about the variety of end pages in books. (We are making a book next month, so this artwork will be their end pages.) I showed them some of my favorites. Then came the fun.

You start with a couple drops of dish soap in a container, along with a couple of tablespoons of paint and some water. Stir it up, put in a straw and blow bubbles.
With young kids you will end up with a lot of this. So have paper towels on hand.
Then use your paper to pop the bubbles. We had the best results when we used multiple colors per page. They got a beautiful mix of colors in kind of a marblized effect.
I heard a lot of, "This is so cool," and "Whoa." But I have to say this is my favorite part of the day.

...Such a Nice Surprise

Yesterday in the car Jack began exclamations of whoa. I looked to see what was drawing his attention away from the movie and saw beautiful pink blossoms on the trees lining the street. So today I took the kids for a walk in the wagon and admired what Spring has brought us. Back in the fall I did this art project with Ella's class and I thought I would revisit it with the girls using spring colored fabric squares. For our fall trees I cut scraps of flannel, tweed, wool and corduroy into small 1/2" x 1/2" squares. Then I gave each child a piece of paper with two faint lines showing the base of the trunk (some of the kindergartners need a starting point.) We glued the fabric squares overlapping here and there for texture and then branching out up top. The leaves were just mini ones I found at the craft store. We had the most beautiful bulletin board of warm and cozy trees. They turned out great.

I think I will sit down with Sadie and Ella and make some apple blossom trees. It will be a nice way to use the scraps from their spring dresses. Just as I love flannel and corduroy in the fall, there is just something about spring that makes me crave eyelet, seersucker, and gingham. Maybe its the smell of the cherry blossoms.

April Art

When Sadie was in Kindergarten I found it hard to volunteer because Evan's schedule was so irregular and Maisy couldn't have a babysitter. When I did make it she was so excited.

Ever since Ella started Kindergarten, at almost a year younger than Sadie was, I've made it a priority to go to each class at least once a month. The arrangement we made for Ella's class was for me to teach an art project each month. I decided to focus on illustration and introduce each lesson with a book. This month we made a project that used things from the recycling bin. They turned out really cute and were fun to make. So I thought I would show you what we did. We looked at the paintings from this book and we talked about recognizing beauty in everday objects.

For the project, I started with some brads and pin backs.

Then I got some magazines and catalogs out of the recycling bin.
Along with some cardboard boxes.
I cut flower shapes out of the boxes and colorful pages of the catalogs. I made the cardboard flowers slightly bigger than the paper flowers. For each flower I used seven paper flowers and one cardboard flower. Evan used a nail to punch a hole in each cardboard flower and I hot glued a pin to the back.
I also cut three peanut-looking shapes from the catalogs. First, the kids put those shapes on the brad, alternating like a propeller. Some of the kids had a hard time getting the brads through the catalog cutouts. So maybe cut a little slit or have a hole punch handy.
Next we put the paper flowers followed by the cardboard flower. Folding the brad out to secure the pieces.

Then, I had them pinch the petals toward the center to make a 3-d effect.
The flowers look kind of ruffled, like a peony. They now have a cute little flower to give their moms for Mother's Day. We had fun. I only wish Ella hadn't been home sick from school. They are a fun bunch. Sometime I'll have to show you the paper pinwheel "quilt" they made in our "quilting bee."

I love their enthusiasm and excitment. They make me wish I had become a teacher.

(My friend Pam made these with her class, you have to check them out. Very cute Pam!