Friday, June 3, 2011

Garden Gnomes

Yesterday we had friends over and played in the water outside so we skipped our craft. We did, however, get to watch Gnomeo & Juliet finally and it was so incredibly cute! Fun for the whole family: even my parents enjoyed it. It's such a clever movie. One of my new favorites!

Today we spent some time at the pool, but also got a chance to stay cool inside and work on a craft. I started to have Molly make a giant tissue paper flower, but the folding was a little too difficult for her. Instead, I made the flower for her and had her paint a paper towel tube to use as the stem, which of course she loved doing because it was slightly messy. She relished painting my hand my "accident!"

To make the flower, I stacked six sheets of tissue paper (I used solid red, but you can use multiple colors and it turns out really cute), and folded them fan-style the long way. Each fold was about one inch wide. Then I tied the middle with a pipe cleaner, and CAREFULLY unfolded each sheet towards the center to fluff it out. I shaped the middle to fit into the paper towel holder and it stuck pretty well, but I might secure it with some hot glue if it comes loose.



While I folded the tissue paper, I pulled out one of Molly's favorite art supplies: stickers! I had her decorate a foam visor with sparkly flower stickers and she made a pattern all herself! She placed them all the way around going "big, little, big, little..." I am so proud that she made this a teachable moment by herself! She's always going above and beyond my expectations and I'm so proud!


At bedtime we read "Good Night Garden Gnome" by Jamichael Henterly. It's a beautiful picture book that tells a story without words. It was so wonderful to turn the pages and have Molly tell me the story as she saw it. We also read "A Garden Alphabet" by Isabel Wilner, which actually has great information hidden in it's rhymes. It also has wonderful pictures.

I was thinking about visiting Powell Gardens this week (they have giant dinosaurs throughout the gardens this summer!) but Molly has her first acrobat recital tomorrow so I'm not sure if we'll get the chance. Here's the website if anyone is interested though!

http://www.powellgardens.org/

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