February 4: Koen's Project

Ty cut a bunch of paper slits while Koen glues his person together.

I really was prepared to do a project with the boys on this third snow day, but Koen stepped up and wanted to introduce his idea for a project.  I think it's wonderful that the boy who used to never want to do projects now comes up with his own ideas!  He said he hadn't made it before in school, he just came up with the idea on his own (though later it come out that he'd made an Indian in school using a similar strategy).  Koen specifically asked for different colored paper and had in mind the shapes he wanted to work with.  He told me I would know who he was making when he was finished...do you know who it is?

IT'S JESUS!!!

January 7: Penguin Project

A while ago I found a neat website called Handprint and Footprint Art where each craft uses the child's handprint or footprint.  I finally got to try one of the blogger's ideas with Tysen for this project day -- a footprint penguin!  The body of the penguin is Tysen's foot trace on black paper and cut out.  I then cut an oval circle for the tummy, Ty snipped off a corner of some orange paper for the beak, and then we glued on some eyes.  I thought it turned out so cute, and apparently so did Tysen because as soon as we finished he said, "Let's make another penguin!"  



Standing on the black paper
for Mom to trace his foot.

Cutting the beak.

For the second little guy, I again traced Ty's foot on black paper.  He's had so much fun cutting slices in paper, that I thought I'd let him try cutting out this penguin.  I held the paper and moved it for him, but he made all the slices.  This second penguin is a bit shorter as Ty accidentally chopped off the heal portion of the foot tracing.  :)  He also cut out the oval for the tummy in the same way.  He cut another beak and we added the eyes to finish off the second penguin.  (I think it looks more like an owl with the flat head!)  He wanted to make more, but we'd run out of black paper so maybe we'll finish our penguin family another day. 



The first finished penguin.





Two little penguins!