Kindergarteners make presidential stick puppets

Doing stick puppets is always fun especially when the students are able to embellish them and make them unique. This project was no exception. Half of the class got blue paper and a George Washington head, the other half black paper and an Abraham Lincoln head. They were to color the face then assemble the puppet from the hat down on a wide crafts stick. When most of the class had completed that stage, I posed the question "what do you think about adding arms to the presidents?" and off they went. Not only did they add arms but many decided that feet and shoes were in need as well.
The project gives them a chace to work with cutting and gluing but lets them create a more individual project than just giving them the pieces. By the way, all the puppets were immediately chatting with one another. Funny how that works out.

Dinosaur prints and fossils

Another great clay project. I made the dinosaur feet in advance using femo clay and baked them then brought the rest of the items in the fossil box for the 1st grade class to use. We got to talk about dinosaurs and that they all seemed to have 3 toes, how fossils were made and what might be in fossils along with dinosaur tracks.

3rd grade makes sock creatures

This was a more complicated project than I ever envisioned! When I said you can design what you want, I didn't really expect the variety and creativity that resulted from this group. We learned a lot along the way including NO ONE knows how to thread a needle or knot thread. "the socks have holes in them"--yes they are old and are ready to go to another life! saying "I can't do this" enough times might get the teacher to do a few stitches for you but not many.


Thanks to several wonderful donors we had a bag of felt, 2 bags of socks, and lots of pom-poms to use. It took 5 weeks to complete this project but as each one got done the joy level increased dramatically.


We went through the process from drawing our own patterns (no one understood patterns), cutting the pieces out and beginning to assemble them (great discussions on assembly lines and other manufacturing processes), sewing the components together and adding extras like the chenille stems and pom-poms, and lastly attatching all of the pieces to the socks. We found out that your hand does not fit into the sock if you sew the back to the front (no matter how many times I said to be careful not to do this.) We also learned a bit more about some of the creatures we made like do squid lay eggs? one of life's many mysteries.