An Easter Arty Party

Ok, back to the reason I’m writing this blog…. After my meltdown we decided to take things a little easy. In all areas. We had a rainy day in front of the TV, with lots of added reading and cuddles. We also had a day of playing in the backyard. Miss 5 didn’t mention school work, and neither did I. I thought we needed a day of fun stuff, and in our house “fun stuff” always includes making art of some kind, and making mess of some kind 🙂
When the art activity is my idea, I try not to structure the girls too much. I usually give them the materials and the idea, and let them go with it. Children are incredibly creative when they are not trying to conform to someone else’s idea of what “art” is. I set up 4 different art stations for Miss 5 and Miss 2.5 and I tried to keep to a loose Easter theme. The girls had a ball 🙂
We started doing some wax-resistant water colour painting. I drew some secret Easter pictures and messages on white paper in white crayon. The girls then had to paint the paper with their watercolour paints, to discover the secret message. Miss 5 thought that was a bit of a lame activity XD, pretty soon after starting she decided to ditch her secret message (guessing that it was a picture of the Easter bunny, not even half way through!), and grabbed a clean sheet of paper. She experimented with the paints, adding water with a brush and then a sponge, layering paint and water, until she came up with an effect that suited her. Her finished product was an underwater painting of a fish with coral and seaweed. Her fish was much more interesting and showed much more sophistication than my hidden Easter wax message 🙂
The girls made Easter cards by cutting and pasting scraps of journaling paper. Miss 5 explained to Miss 2.5 that the paper would look nicer if it was pasted in a pattern. While they were cutting and pasting and writing in their cards, I sacrificed 4 potatoes out of the pantry. I cut them in half (lengthways, so they were fairly egg shaped) and carved patterns into the flat half, and then stuck plastic forks into the tops, making Easter egg potato stamps. The girls sat for nearly 30 minutes stamping different patterns onto different pieces of art paper. The results of the mornings art making look like this:

When lunch was finished and the kitchen tidied, and Miss 11 months tucked into bed for her afternoon nap, I pulled out the big guns 😀 I had been thinking about an artwork that the girls could make for Easter, that would really be something special. I did get this idea off the internet, but I tweaked it a little to suit us. I had carton of eggs that was heading into the land of past-it’s-best-before. Usually I rush to find a recipe to use up the eggs before this happens, but I decided to sacrifice the 8 eggs instead 🙂 This was a HUGE hit. The girls had SO much fun that I almost wished I had more eggs so they could keep going. We were all laughing our heads off while they were doing it, and it looked like such fun, that even I had a go myself 😀
The first thing I did was tap a hole into the top of each egg, and tip out the contents. When all the shells were empty, I washed the shells out with tap water. As best I could. Then I used some cheap, water based, acrylic paint and filled the shells about a quarter of the way. Each egg had a different colour. After each egg had it’s allocation of paint, I added a little water – until the eggs were almost halfway filled – and gave them a little jiggle to mix the water and paint together. This is for added “splat” effect 🙂 I had two blank canvases set up on our drop sheet, in the backyard. Miss 5 and Miss 2.5 then took turns throwing their eggs at the canvases. The harder they threw, the more satisfying the splat. Miss 2.5 did not quite have enough strength to break the egg completely on the first throw, but she quickly figured out that if she picked up the shells after they had been tossed, and stood really close to the canvas, she could get a second, or even a third, splat out of them. Such an egg-celent way to create an Easter masterpiece XD
So we’ve had a few days off. We’ve regrouped and we’re ready to forge ahead. Miss 5 and I made the mutual decision to stop reading Harry Potter. Although Miss 5 doesn’t have the vocabulary to express it, we have both found that the concepts as well as the intricacies of the plot and the characters are just a little bit beyond her, and she isn’t enjoying the story as much as she thought she would. She has suggested that we try again “when she’s 6” 🙂 So we’ve packed away Potter, and we’ve started reading Charlottes Web, which is a big hit, and so far has opened up discussions on spiders (obviously), farm animals, and the five senses. I think this next week is going to be right up our alley 🙂