Sunday, April 5, 2009

Home-Made Mosaics

We had a plethora of structured activities on Friday (um, two). I posted about our coin sorting below. This one was inspired by these which I noticed in a catalog and immediately wanted. Being the frugal Mama I am, I devised an alternate plan. First Son was thrilled to help me with the project. I cut some cardstock into strips and he spent at least an hour slowly cutting all of the strips into squares and rectangles.


We saved them in baggies and pulled them out on Friday afternoon for some fun with glue sticks. Neither of the kids made what you could call a picture, but they had fun. First Daughter, in fact, didn't even really glue her squares down. She placed them on the paper and smeared the glue on top and all around them. You might be surprised to learn it's an adequate way to glue cardstock to paper.


At one point, First Son yelled, "I have a great idea!" He cut out a "7" from some other paper and carefully positioned red squares inside (no, not seven of them).



Definitely an activity we'll do again. It's not nearly as messy as painting but entertained the kids nearly as much. (I have a confession; I hate letting the kids paint. It takes me fifteen or twenty minutes to get everything out, they paint for five and leave the rest of the paint to dry, wasted, in the egg carton. And then I have to clean up. But we do paint, because I know it's good for them. Such sacrifices we mamas must make.)