A little Easter Oragami

So, I don't really do alot of oragami in the classroom, but I have used this lesson with 5th grade before when our park was full of wildflowers.  It is really just a simple box but you can make it into a flower basket, nesting boxes, or gift boxes. I have alot of old Christmas cards and make these boxes for advent treats or tiny gift boxes. The large greeting cards work best. You can do this with any paper we just use greeting cards to upcycle, but you could use scrapbook paper, construction paper or whatever.

1. pick a nice, large, colorful greeting card

2. fold the top down and align with the edge

                                          3. cut of the bottom to make a perfect square

                                           4. fold all corners down to center

                                          5. pick two corners and fold them in until they touch

 6. fold the edge of the same pieces you just folded, until they line up and touch each other in the middle

7. open up the folds youjust made in #6 and draw a line along those folds

8. cut along all four lines

9. Fold the flaps you just cut straight down

so they look like this

 10. then fold those two little sections up to make the sides

 11. lift the little wing looking pieces up and over the edges

 12. do this with both sides, tucking them inside the box to secure the sides and then place a small piece of tape inside to hold it together. You can repeat these steps to make a lid for the box or make it into a tiny Easter basket by adding a strip of paper to the corners with tape

My girls love picking flowers out of my front yard flower beds. This tiny basket was a great idea for allowing their inner florist to take over while at the same time not depleting mass quantities of my Spring pageantry of   color!! They spent SO much time delicately making their flower filled Easter baskets!!

 Before long, they had made baskets for every baby doll, stuffed bunny, and even one for the turtle. I of course had the privilege to fold all of them, but it gets really easy after the first one.

HaPpY EaStEr EvErYoNe!

Tissue Turtles and Resist Rabbits

 Today kinder, 1st, and 2nd grade started their tissue paper turtles.

We looked at "Clover" and examined all of the shapes on her back and the texture on her arms

 The kids loved watching her slowly walk across their tables as they worked. I put her on each table for a few minutes while I monitored her.

The kids used a large black Staonal crayon to decorate their shells with lots of shapes

to do the tissue paper printing 

1. paint small area with water

2. place tissue on the water and then paint a little water on top of the tissue to make sure the whole square is completely saturated or I tell the kids "see through" on their turtle shell

 3.repeat until the whole shell is covered and no white paper is showing

4. when the tissue paper is dry, you can remove to reveal your beautiful print!

We used green paper to draw the head, and legs. They drew the eyes on white paper and glued the eyes on the turtles

Here are a few finished ones from second grade

I have been playing around with ideas for an Easter project

I thought of making bunnies using a stencil. Have you ever wondered what bunnies have to do with Easter? Bunnies are a symbol of Spring, but also a symbol of new life!

1.get a lightweight plastic binder like the one below

2. draw a bunny on it with a sharpie 

 3. I used an exacto knife to cut out the bunny (adult use only!!)

 4. I used Mod Podge to create the resist by blotting over it with a sponge brush. Tomorrow I am going to try this again using a spray paint clear gloss. I will post results...

5. When the Mod Podge dries, I used liquid watercolors to paint a design over the whole paper. I blotted the white part with a tissue as I painted to keep it nice and white. The lines were not as sharp as I had hoped, so I finished it off by tracing it with a sharpie. I am also considering letting the kids use silver spray paint to paint the stencil on black paper and use silver sharpies to make some zentangle eggs in the background...I will also post the results of those soon!!