Celebrating Japan!

this week at the library we took a look at Japan....

in the spirit of Japanese arts, I watercolored with the grade school kids...Some selected images from books and some simply used the paints.

a finished Mt. Fuji!

with my preschoolers, we made Japanese fans.  

from card stock, i cut a traditional fan shape and glued popsicle sticks on the back...

some colored their fans with markers....

and some collaged with origami paper!

emmett wanted to make his all blue and asked if he could paint his..

we used sticks & leaves (a trick we learned from our days at art & school preschool!)

the completed fan has traveled well in our HOT summer!

Tutorial: Butterfly Ornament Paper Craft

start with two square pieces of paper.  i used origami paper.

facing the corner toward you begin to fold diagonally back & forth like you are making a fan

it'll start to look like this...

and end up like this

do the same with the second piece of paper and then glue the center together

with a thin piece of paper, wrap it around the center.  glue the end once its wrapped.

"fan" out the top of the wings and glue at the top

do the same for the bottom

* i found it best to hold the glued area with my fingers until it dried....otherwise, depending on the weight of the paper, it would come apart.

loop a string threw and you have your ornament!

you can also do it with three pieces of paper....

Africa

 I work part time as the Program Coordinator for a little library in the Hudson Valley (one that is under 1000 square feet).  Our Summer Reading Program, One World, Many Stories, is a theme we use to promote literacy through books, programs and community events.  

Below are crafts that were inspired by our Africa week....

We learned that the Asante of Ghana make Adinkra cloth.  Beautiful fabric patterns are made from symbols that are stamped on the cloth in squares of pattern.  Four Adinkra symbols are love (the heart), strength (the paddle), rhythm (the drum), and patience (the moon).  We cut these shapes as well as random shapes out of regular house hold sponges.

I also gave them stencils of Egypt and African masks

I was impressed with the results!

Even at 3 years old, Emmett really took to the stencils.

  I simply taped the card and paper down for him to avoid frustration. (yikes!)

Next we covered old coffee cans with white paper to make our very own African drum!  We scored a slew of coffee cans from Freecycle!

Beautiful and super simple!  You can put rice or even just one rock inside to make a unique sound.