This week at Crafting A Future, after my 1st and 2nd grade students made clowns and cats and buterflies and fish with woven paper bodies, I gave the 4th-6th grade group the challenge of making a decorative mask for Purim, starting with a round piece of cardboard, which is actually half of a recycled frozen pizza sleeve. (Who could throw out a perfectly round piece of cardboard, just begging for a craft?)
It's so interesting to see who is an independant thinker amongst the group, and who plays it safe! The photo above shows the results of one who came up with her own design, which even included a novel way to hang her mask, namely from the nose which is tubular. She said she has a nail in the wall in her room where she would hang her creation!
Another creative effort came from the group of boys that I decided at the last minute to add on at the end of the day, and this creation combined elements from both the woven paper project and the round mask, and, he used the skewer to make arms, so clever!
I just love this little guy, also created by a boy, who came at the very end and there were no pizza sleeve circles left for him, so I cut him a circle from a piece of colored paper, and he got to work!
These decorative clown masks are certainly cute, though represent students who haven't yet gotten up the creative confidence to do something a little bit different, but I'm workin on them, and hope to see steps towards embracing creativity in each student.
Love this full sized clown, made by an eleven year old with confidence. A perfect way to fill the walls in anticipation of Purim! So do get a package of colored paper, and some glue and some skewers, and enjoy filling the walls with colorful masks and creatures!
Hope you've been inspired by the creations from my group of kids to do some creating in your home. I've got about twenty five students coming on Sunday for many more hours of creavity which I'll be sharing with you of course.
