Saturday, June 12, 2010

3-D Nature Art

M has a “nature basket” that he just adores.  Anything interesting that he finds outside is lovingly placed in his nature basket.  Quite often it’s mainly full of leaves and I empty it every once in a while (he doesn’t seem to notice).  This time, however, it had lots of really cool things in it – a group of leaves still clumped together on a stem, several pieces of bark (he’s taken to sawing the bark off of our fire wood), some maple seeds, and some tiny pinecones.  I decided these were keepers and set up an art activity for him one morning.

Here’s what we used:may  2010 071
His nature basket, an egg carton, and some playdough that we need to use up so we can make a new batch.

(As an aside, this playdough has been around since Valentine’s Day – seriously!  And it is still in perfect condition!  I am loving our homemade playdough.  I know I posted our recipe at sometime… I’ll have to look for that link!)

M was really excited about this project, even more so than I expected him to be.  He rolled small portions of the playdough into balls and set them inside the egg carton sections, pressed them down a tiny bit, and then stuck his nature treasures into the playdough:june2010 (3)
We didn’t have enough playdough for 2 of the sections, so he decided to leave the two sections in the center empty.  We've noticed he's very symmetrical with things like this - is that odd for a 3 year old?

Here’s what his final product looked like:june2010 (5)

And the view from the side:june2010 (7)
M was very proud of it, and I absolutely love it!  It looks so neat sitting on a table in our breezeway.

Have a beautiful day! :)

11 comments:

  1. How cool! I really like this art project =)

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  2. kudos to you for letting him saw off the bark.

    I figured I'd be the only other Mom who'd let their kid do dangerous stuff like that.

    And, love this idea.

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  3. This is cool. When K went to kindy she used to do little things like this all of the time. A pile of playdough on a margarine lid with bits and bobs in it, they were treasured possessions. :)

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  4. Love it!!! My daughter likes to stick stuff in playdough, especially candles.

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  5. I love it - this really looks like a mini-garden. I also noticed that Anna creates symmetrical things on her own, it's pretty funny how their minds work.

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  6. Oh, I love this! I saw a post recently on My Montessori Journey using playdough and play flowers, and I thought it was so cute, but didn't want to go buy little play flowers. (I'm starting to realize that there is no way a person can buy - and store - for their home what a person could for a classroom). So I love this, because it is similar, but uses free materials that don't require storage!

    Oh, and thank you for your comments on my blog. And, I'm so glad that you saw my post about us using your scavenger hunt. I had been meaning to email you or leave a comment about it. Thank you for making and sharing it, because it was a hit! (Isn't it neat how the things you make are being enjoyed by other kids in other states too - this is the great part of blogging!)

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  7. Here's the playdough link. :)

    http://tiredneedsleep.blogspot.com/2009/10/color-mixing-with-play-dough.html

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  8. oo this turned out super cute!!

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  9. thats a fab use for all the play dough i've been making today!!!

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