Gettin' Crafty

Attempting glue sticks

Proud pumpkin

Just Not That Into It

Early on during craft time, when there remained hope

Finished Halloween mobile


Last Friday I got all Martha Stewarty and let (did myself) the children create a Halloween mobile to decorate our kitchen and set the tone for the upcoming holiday.

First I sketched and cut out pumpkins, bats, ghosts, Candy Corn and a graveyard headstone. Then I let the children color my creations. It was at this stage of the process when I lost my enthusiasm. Anna did great with the coloring, but Alexander just wasn't that into it. He barely gave a few chicken-scratch strokes with the old Crayola.

I should back up a hair and say that I was REALLY ambitious in presenting the children with two craft projects in the same sitting. The day before we'd collected colorful autumn leaves to paste onto orange and brown colored construction paper. We tried this part of the project first during our sit-down. I gave each child a glue stick, piece of colorful paper and the mound of foliage. Again, Anna did OK with this in the beginning but soon began coloring through the sticky glue. Alexander just wasn't ready for such a craft accessory. I think if we were gluing paper onto paper, then it wouldn't have been as frustrating. It was difficult to get the leaves to stick, and the children weren't too interesting in the tedious process. I finally gave up this part of the afternoon project and moved on to coloring Halloween cutouts.

The whole craft time ended abruptly when I caught Anna swabbing the inside of her cheek with the glue stick. (Could she have been inspired by me letting her apply, just minutes earlier, watermelon-flavored lip balm? Still, that was to the outer lips, not inside the mouth.) And she had been so good throughout so much of our little project.

Needless to say, I put the mobile together with sticks and yarn, then hung it, myself. Though their participation was minimal, the children love it. Everytime they enter the kitchen they say "Wow" and look up in wonder.