Day 16: fun with flowers

Blog world is really inspiring me right now and I am not feeling satisfied to just write all these ideas down on my long list of things to try.  SO today was yet another day where I changed my plan and went with the inspiration. 

Side note - the back story of this is that I have a list.  A BIG list of all kinds of activities, books, walks, games, crafts, etc. that I want to do.  And for the most part they are in order, laid out, ready to go so that each day I know what I am going to do.  This way I am more likely to not get a mind block and miss a day of greening! But blog world is throwing this list out the window right now!!  And I have discovered that I am okay with that.

I saw a great idea yesterday at Are We There Yet? and knew I had to try it. 

This morning I realized that I only had one toilet paper roll and one paper towel roll so I had to improvise from what she did. I took the toilet paper roll and cut it into thirds. This made three pieces slightly smaller than what a toilet paper roll is.  (If you are totally lost already I would suggest going and checking out the link above and then come back here to see how it all turned out!)

Basically you take the toilet paper roll and cut slits in it a bit more than half way down the tube (as many slits as you want, I mixed up the number).  Then fold back the "petals" of the flower.  I decided that the flowers needed stems so I cut up a section of a diaper box and stapled the stems to the center of the flower. 
My pictures are AWFUL because Sam with paint is always a huge mess and I was trying desperately to control the mess (I should just learn to let go and embrace the mess but I am just not there yet!) while at the same time document her process.  Plus I am NOT a photographer and it seemed that everywhere we tried to take pictures was either too dark or too bright.

Anyway, Sam painted away and I even got in on the action I painted some too.  She loves painting so this was a big hit.  We made four flowers with stems. 

Once the paint was dry (which only took a few minutes in the 90+ temps we are having today!) I asked Sam if she thought we could find flowers in the yard that looked like our flowers.  She wasn't so sure but we went for a walk around our yard and did discover a lot of flowers that had similar colors as ours.  It was a great color activity for her and she spent some time looking closely at flowers!

On the Are We There Yet? blog Sara makes an incredible garland to display her flowers.  I have these little flower pots so I decided that might be a cute way to display our flowers.  I filled the pot with dry black beans and stuck the stems in.  They were flopping over a little bit so I used some bread bag ties to keep the stems standing up straight.  I think the whole thing turned out pretty cute!

Thank you Sara for this great idea!  Definitely one that we enjoyed. 

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The Nitty Gritty!

If you make the flowers all have different number and sizes of petals this could be a really cool way to examine flowers more closely.  Sam actually didn't want to be outside as much today as I thought she would so we didn't do as many comparisons as I would have liked. We may take the flowers out again to do this because I think it could really be a great way to ask her questions about number of petals, size of flowers, colors of flowers and shapes. 

Comments

[Sara D.]

Abbie...you are so sweet to link me. I LOVE the stems--I originally wanted to make them stand up, but couldn't work it out in my brain!!! Also, I never mentioned it, but I actually like the look of the flowers with a shorter tube...I discovered that toward the end of our project! I definitely didn't need to save tp tubes for a month...a few tubes go a long way!!

Way to go on blogging everyday...that is such a committment!!!!! I will be sure to cheer you on!

[Angela]

Oh my gosh, what a cutie Sam is! I love what you did with this project. You are a brave one to be out in the heat. I like to think I melt like sugar. Your daughter painted her flowers beautifully, and you are a smart mama for improvising too! Btw, your pictures are great; I can see how proud she is and the lovely details of her flowers! :)

[gina]

As ridiculous as it is, my hubby would get all bent out of shape if L and I made girly flowers.

HOWEVER.

I am definitely doing this idea with my students in the fall. I have very low-functioning students and I could easily modify this activity for them!