Quick Hallowe'en masks

 Workshop today at Luna was all about making Hallowe'en masks.

Yes, I am not into the whole Hallowe'en thing at all (erm but I love the whole Pendle Hill thing) as an utterly false American premise...but it does lend itself  to an very nice arts & crafts session. Hypocrite Jim sensei!

What do you need? An hour or so to get all the bits & pieces lined up for a start - after you've done the shopping. This after you have had a trial run on your own to get the steps sorted out/iron out wrinkles/fine tune design & process...otherwise you end up blowing your timing and having a project half undone. In cooking terms, mis en place.

Paper plates (pre-painted = save all the drying hassle) & draw in a pencil face. Chop off the top, turn upside down & re-attach via dangles as a mouth. Fill in with a black marker. Use a paper punch on either side to make ear-holes - rubber band through each & tie them together with a length of wool. More wool, threads pulled apart, to add a fringe and a beard.

One hour done :)

Rain, rain, go away!

Our "Hows the weather?" song today was a bit redundant: answer "It's really raining, raining, raining!" We found a monster caterpillar munching the leaves on one of our plants - it's huge! We could see his mouth moving and legs pumping as he changed branches. What is it going to be? And what colour....?

Last month I posted about the dangers of papier mache (and the fun bits) and you will have seen the final results of our mask making? Next on the list of "This is going to be messy" is large scale painting. I decided against a tarp on the floor and full body splattering! We still needed full body-armour, in the guise of waterproof smocks, to prevent accidental coverage - Hina still managed to paint her whole calf red without anyone noticing...

Our rainy day mission was to build a couple of houses, complete with windows and doors, out of some of the junk we've collected lately - we've a kitchen-full of cardboard boxes and so on. Little fingers beware cutters, but we decided together where windows would go, and what shapes we wanted - very important to keep the shapes and use them for decoration later. This is the rainy day we save for!

Gluing bits on is tough if the cardboard is shiny, like Jim's wine casks, as is painting them. Tear the top layer off if you can. There are no building codes on colours, so experiment time with mixers - careful everything doesn't end up shades of brown!

While we waited for things to set or dry out, we made special dice for "What's the time, Mr. Wolf?" which is really our favourite game at the moment....everyone wants to be Mr. Wolf!

Bubbles & Squeeks

On Friday we finally finished our papier mache masks in pre-school. We realised we needed to varnish them before adding a decorative layer of paint, and that it needed time to dry! Fortunately, it was a nice sunny day, and we got the job done fabulously!

I think these masks are fairly robust and should last for a while. Painting them on the inside was a good way to make sure they don't delaminate (the vaseline we used to prevent the paper sticking to the plasticene also stopped it sticking to itself!

In between layers, we tested out our very fancy bubble machines, and had a hoot chasing big lumbering ones, and tiny bouncy ones, up the riverbank. We also tried to land them in the river from the bridge, but they blew so far away we couldn't see where they went!

For some reason the girls decided the spare box was a bath, so we learned a new Super Simple song - about the things we do in the bath, of course! Washing our noses and toes, for example. It was very funny as they kept falling out of the bath in stitches.

Our absolute favourite new game is is "Mr. Wolf"...and the children love to be 'it' or Mr. Wolf, and decide what time to call out. This is quite tricky, as they have to hold up the right card with the number on it or the Wolf card - can't let people get to close or they win; too far away when you shout "It's time to eat you!" and it is very hard to catch anybody running away!

Learning thread

I opened a new bag of letter beads and this amazing strand landed right way up on the carpet.

It's a kind of magic?!?!

The girls made necklaces and bracelets with their names on, after a very creative morning painting our papier mache masks, which have dried nicely.

We also remembered to log the growth of our balcony garden - we water them carefully every morning. We've got tall twisty things climbing up the railings; we've got small round leaves and frail shoots; round leaves, pointy leaves, long leaves; smooth stems and rough ones...and that's just the children!

Seem to be a lot of sleepy, smiley people wandering around this morning, needing coffee or genki drinks to wake them up; big congrats Japan on making the next round in South Africa. One report called them the "Blue Brazil" no less!

Papier Mache masks

Papier Mache; an activity that should terrify any sensible teacher - the prospects for catastrophe are myriad!

Key to avoiding disaster is preparation, planning, and plumbing. You can't simply wade in and have yourself, and kids, elbow deep in glue when someone needs a hand in the toilet stat! Avoid getting globs of gooey black newspaper on the walls by wrapping the room in cellophane? Or do it outside, if  you have a parking spot, mini-garden or a balcony. Have your production line ready, and if at all possible, have a practice on your own first and make a couple of samples to various stages of completion, to show each stage of production & what you want to achieve.

Making paper mache is not rocket science, and any number of art crafty books will tell you how. Essentially, rip up old newspaper into the size you'll need, soak for an hour or two in not too much water. Kids love this ripping destructive phase. We are making animal masks,  so our plasticene/nendo needed to be not too warm or thin - floppy is useless! You'll need to help kids roll it flat on a non-stick & non-slippery surface (beware tablecloths). Whatever you are aiming for, simple design is best unless you are a ninja at this kind of thing! Forget the fancy stuff you see in the book - yours will look like the Elephant Man no matter what!

Remember to make a bump for the nose, and generous eyeholes (they'll shrink in the modelling stage). So a nice simple template cut into the plasticene, over which you need to slap on some vaseline to make sure the dried end-product will come off it easily. Sleeves up, smocks on, plastic mat or whatever on the floor, spare bucket for rinsing hands handy...take a deep breath and bung your wallpaper glue into the paper/water gunge. This is the tactile bit, squishing and squeezing. Glue in hair, in armpits, up noses, on chairs, nearby surfaces...be warned!

The bigger the model you made, the simpler the layering is. Finnicky corners/angles, fancy nose job? You are better off going for cro-magnon eyebrows and bold cheek bones! Also, don't overdo it - you can add layers later if you need to; too thick now = too heavy for the nippers. 

You'll not be painting these tomorrow; time the great healer as you set aside to dry. Teacher may want to touch things up before next class anyway, if someone had a 'mare?  Think ahead - the painting stage is wrought with deposit-threatening situations too!  We'll show you ours once they are done.

In true Rolf Harris style, "can you tell what they are yet?"