Seeking Imperfection

This week's Unplugged Project theme was newspaper. I had a hard time with this theme. The only thing I could think of was paper mache, and I really didn't feel like tackling that project this week with all the rest of the things I had going on.

So I did a little web surfing to try and find toddler/preschool newspaper activities, and had a hard time coming up with a lot. I did stumble upon cutting out pictures of food from the paper and gluing it onto a list to make a grocery list at Angry Chicken. Another example here. I don't even get a newspaper regularly, but I do get a flier circular thing in the mailbox, so Paige and I went through and cut out some of the foods she likes and we glued it onto a list. She seemed to think this project was ok, but it didn't thrill her.




Most amusing was that I showed Roland our project and he said...hey, where are strawberries 2 for $4? and I had to figure out what circular we'd cut up!

Next, I tried to make a sailor kind of newspaper hat with her, but it turns out my circulars aren't the right shape.

So then I decided to give this last project idea a whirl - newspaper puppets. Now these were a huge hit. She loved these. When we were rolling up the paper for the puppet she said, "this is fun!" So, I made one too. Basically, you just roll up a piece of newspaper and tape or glue it closed. Then cut one end of the roll into fringe for hair. The web page has facial features that you can just print out and attach to your puppet, or you could make up your own. Paige opted not to color them, she just wanted to use the tape to stick them on. For some reason she decided to put the eyes at the bottom, with the nose in the middle, and the mouth on top. It was really hard for me not to tell her that it wasn't the right way to do it!



I mentioned this to Michelle and Roland tonight and they said that perhaps I'm looking at it upside-down - maybe Paige thought the fringe part was a beard or a dress. Perhaps Paige was wondering why I wasn't doing mine the right way!

Paige actually seemed to have the most fun dancing with the "puppets," using them more like pom-poms. That's when it seemed so simple - newspaper pom-poms would have been the easiest idea and the most fun. Leave it to the three year-old to figure it out. I should let her plan the projects from now on. :)