Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Thumbelina Egg Carton Craft





Our story choice for stART (story + ART) this week, was Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina, retold and illustrated by Lauren Mills. Mills' has shortened, and softened the original story for the modern audience. Of course, my youngest two want to rush straight out to the video store to rent Barbie Presents Thumbelina, which I imagine has been adapted, and softened even more.

Generally, no matter what version of Thumbelina you're reading, or watching, the little girl "no bigger than your thumb", starts out in a flower. So, we focused on that detail, and made Thumbelina, flower puppets.

I cut a few sections out of an egg carton, which the children colored green, on the outside.


Then, I used a scissor blade to poke a slit in the bottom of each section for them.


The children added eight, heart shaped, flower petals, traced and cut from construction paper, to each flower. My youngest, was content to let me do the cutting for her today, because she was getting to color with a marker, which she's normally not allowed to touch.


The girls colored craft sticks green, leaving a small space at the top, uncolored, or Thumbelina's face.


We drew on simple faces, and the girls added some bits of yarn, for hair. We decided it was easiest, to glue the yarn to the front of the craft stick, and color the hair on the back side, with a marker.


Thumbelina was placed in the flower, and our puppets were ready. Pull the stem down, and you have an ordinary flower.


Push it up, and Thumbelina appears.


For more story stretching, arts and crafts projects, check out this week's stART link up, at A Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

14 comments:

  1. Very cute! We read Thumbelina here as well, and Anna wasn't a big fan. I remember that I wasn't either - old mole was giving me creeps.

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  2. I love this craft - this is SOOOOOOO cute! I can't wait to do girly crafts like this when my baby girl gets older, for now with my 2 boys it's all boy stuff! :)

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  3. That is so cute! I love how she pops out! CLEVER :D

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  4. LOVE IT! So glad Thumbelina has such a sweet home!

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  5. Your craft is adorable!

    We've never read this book, just watched the movie:-).

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  6. What an adorable art project! Emily loves the pop up projects we did using cups, I will have to try this some time. Thank you gor linking up :0)

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  7. Oh, I can't tell you how much I love this! I want to make one myself! Ha!

    I agree with Natalie that the mole DOES creep me out! But, I think Maddie would LOVE to make a little Thumbelina and we've read the story before.

    I'm so inspired. Thank you!
    -Jill

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  8. I love the craft, I'm enjoying seeing all of your fairy tale crafts, and probably will do some of these come summer when we're "taking a break" from more serious studies.

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  9. What an awesome idea. And pretty simple, too. We're going to have to try making our own pop-up sometime.

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  10. This is so cute!! We haven't read this yet, but will when Ryleigh gets a little older.

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  11. This. Is. Cute. You could probably think of lots of other stories it would work with, too.

    LOVE IT.

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  12. My daughters loved the story of Thumbelina. I'll definitely be doing this craft with them. Great idea.

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