Solar System Week: Our Planet Earth

Finger paint, sponge, and a paintbrush used 

We've been having a paint party in Little Mama's house this week with all the painting we've done.  Finally our paint is getting put to use.  Little Mama's masterpieces now include a dot-art sun, finger-painted moon, glitter-painted shooting stars, and a sponge-painted earth.  Her easel proudly displays the repertoire of solar system artwork, of which, Little Mama was anxious to add our freshly painted earth.  "We need some tape!"

We painted our earth in layers.  I started with a dab of blue paint, then added white, some orange and finally green.  Little Mama mostly used her fingers but also tried a small sponge and eventually a paintbrush.

  

We used this picture of Earth as our inspiration and talked about the colors we saw before we started painting.      

Nice job Little Mama!  We've got quite the collection now.

Ok, this next activity was seriously a dud but I thought I'd include it anyway in the hopes that someone  will derive some sort of amusement from our flop.  I thought it would be a great idea to make an astronaut helmut and send Cabbage Patch girl out into space.  Pretend play has been really big in our house these days so props for the dolls seemed like a great idea.  Um, the bag--not so much.  Little Mama got angry when I put the paper bag "helmet" on the doll.  She found it offensive and immediately took it off.  Geez, ok--no problem.  I had to sneak in a picture later without her looking.  Looks like no Mars for Cabbage Patch girl.  

Our paper mache planet - day two

Yesterday Little Mama and I embarked on a paper mache project.  We paper mache-d a couple of bowls in the hopes of making them into planets.  We used flour and water as the glue, which is a great, safe option for young ones.  Excited about the glue, Little Mama mostly dipped, smashed, and swirled the newspaper while I pasted away.  We did one layer yesterday; let it dry; and did another today.  

I am sad to report that one of the "planets" didn't make it.  I was so excited to start applying the newspaper to our first bowl/mold that I forgot to apply oil so the paper would come off the mold easily.  This morning I realized my blunder.  The first "planet-in-the-making" was dead--the paper would never peel off the bowl, so into a tub of soapy water it went.  BUT, the good news is--there's one more active "planet" who survived!  I put plastic over the second bowl before we started applying the newspaper and today it peeled off the mold without a problem.  So it's a-go!  

Stay tuned for more on our paper mache planet.  Which will it be?