Spring Flowers

The Craft Class:

A bright and cheerful project to welcome back our long-lost friend Spring!

There are some fiddly bits in this project but I managed it with about 8 students between the ages of 8 and 10 last week, and nine 6-7 year olds today :)

For the main project you will need:

●scissors 
●pritt-stick type glue
●a pencil
●some newspaper (to protect their sticking surfaces!)
●cello-tape.

They will also each need:

FLOWERS

1 pre-cut circle a little bigger than a euro coin

3 strip of yellow or orange card (about 11x3 cm)

12 little squares of different coloured paper (roughly 8x8 cm)

STEMS AND LEAVES

3 wooden skewers (pinchos) cut to 3 different sizes

3 strips of green paper (to wrap around skewers) (about 1,5 x 21 cm)
3 green drinking straws

1 A5 green sheets of paper

POT

One plastic cup (preferably coloured)

One small stone (for the base of the cup)

A small block of polystyrene that fits snuggly into the cup

Procedure:

○ Ask the children what season it is, and drill 'spring'. Draw a flower in a pot on the board and label it together (PETALS, STEM, LEAF, EARTH and POT). Play a couple of memory games, and get the kids to copy the flower on a piece of paper, colour and label it, and finally make a paper frame for the picture. It took more or less between 1/2 hour and 45 mins for the younger lot.

● Give out the pre-cut circles and the small strip of yellow or orange card and get the students to trace around the stencil 2/3 times. Cut out and put aside.

● Next hand out 4 of the coloured squares of paper. The kids can chose whichever colours they want, but it's best to have a minimum of 2 different colours.

Get the kids to cut 4 strips about a centimeter wide of 2 of the colours. Put the rest of the paper to one side for now.

○ Take the first 4 strips and stick one end of each around the circle, making a cross.

● Fold each strip in half and glue the ends to the circle.

● Stick the other 4 strips in the spaces in between, stick, fold, and stick the ends in place again. Put the flower-head aside, and then repeat the whole process 2 more times to end up with 3 complete flower heads.

○ Give the children the A5 green paper, and get to fold it 4 times length ways. Show them how to draw a leaf shape (taking up the full length of the paper). Cut the leaf through all 4 layers. Put 3 of the leaves aside but on the last one, get them to trace around their circular stencils 3 more times. Cut out the circles and put them aside with the leaves.

● Give each child the green strip of paper for the stem and help them to fold it in half length ways. Cut some cello-tape for each of them to stick the sides together, making a long tube. Repeat two more times. (easier version): use drinking straws.

● Take one of the flower heads and glue the end of one of the stems to the back of the flower. Repeat for all 3. Take the three green circles that they made with the leaves and stick them over the stem for the back of the flower.

○ Give them the biggest wooden skewer, and show them how to measure it against one of stems. Tell them they will have to cut the paper straw stem about 3cm up from the bottom of the skewer. Repeat for the other 2 stems and smaller skewers.

● Stick the skewers carefully up the paper stem-tubes, blunt-side first.

● Attach the leaves to the base of the stem, pinch in place and attach with cello-tape. Fold leaf over and down. Repeat for all flowers.

○ Put the stone in the bottom of the plastic cup, fit the polystyrene in as snuggly as possible, and stick the flowers in.

● Finally push the petals in to make them 3D

● If you have any early finishes, you could get them to make mini butterflies to stick on the flowers.

YA ESTA!

:)