A Pinata, a Pot of Gold, and a Patriot

Alyssa finished her lion pinata!

During the process of layering the paper strips over the balloons, it was hard to imagine that there was a lion just waiting to appear in all the mess. I think I have paper mache goo {aka camel snot} permanently dried to the upholstery of our kitchen table chairs. Good thing we already had plans to re-upholster them. But Alyssa is so proud of her lion, and tomorrow night during "Festival of Nations" at her school, it will be for sale. Her teacher told the kids she planned to sell them for $3-$5, Alyssa is sure hers is worth the $5 price tag! I was really proud that she completed the whole project with extremely little help from me or Dave.

For the German Immersion Foundation Auction and Dinner that is coming up later in the month, each classroom at the elementary school was given a cute little garden gnome that we had to re-design. Think miniature Cows on Parade.

I was really intimidated by helping with the project because I am not at all crafty, but I thought both Rebekah and Emma's class gnomes came out nicely. This is Rebekah's kindergarten class', "Luck of the Irish" gnome. My friend gave me the idea to make the gnome into a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and Rebekah's teacher did a great job making our gnome gold! I had the kids use Q-Tips to paint the rainbow, and we glued it to a foam board with a map of Ireland on it. There is a wrinkle in the rainbow that happened as our paint dried. We are going to try to fix that before the gnome is auctioned off.

The 3rd graders have been learning about the United States, so I wanted to incorporate that into their gnome. The kids did such a great job painting up the individual pieces I cut out for them. Basically all I did was glue everything together and touch up little areas where the paint didn't cover what we intended for it to. We are excited and hopeful that these gnome projects made by all the children will contribute to a fun and successful fundraising event for our schools! The kids certainly worked hard on them!!