This is Bitty's fairy from the Paper Fashions Fairy book I told you about last week. I learned two things from working on this with her. One, 8 year olds will make each individual piece a different color and pattern if you let them. Most of the time they don't care if these colors and patterns look good together. Two, 8 year olds may have a hard time visualizing what they are doing if you try to help them draw their stencils on the back of the patterned paper to avoid the pencil lines showing.
This is Bug's "Mermaid Fairy Waitress". I learned a couple of things working with her as well. One, 10 year olds will also put as many colors and patterns as possible together but at least this 10 year old will stress over what goes together and what doesn't. They may not end up making the right call on this. Two, 10 year olds are old enough to understand the concept of mirror image when it comes to drawing on the back and flipping and also making one glove stencil work for both right and left hand gloves.
I also have a word of warning to any of you who might use this with your kids... Kids love glitter glue. This little bit of trouble (it's both glue and glitter, how can that not be a problem on occasion?) is outweighed by the fact that my kids have spent HOURS just playing with the stencils. They love drawing different fashion ideas on plain typing paper over and over. It's wonderful to see how their imagination has been sparked.
Bug actually liked this so much that she spent her own money to buy this...
Now they can mix and match their stencils and papers. Oh, and more glitter glue!!!
Don't forget that if you want to win your own Paper Fashions Fantasy book you need to comment with your email address to this post.
How fun to see what they made and what you learned about their design processes. Totally love the mermaid waitress.
Posted by: Nana | September 22, 2009 at 11:04 AM