Craft with me 1, 2, 3.....Celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday!

Monday morning Tinkerbell and I were reading the Dr. Seuss classic "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" and later I heard on the radio that this week would have been his 106th birthday.  Tinkerbell was asking to do a new craft so I decided to throw something together to honor the great Dr. Seuss.

This craft started with what I realized retrospectively were some lofty goals.  My idea was to draw, cut out, and paint "fish bowls" and then use an apple to make prints of fish on the fish bowls.  Easier said than done. 

Before the girls did anything, I got the apple ready:

(This took some creative knife work as it was a really good apple and I wanted us to be able to eat as much of it as possible :)

Then I gathered some supplies.  I like Crayola's washable kid paint...it seriously washes out of clothes, off hands, tables, etc, without much effort.

Next I drew a fishbowl on some construction paper and Tinkerbell was happy to work on her skillz and cut out her own; I of course did the cutting for the Bear's.  Then we painted the fish bowls blue.

Yes, Tinkerbell's fish bowl was made out of blue paper, and she still needed to paint it blue.  Because painting is fun.

This is where my organized craft activity took a turn toward chaos.

The Bear finished painting her fishbowl and we moved onto the apple printing portion of the program.  I dipped the apple in red paint and showed the Bear how it worked, then turned to help Tinkerbell get the last of the blue paint out of the jar.  As I was explaining to Tinkerbell the trick to scraping the bottom of the jar with her paintbrush in an effort to not waste any last drop of paint that might be remaining, she suddenly yelled

"MOMMY!! BEAR IS EATING THE APPLE!!!"

Before I had time to react, Buddy-the-friendly-dog, who until then was napping quietly under Tinkerbell's bench, startled and jumped up, hitting his head on the bench and tipping it enough to now startle Tinkerbell enough to fall off the bench with blue-paint-covered paintbrush in hand.  (Blue paint scattered about the kitchen but- referring back to previous Crayola plug- I was not worried about the damage this might cause.)  Tinkerbell is now screaming on the floor and in tears- due in part to the fall itself and in part due to worry over being in trouble about the splattered paint, and the Bear is in her chair, paint-dipped apple fish in hand, paint-dipped apple fish TAIL in mouth, and bright red evidence spread all over her mouth and chin as she laughs at the scene that has quickly unfolded around her.  You may be curious about the order of operations that took place next, so I'll just say that the phrase "non-toxic paint" flashed through my head and I decided to help Tinkerbell off the floor before I fished the contaminated apple out of the Bear's mouth (pun intended).  Ahhhhh, such is life.  The most unfortunate part of this story is that I did not think to take a few seconds to snap a few pictures of the chaos to share with my beloved R&P readers (all four of you).

BUT- after the little bump in the road, there was still a Dr. Seuss craft to complete.  We considered having tail-less fish but Tinkerbell didn't love the idea (because fish have to have tails, mom, or they can't swim), and we considered starting fresh with a new apple but I didn't love the idea (because, quite frankly, they were organic and expensive, only 2 left, and 2 days before next planned grocery trip!) so we settled with a much less exciting option B of making construction paper fish.  Tinkerbell got on board when I pointed out that she would get to use scissors and glue (and after I promised that she could fly solo on this without any interruption from me.)

So here is the Bear's first fish bowl, and the only evidence of the apple print:

And the Bear's fish bowl #2 (I let her paint another fishbowl while Tinkerbell went to work with her scissors and glue) with fish contribution from mom.

And Tinkerbell's finished product.

This craft was a good lesson for me, and a reminder that I have an 18 month old whom I am attempting to include in these projects.  Goal for next time: come up with crafts that are similar in nature but appropriate to different age levels.  Hmm...

Anyway, happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!


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