Masquerade (Day 40)

Halloween, it is creeping up on us quickly.  This week is going to be full of fun arts and crafts for the kids.  Today was no exception.  We made masquerade mask.  The kids had an awesome time.  Before lunch I grab all my paints, brushes, glitter, glue, and feathers, and I spread them across the table.  The kids take off from the playroom and make a mad dash to the living room window.  They love to look at the cars and keep a watch out for school buses.  Once they see a bus or tractor or any big vehicle they come running into the dining room and tell me all about it.  I am finally able to round them all up and get them in their chairs (except the baby, but I'll get to that).

The kids start eyeing all of the goodies before them, you would think that it was Christmas Eve and they just found their loot.  I settle them down and start with the painting.  Now I don't know if you have ever tried to have two three year old and 3 one year old do a big art project, but it is not an easy task.  I get the older kids situated with their paint and brushes and give the younger kids a coloring page and some crayons. 

I teach the 3 year olds how to clean their brush after each color and they go for it.  We work on their mask for awhile, they finish painting so we add glue, glitter, and feathers.  The kids attach them to various parts of their mask and the look on their faces were so extremely adorable.  You could see the pride radiating off their faces. They wanted to put the masks on immediately, but I knew better, the paint and glue was still wet and their was already glitter all over the place.  Now it was on the the little ones.

I decided that the baby was a little too young to make a mask so I gave her a crayon and princess page, this is her reaction:

Remember how I said that I didn't get the baby in the correct chair, well this is what I was talking about.  This is her new thing.  She either puts her foot up on the table, which I have to correct over and over again, or she puts her foot on the underside of the table and kicks off of it.  She hasn't tumbled over yet, but I have been putting her in a different chair but today I was lucky enough to wrangle them into any chair available.

So then I work with the other little ones.  They were a little less coordinated than the three year olds.  They got more paint on their high chairs than on the mask, but boy did they have a ball.  The chose the colors and painted till their little hearts were satisfied.  We put glitter all over the mask and they squealed with delight over all the shimmery colors.  It took almost an hour to complete the mask, but it was worth every second just watching their little faces light up.

I was finally able to get them settled down and put the masks up to dry up.  The kids had a great time with their art projects.  My oldest couldn't wait to try her mask on and parade around in front of her daddy when he came home.



The finished project.