story + art = great stART – Strawberries, Bears and Mice!
Once you have looked at the video below, you will see that we have been working on this post since April! So, the strawberry came first and then the book. With summer upon us, we have all just experienced the wonders of spring. I wanted to capture some of this for Red Ted, so since April I have been photographing the development of three little strawberries.
Editing is not brilliant, neither is the sound overlay (you can hear Pip Squeak shuffling around)- I am learning!!!
Red Ted loved watching the process:
– I showed him when the petals fell off (the blossom is insaminated)
– I showed him where the fruit was developing
– We looked at the green strawberries and how
– they turned green and then, quite suddenly
– an orangey red appeared, it got deeper and deeper until we had
– a beautiful, delicious looking red strawberry.
Throughout this process Red Ted learned to “wait” (our “wait” sign language sign was in constant use) and he never touched one. Now that he has tasted the forbidden fruit, it is like the floodgates have opened and he can’t stop… and there I was, so proud of his “restraint”. Still, we have had fun.
I wanted to combine this with a book about “growing” (and reviewed some books on the garden here). I finally bought this little strawberry book – The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, by Audrey Wood, Don Wood. We love strawberries, Mice (Pip Squeak) and Bears (Red Ted) in our house and I had seen it reviewed by A Mommy’s Adventure over on her (the original!!) stART projects. The book is about a little mouse that sets off to pick a strawberry, the narrator reminds the mouse that the Big Hungry Bear also loves a big red ripe strawberry and that the mouse must do something to avoid the bear from coming… Very sweet. We loved the illustrations and the way the “reader talks to the mouse”. What I found at the end of the book, was that Red Ted kept “looking for the bear” (which doesn’t actually make an appearance in the book), so I decided that the bear would be our craft project! We did it with one of his friends that was visiting:
1) Materials: Paper, Scissors, glue, crayons and “things to stick” – we had glitter, fur, flower shapes (salvaged from some wrapping paper).
2) I pre cut teddy shapes.
3) We let the children loose with glue and stuff to stick and colour. Red Ted loved the glitter (thank goodness we did this outside) and also the google eyes.
4) I used a couple of the teddies to make greeting cards for Granny and upcoming friend’s birthdays. Red Ted even drew a “strawberry” in Granny’s card!
Variations: use paints and water. Just crayons or felt tips. Use coloured card or paper.
