Bee Craft!

It's MFS centre closure day, so there was no school for Le Xin and I knew I have to keep her

busy so I decided to.....

 

read her a book.... The Very Busy Bee by Jack Tickle!

 

It's a pop up book with colour illustrations, Le Xin simply loves it and it's pretty cheap. I bought it for just $9.90!

 

Then an idea struck me! What about creating a bee since I saw a bee crafting activity on KidsCraftWeekly

 

I showed Le Xin how I traced a circle using a plastic bowl and she was really eager to try it out as well. I knew she might not be to do it, I observed her tracing it half way and ended up scribbling. The whole idea was just getting her to try.....

 

This is what I did, I traced two circles using the plastic bowl.

 

Then I drew two lines to form an oval. I am obviously very bad at drawing so I need to do this to create an oval. I cut the oval and pasted it on top of another drawing board and cut it out again...repeating this step several times to ensure the final oval that we used was hard enough :)

 

Of course Le Xin helped me out as well, she was in charge of  pasting :)

 

For those of you who have read my post on Our Mini Atelier you should know that I kept some of materials at the Atelier using glasses....but later on I spotted these plastic containers, long and big....and I knew they are PERFECT to be used for storage for crayons and other materials in the so I swapped them with those glasses  and best of all they are cheap...$2 each cause I bought it from my Art Heaven hahahaha...is there such a place??? Joking....my Art Heaven is...... DAISO- Tampines Outlet :)

 

Le Xin decorating her bee with crayon!

 

She pasted an ice-cream stick to the oval so that she can hold on to it later - which acts as a handle...perhaps that's also the needle for the bee to sting :)

 

Le Xin was pressing the ice-cream to attach it to the oval, I helped to secure it by putting a small piece of scotch tape on top of it.

 

Le Xin tried pasting the glitter stickers to decorate the bee...What seems easy for us adult, was really tough for a toddler like Little Le Xin........why?

 

The stickers kept sticking onto her fingers and she didn't know how to remove them.... so she felt really frustrated and seeked for my help... I asked her where she wanted to paste the sticker and I helped her to paste them :)

 

Then I suggested to Le Xin, Hey let's draw two circles and form the eyes for the bee what do you think? Would you like to use black ??? (Actually I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT AT ALL... somehow I knew that's killing her creativity...look this where Human makes mistake especially when one is too absorbed with the outcome of things......When I realised I shouldn't suggest to her....it's all too late because the words had already came out from my mouth) However Le Xin's reply was NO!!! She looked at me shaked her head and said I want blue.... She confidently took a dark blue crayon and started drawing the circle, then she passed the crayon to me and asked me to draw with her which I did. Then I helped her to cut them out....

 

Once again, she helped out with the pasting of the eyes for the bee!

 

I suggested to Le Xin that we need to make the wings and so I passed her cellophane paper of different colours. (I believe if a child is older, he/she can choose what materials to use....) She said I want blue but she took the yellow cellophane paper. That's not blue I replied....so she took the yellow cellophane paper and placed it near her eyes, then she smiled and said I want yellow. Cheeky Le Xin....I wonder was she trying to trick me or did she get her colours all mixed up  hahahha!!!

 

Mummy twisted the cellophane and now it looked like a bow....

 

Le Xin pasted the wings onto her bee with a scotch tape...once again that's was really tricky for her. I guided her a few times before she could do it.......but after a few tries.......she kind of lost interest in pasting and said Mummy help me! Haha so I persuaded her to paste the cellophane together with me and she did.

 

Le Xin chose a pink pipe cleaner for the feelers.....somehow when she was taking it.....she said blue....blue...blue....every colours seem to be Blue to her now and I wonder why???

 

I helped Le Xin to attached the pipe cleaner with a scotch tape!

 

I passed Le Xin the bee and she held on to it and started dancing around.....I tried to take a photo of her holding on to her bee but she was swinging it.....so the image turned out a little blur.

 

Then I took another photo of her holding on to her bee but look at her face.......hahaha she looked sooo glummy......somehow the bee that we created looks like a strange looking Humpty Dumpy hahahaha!

 

While writing this post, I really felt bad.....I realised that even as an ECE, I am bound to make mistakes such as over directing my daughter on what to do while crafting with her. I could have written a beautiful post about how she good she was at creating the bee but I didn't want to. I want this to be a reflective journal. When I made a mistake, I seriously need to review and change for the better. Step 1 is to be aware and to admit what went wrong...... Step 2 Learn from my mistakes and Step 3 Remember and ensure I do not do that again......This is what I often tell to my K2 students. So are you guilty of killing your child/student's creativity when crafting with them? What are the challenges you face? Do you over-direct your child/students at times? How do you overcome it? These questions are posted here for reflections if you are reading my post :) Be aware that every child is capable of expressing their ideas and communicates in different ways... So becareful on how you ask them questions and how you interact with them....Leaving you guys with this "NG" post of her taking a shot with the bee.....just look how cute she was haha :)