Fall Festival - Nature Masks

Hello Friends -

I have another project for you.  Recently, the Wonderkid's school had their annual Fall Festival.  It is a very traditional festival with each class having a booth where the children can make crafts.  They also have a cake walk and bake sale.  It is the only time of the year that copious amounts of sugar (or really any sugar) are allowed on campus.

Here is the post from last year's projects.

Being a slightly crafty individual, I was tasked with coming up with this year's art project for a three and four year-old class.  I've made masks for two birthday parties and they were surprisingly popular so I thought we could do them again.

Here are a few of the deisgns I provided for the kids.  The one in the bottom right corner was extremely popular.  The Wonderkid called it the fire mask but I think it was supposed to be a mardi gras/owl type of mask.  Either way, we ran out early.

I cut the masks on my electronic cutting machine using this file from Lettering Delights.  I believe Lettering Delights is having a sale so if you are interested, this might be a good time to grab them.  In the end, I cut out 200 masks with three per    8 1/2 x 11 page.

For a couple of weeks the children went throughout the campus and collected things to put on the masks.  Some of the stuff was "interesting".  They were very into some pea pods that were never going to stay on a mask but most of the stuff we made work.

It is wonderful having an entire farm as the school campus.  It means the children are able to find plenty of things in nature to look at, discover and think about.  It is one of my favorite parts of the school.

Here is one of the completed masks.

Didn't they do a wonderful job of making the masks their own?  They were so creative.  Many of them did a combination of coloring and gluing.  It seems like such a simple thing but the kids were wearing them all through the festival, getting their pictures taken in their masks and coming back to do more.