Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Boredom Buster #6

Okay, so this boredom buster made me realize with 100% certainty that I am, indeed, a Boy Mom. :)

When my sister and I were little, my Mom taught preschool and was the Preschool Director at our church. She was always super creative and great with little kids. She came up with fun crafts and activities for the children that she worked with - many involved painting with odd materials (marbles, matchbox cars, dry noodles, etc.). I remember that the favorite means of painting a piece of paper, for the boys at least, was always earthworms. Yes, you heard me correctly, my Mom would help the kids dip the worms in paint and then watch them squiggle across the page. It was always a crowd pleaser amongst the male preschoolers.

So... the other day, when we were buying worms for Wade & Clayton's fishing adventure, I had flashbacks to my preschool teacher Mama. I told Wade to grab an extra box for Clayton & I to paint with. He said, "You're gonna what with them???" I'm pretty sure that he didn't think that I would ever follow through with that plan.

Well, I did in fact follow through. One day last week, I gathered up all of the various disposable (um, yeah, I wasn't about to reuse anything that those worms touched!) supplies, along with all of the courage that I could muster. I was determined not to touch any of the worms! There are certain lines that shouldn't be crossed, and that was my line. :)

I squirted out all of the paint colors, instructed Clayton on how to wash off the worms before putting them into the paint, and let him go for it.
He was absolutely giddy when they started wiggling all over the paper! He said, "This is the best craft ever!!!" Ha ha!


Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I racked up some "cool Mom" points that day....

Just so that I don't get hate mail from PETA, no worms were harmed in the making of this boredom buster. We released them back from whence they came - to the dirt!
Family Fun had a little blurb about no-mess finger painting in this month's issue. It suggested putting tempera paint into a Ziploc baggie, removing all of the air, and then zipping it shut. I figured that was much more up Drew's ally. So... he got to no-mess finger paint while we painted with worms. ;)


Although painting with worms isn't really my cup of tea (the no mess finger painting was more my style!), my Boy sure did love it! :)

5 comments:

Gran said...

I'm thankful you let Clayton in on some of Gran's weird artistic endevors! I also remembered your entering an elementary science fair with this project. You were using this (you used food coloring instead of paint) to prove the influence of dye in foods. The red always showed the most activity. Pretty "cool", huh?

Brent and Abbey said...

SARAH!!! I am so proud of you for allowing worms in your kitchen!!! Clayton will remeber that bordom buster forever!

Tara said...

That sounds like so much fun!!! Not sure if my girls will ever be up for that but I will give it a shot!

Melissa said...

Awesome girl! That's a very cool idea. What a creative mama you have! :)

halie said...

Woah--I'm really impressed!! I'm pretty sure Cambry and I won't be doing that anytime soon. ;)