A few months ago the school sent out a questionnaire asking parents if they'd be willing to volunteer in the classroom - teaching a craft project, reading books, etc. I said we'd be happy to (I'm sure Art loved that!) but hadn't heard anything from it. As I was off for Presidents Day today AND tomorrow is Mardi Gras, I asked if they'd like me to come in and tell the kids about it. Alex was thrilled that I was coming to school with him. Okay, maybe he was thrilled that we went to school an hour later than usual and he got to go home as soon as we were done. Anyway, I read a book to the 3 and 4 year old classes about Mardi Gras. Then we split up and made necklaces and masks.
The masks were pretty easy. Michaels actually sells cut out cardboard masks. I gave them green, gold and purple crayons and let 'em have at them. Then we added feathers. Very exciting. Since everyone was allotted two and we stapled them to the top, Alex is calling them antlers.
The beads were ziti that I painted green, gold and sort-of purple. Here's a craft tip: if you need to paint ziti, the easiest way to do so, by far, is to put them in a zip-loc bag, add paint and shake them up. (That was the third method I tried.) Another tip: pasta doesn't paint purple. So we had beautiful green and gold ziti "beads" and then a brownish colored third set. It was fine - the kids loved them anyway. They strung them on elastic bands and wore them along with their masks. I brought real beads, too, which caused some discussion. Apparently none of the boys minded wearing necklaces, but there was some debate as to whether or not purple was a "girly" color. Their teacher explained that royalty wore it, so a few adventurous boys (and most of the girls) picked purple.
I found a great bakery nearby that cooks king cakes. I was kind of surprised, but everything they make is delicious, and our king cake was also beautiful. In an absolutely unbiased, totally blind choice, Alex got the piece of cake with the baby in it, and was crowned the king of Mardi Gras. He had a sparkly purple crown with rhinestones, green and gold on it. The picture above is he and two of his buddies in all their finery. (Alex is in the center.) After all that excitement I was amazed to see that we'd only been there for about an hour. I think preschool teachers are really underpaid.
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