Getting my creativity ON!

I've been holed up in my house recently working on getting my props and displays reading for my early childhood story-times and mini residencies with Gateway to the Arts.  I had my first story-time today on Fletcher The Fox and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke.

Here's what I made for it:



A story panel box made out of an old drawer that was in our back patio gardening cabinet.  Jake sturdied it up for me with some braces and drilled the holes for the panels that would go on the front.

The panels are made out of burlap, painted with tempura and acrylic paints, and adorned with felt leaves that are embroidered on. The first panel shows a tree during the summer with bright green leaves...

But there is hidden velcro on the tree that I can attach leaves to and show the changing leaves and their colors.

The second panel is a sparse fall tree with just a few leaves on it.  All the leaves are attached with velcro and are taken off as the wind blows more and more of them off.

And the final panel is a beautiful winter tree that Fletcher discovers the morning after all the leaves had blown off the tree. Change isn't so bad, he discovers--it's actually pretty great!

I also made a Fletcher hand puppet from a design that I modified from here.  I am so proud of myself--I even managed to sew the ears on into the seam--correctly--the first time.  I never do that!  I then sewed on a button noise, embroidered a mouth for him, added some fancy trim to the bottom, and...

Made him a tail :-)

I also made a "leaf twirler" that I use to show the leaves' movements as they fall from the tree, how they toss, turn, twitch, twirl, and tumble.

All in all, the story-time this morning went incredibly well (especially for the first time in front of kids!).  It timed out at just around 30 minutes.  The children seemed to respond well to the songs and movements that were incorporated into the story, and they knew a lot for preschool, like photosynthesis--who knows about photosynthesis when they're 4 years old?  I was very impressed, and when they were asked by Fletcher why the leaves were turning yellow and brown and orange, he was expecting "because it's fall" not "the tree is making sugar and giving off CO2."  Those kids--always keeping me on my toes :-)