Spoon People

 

I couldn't like these quirky spoon people any more! 

They were so much fun to make with Judah (age 3) and somewhat of a pain to make with Wesley (1.5) but we did have a fun time sitting around the table together even if Wesley kept stealing all the googly eyes.

These really are easy and inexpensive to make and I would recommend it for age 3 and up - obviously the older the child the less hands on the parent has to be.

I picked up a couple packs of wooden spoons at the Dollar Tree. Each pack comes with three wooden spoons in three different sizes. Have kids that will squabble over who gets the tallest spoon? Buy two packs and then give them each the shortest tallest one from each pack. Problem solved!

The other supplies we used were:

Googly eyes

Permanent marker

Sea shells

Yarn

Twine

Ribbon

Beads

Glue

These spoon people are rather easy going and would be grateful to be dressed in whatever you have laying around your home.

I started out by drawing faces on the front side of the spoon - Judah didn't want to draw his own and Wesley lacks certain coordination skills to draw his own. 

Wesley wanted two different size eyes on his person and Judah wanted his frowning.

(I actually didn't glue the eyes on until the end as it made it easier to work with the spoons without worrying about drying glue!)

The boys picked out the color pipe cleaner they wanted and worked on wrapping the pipe cleaner around the handle of the spoon. Arms were easily formed using a second same color pipe cleaner. For the pants they picked a different color and then wrapped it around the spoon too. 

Judah chose to use this sea shell as a hat for his spoon person. I copied the idea and did the same for Wesley.

 

Judah's spoon person.

 

Wesley's spoon person.

My sister Esther's spoon person.

 

My spoon person.

Welcome to our lives spoon people! I will do all that is in my power to ensure you are never eaten off of.

Fish Food (Jello!)

Another fish related activity that I did with Judah this week was to make an edible fish aquarium. I found this fantastic see-through blue container at the Dollar Tree as well as the plastic water animals.

I washed those items really, really well before anything else :)

Then Judah and Wesley helped me make jello - this container held three packets of jello! We did it in layers and added fish on each level.

I added three straws at the very beginning and once all the jello had set I trimmed the straws so they only came as high as the jello and I stuck pipe cleaners in the straws to look like seaweed-y/grassy stuff. I know. It looks nothing like seaweed-y/grassy stuff. But use your imagination :)

Our final step was to add an alligator, seal, turtle and frog to the top of the jello.

Here it is from a side view:

I loved doing this activity with Judah - not only did it include "cooking" together, but he also got to learn the names of some water creatures he didn't previously know about (Seal!). We had a friend over for dinner the evening we served this and Judah was quite excited to show off his plate aquarium and his Jello aquarium.

Hooking up with Tasty Tuesday