Truffula Trees

Today, Katie Anne and I focused our crafting on the Dr. Seuss book The Lorax. I love The Lorax, with its truffula trees, Onceler, and thneeds. It is about protecting the environment and our natural resources. Saunders says it is an attack on big business and capitalism, which it probably is, but I still enjoy it. I found this week, while talking to other first grade teachers and kids, that many people who enjoy Dr. Seuss have not read The Lorax, so you might want to check it out with your kids if you haven't yet.

Katie Anne and I have read The Lorax many times, and we read it again today outside in the beautiful sunshine. We spent a lot of time checking out the truffula trees, which is what Katie Anne and I were making. Then, we launched into a diorama making of sorts... the plan was to make three truffula trees and a little Lorax, but unfortunately the Lorax man got crushed by glue-covered toddler hands, so he's absent from the stage. Here's all of our crafting fun!

Looking at the truffula trees...

Painting our foam base green...

Covering the base in green "grass" sequins...
Trying to poke in the tree "trunks", but this was too hard for little people, so that's a Mommy job.Painting the foam balls with glue...

Sprinkling the pink sequins...

Then the blue...

And finally the purple...
Our finished project... beautiful, sparkly, and very Seussy!
A girl and her truffulas...

Yes, I was very tempted to go back and perfect the truffulas' sequin coverage, but I resisted... I wanted the project to be the way she made it. We had a lot of fun (until a mean scary dog came up and we had to run for our lives into the basement, leaving Daddy to bring in the supplies when he got home). One more Dr. Seuss project for tomorrow morning, and then we're all done for this year!

PS- This little table and chair set was Daddy's craft table when he was little! :)