Sunday, September 20, 2009

Building a Farm and a small Barn with my 5 year old


This project was done for a function (Indian Function - Navarathri Gollu) where we keep God in few steps and a theme which you create (its not a mandatory one, but a fun activity for kids to participate in the whole function part). This craft was done with my Son (5 year old) .


My son was always fascinated with barn and farm animals when he was young and now when he used to read more in books. So decided to create this with his help.

So the basics of the project is building a farm - arranging the grass, putting the fence, keeping all the farm animals and building a barn. He also wanted a pond for the ducks. Lets go through in steps on how we created this project.


The Barn - Basically taking any juice carton (small size), paint the carton with Red color (2 times to hide the writings on the carton), remove the opening (cut it off). Then using the mailing labels sticker, did the door and window by cutting thin strips and paste them as shown above. The design of the barn was taken from a book which he used to read. Only the white sticker for the door and window was done by me. Rest was my son's effort.

The Green Tray - So we took a thin aluminum tray and he painted it with green color. This tray was done to keep everything the grass, animals , fence and the barn on it for display. Since aluminum tray has a shinning effect painted it green to match the grass color.

The Items purchased :- The grass (artificial grass) , the fence and all the farm animals were bought from a craft Micheals store.

The pond :- we took a small paper and cut it in a round shape and he painted it blue.

The final arranging :- Once all the items dried after the painting process, I put the grass on the green tray, and the fence but arranging the farm animals and the barn were done by my Son. So he loved doing this project every second of it.

Indeed a nice project to do with your kids. The photo below shows the navarathri Gollu.