Paper Mache Hot Air Balloons

This past week at the kids school was Dr. Seuss week. In years past they've done a spirit like thing where they dress up each day but it didn't happen this year for reasons that I don't know. Harper didn't really celebrate it at all which is super disappointing, but the Kindergarten classes did stuff each day.

There are 5 kindergarten classes at the kids school so each teacher chose a Dr. Seuss book and the classes switched each day to hear that story and then do projects related to that book. On top of that, Dakota's class made paper mache hot air balloons (from Oh The Places You'll Go). I signed up to help with that on Wednesday and what a mess! The teacher had some kind of paper mache solution that worked really well, but it was slimy and quite messy. (I'd only ever used diluted Elmer's glue and this stuff was better.) Some of the kids really enjoyed the process and loved sticking their hands in the goop but there were a few who really didn't like it and even one boy who gagged a little.

Here's a picture of a few of them. I don't know what was used to form the balloons initially, but I think it was a Styrofoam cup with balled up newspaper on top. Then it was covered with strips of newspaper which dried overnight and then another layer of atlas paper strips. (I only helped with the atlas strips.)

I wasn't able to take any pictures during the process because my hands were covered in goop but it was a really fun project to do with the kids. As I was leaving I snapped a quick picture of Dakota playing with a little boy during math center time. They have a bunch of mini solo cups and sheets of card stock which they were attempting to make into a tall tower. There was a lot of laughing and screeching when their tower would fall over. It was cute!