Kids Craft: Monkey on a Stick

Whenever my sister or I have to pick up our two oldest children from school, Ava has a meltdown. An embarrassing, loud, tear filled meltdown in the middle of the parking lot. Every day the same thing causes the monster meltdown….separating Ava from Tyler.

She becomes a hysterical, drama filled little girl screaming “TYLERRRR, TYLERRRR, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE! I WILL MISS MY COUSIN!!!”

Always at this point, I start sweating and panicking. I start making ridiculous promises. Like, when we get home we can bake an apple pie, or make play dough, or we can’t paint lots of…stuff! Please, please stop crying (or just don’t cry so loud – everyone is staring!)

Many many of those panic filled promises end up as crafts in this blog. They are all a result of the temporary separation of Ava from her dear cousin Tyler. (Did I mention my sister and I live exactly TWO blocks away from each other? And did I mention that Ava and Tyler are in the same pre-k class EVERY morning?)

So yesterday I started panicking before I picked them up. Around 11:00 yesterday I knew I had to come up with a way to distract her. But, what could I do? I went in my basement and found some monkey wrapping paper and grabbed some old paintbrushes. I decided to make monkeys on a stick. I know, weird.

BUT – it worked. As soon as we reached the parking lot I handed them the monkeys. They were so excited about the monkey’s googly eyes. They shook them like little mini maracas the entire ride home. When it was time to drop Tyler off their were no tears! I was so happy!

I wonder what I can glue on a stick for tomorrow?

KIDS CRAFT: MONKEY ON A STICK

Materials:

• Paper scraps (wrapping paper, craft paper, whatever you have on hand)
• Straws or Popsicle sticks
• Glue
• Googely eyes
• Scissors

Directions:

Step 1: Find some wrapping paper, and old birthday card, pretty much anything you can glue googley eyes to.

Step 2: Cut out an animal and glue on the googley eyes.

Step 3: Find an old paintbrush and cover the bristles with glue.

Step 4: Cut out 2 pieces of heavier paper and glue together. I used the cover of a coloring book. (You want something sturdy to glue the face to.)

Step 5: Smooth glue on to the top piece of paper.

Step 6: Then glue the googley face on!

 

Update 3/24/15: Now that our kids are old enough to read on their own, we use popsicle sticks instead and use their little monkey creations as bookmarks!

Happy Crafting,

Daniele

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