PROUD MOMMY MOMENT!!!!

OK, I really need to share this with all of you. Zoe just participated in her school project fair with her friend, Diana...they did a project on the Chinese Zodiac. (Zoe wants to study China, and Diana was adopted from China, so it seemed a good fit!) Being the crafty little girls that they are, we came up with a couple of activities that would put those talents to good use. When I tell you that they worked hard, I mean they worked HARD! We had 3 "playdates" where they did nothing but work on these activities! First, they used clay to make a mold of each of the "cast of characters." (There are 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac.) While they dried, they painted a mask for each animal. Then they painted the clay animals, and then they decorated the masks.

For the mask decorations they used ALL KINDS of goodies! They used A LOT of glitter, plain pipe cleaners, striped pipe cleaners, pom poms and colorful feathers. They had a BALL!!!

We mounted the masks on a tri-fold posterboard. Next to each mask we put a printout of each animal. We listed the animal name, the chinese symbol for that animal, and some of the characteristics associated with that particular animal. We also listed animal compatibility. Way cool.

The girls also put together a Chinese Zodiac word search for people to take with them. They didn't need any guidance from me on how to do this! I did the actual entering of info into the computer, but they are the ones who told me what to enter.

The girls put in roughly about 15 hours working on this project. I am beyond proud of the 2 of them. They worked hard, and they produced amazing results. What a wonderful life lesson. While the pictures hardly do the real thing justice, I hope that you enjoy them anyway. Here are some of my favorites.

Oh, FH wanted to get in on the action, too.....

Here is the posterboard that sat on the card table.

The Monkey

The Rabbit

The Dragon

The Snake

The Tiger

The Rooster

Here they are, the cast of characters!

The Monkey (I think this might be my personal favorite. Maybe...it's so hard to decide!)

The Tiger

The Rat (Look at the arms, and the tail! How clever are these girls?! This one is also in the running for my favorite!)