Mardi Gras at After School Club

We have been lucky to not be badly affected by current economic times, however, I have indirectly been affected in a bit of a trickle down affect. The two courses I was to teach for Banff's Community Courses were canceled due to lack of enrollment and the budget has been cut on the After School Program's Recycled Art Program, now I go in the first Monday of each month, rather than ever Monday. So, today was the day! I really love this program, the kids are a lot of fun, and I think it is important to teach them that they can make things while re using, recycling, and reducing.



Today we made Mardi Gras masks :) The colors were so cheerful that it took me out of a present cold and cough inspired funk. When I work with the kids I often adapt crafts to use as many recycle components as possible. For this project we used:

- cardboard food boxes
- photocopied mask template
- recycled tissue paper from gifts, that were already cut in squares from a previous project
- pencil
- white glue
- scissors
- hole punch
- pom poms, sequins, feather
- straws

The kids cut their mask template out of paper and then glued it onto cardboard, then cut out the cardboard. They needed help with cutting out the eye holes and with the hole punch that we used to make two hole on one side of the mask. We then wrapped the tissue squares, one by one, on the bottom of a pencil, dripped it in glue, and stuck it onto the front of the mask. The kids did this for as long as they wanted to, then they glued on sequins, feathers, and pom poms. When they were finished we put the two straws together (the articulated ends facing away from each other) and threaded one end through the two holes.




This was a fun project that took about an hour but could have easily taken more depending on how much embellishing was done. I would say it can be for all age as long as an adult can help.