Preschool Project: Strawberry Basket Houses

Time for another Preschool Project, brought to you by the newest teacher in the co-op corps!

(The Preschool Projects are pieces that I would like to share with the understanding that there is an emphasis on the process more than the product itself. Doing something with the little people requires one to be much more “in the moment” and renders the real time photo shoots nearly impossible. Glue, scissors, and little people moving quickly, low to the ground do not make for an ideal photo shoot setting. But I feel like there are many of you who also have little people around, and we are always looking for a good project to do with them, whether it is in a formal school setting or just at home.)

The project for the day was to make “houses” out of strawberry baskets.

(I have been saving these all summer.)

I set out all manner of things to construct our houses with pipe cleaners, feathers, raffia, colored masking tape, and the gel glue.

Some of the kids kept their containers right side up and made sweet baskets.

For the baskets, they pulled the pipecleaner through, and placed it where they wanted it, but they needed a tiny bit of help securing the end to make it stay.

Others turned them over and got into the “house” thing.

To make the roof, we turned one carton over, and cut the short side at the corner. I counted the number of ‘ribs’ on the short side, and matched that number on the “long” side and then cut the rest  off, so they were both the same length. You could either leave the bottom of the basket attached, for stability, or cut it out, and just have a right angle. The roof does not fit exactly on the top, so the kiddies needed help securing the roof. We used the tape, and some wrapped short sections of pipe cleaner around to secure them.

One little friend was very interested in tying the raffia.

Some of the older kids got more involved.

Note the grass in the front and the back yard!
He carried on until the roof was completely “shingled”.  And that was all his own creation. I helped him break off the pieces of tape in the colors he specified to the lengths that he specified. It was so impressive.

This really worked out well in the end. There was enough flexibility to keep everyone occupied. And everyone went away with a house (or basket) to take home.

Happy summer fruit and happy little-person crafting!