Dig Into Reading with #TBCCrafters

It’s been a while since I’ve been feeling crafty but with my library’s summer reading program set to start in a few days I had to get ready to rock!

The theme for summer 2013 is “Dig Into Reading” and I saw a cute garden craft on Pinterest that I wanted to recreate. I played around with ways to get the most use from the craft and here is what I came up with.

Supplies:

• Velcro
• Scissors/box cutter
• Felt pieces (different colors and shapes)
• Card Stock (different colors)
• Popsicle/craft sticks
• Tape
• A lid for a cardboard box
• Paper
• Egg cartons
• Paint

I found a template for flower pots and copied it onto brown construction paper. My student workers and I laminated the pots and cut them out. Each pot has a piece of velcro attached to it.

I found the flower templates through a Google search and printed them on cardstock, cut them out and taped them to a popsicle/craft stick.  I also attached a piece of velcro to the front of each flower.

The felt pieces come in a variety of colors and shapes. These were bought at a store and pre-cut. A small piece of velcro was attached to each one.

The student workers painted the egg cartons brown (to look like dirt!) and decorated the lid to look like a flower box. We used the box cutter to add a slit on the egg carton in order to hold the pots in place.

For this game I plan to have children match the flowers to the pot by color, shape and size. There will be an additional challenge to encourage children to make patterns. I plan to add different things to the game, letters, numbers, more shapes and colors.

Our final product:

When this is displayed, I will have a plastic vase to keep the unused flowers, a small container with a lid for the extra playing pieces and a sign encouraging play.

So, do you have a Thrilling Thursday craft?

Link up with The Blogger Connection Crafters!

Links to templates:
Flower pots: www.treasuresdromdj.net

Flowers: homemadebyjill.blogspot.com