Last Friday, Andrea came home with her notebook and another homework. They will be studying about the letter "A" this week and they are being asked to bring an item that starts with the short sound of the letter "A" (i.e. like in a-nimal) for their Show-and-Tell last Monday. I immediately thought of "Apple". But then I realized that most of the kids will probably bring that. And then, I thought of "Ant". I initially considered catching a couple of black ants and putting them in a bottle for Andrea to bring to school until my husband told me the ants will probably be dead by Monday.
But... dead ants are still ants right???
All right fine, that idea was scrapped and I decided to make Andrea a toy ant from felt instead.
Thank you Ant Smasher (i.e. Android game) for being our inspiration on ant physiological proportions. My husband was a little particular when it came to that.
"Don't you think the legs are too long? Can you make them shorter?"
"The body should be longer."
"Ants don't look like that."
"Where are the pincers? Ants don't smile, they have pincers."
Last time I involve you in the creative process of any of my projects, sweetie.
A closer look at the ant's mouth my husband insisted on:
We used orange felt, pipe cleaners, polyester stuffing and googly eyes. We didn't really have a pattern. I drew one on paper using the ant images on Ant Smasher as reference and then cut the pieces for the head, body and bottom. I didn't get to prepare a tutorial because I was doing trial and error for this version and then rushing to make sure it was ready by Sunday evening so that Andrea could take it to school last Monday. I'll try to make another one this weekend and document the steps for a proper tutorial.
In any case, Andrea was really happy with it. She plays Ant Smasher so she likes ants in general. And she was really excited to bring it to school. It's still in school now. They need it there for a week and she gets it back today, Friday.
I wonder what our homework will be for next week?
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