March 8, 2012

Marble Painting


We painted with marbles! It's as easy as (and less messy than) it sounds.
I squirted some paint in a plastic bottle, dropped in a marble, and shook it up. (I promise she's not eating the bottle - just trying to screw on the lid.)


Then we took off the lid, dumped the marble into paper-lined bin, and let it roll around. The result was a fun, abstract work of art!


The project was inspired by the book:


Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig

I have no idea how this book ended up in our collection. (That actually happens more often than you might think.) When A brought it to me at naptime, I was honestly skeptical either of us would enjoy it, but by the end it won me over. This 1970 Caldecott Award winner is about a donkey who finds a perfectly round pebble that grants wishes to whomever holds it. When Sylvester sees a lion, he panics and wishes to be turned into a rock. Doing so causes the pebble to fall to the ground out of reach. Sylvester passes many months as a boulder and begins to give up hope, until one day his grief-stricken parents decide to picnic at a nice comfortable boulder and find a strange, perfectly round pebble lying nearby...

It's a simple story with classic themes that resonated not only with me, but with my sensitive three year old. We all know what it's like to feel sad and alone, and we all love a happy ending.


I'm linking up to:

3 comments:

  1. We love marble painting, the higher walled container is a really good idea, we used baking sheets and the marbles went everywhere. That book looks great, I will have to get it from the library.

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  2. I never thought to do marble painting with Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. It totally makes sense. I need to remember to read that book to my kids, I don't think I have yet.

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  3. "I wish I were myself again, I wish I were my real self again!" My kids loved this book when they were young. I'll have to get it out and read it to my grandkids now!

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