In Like a Lion

This cute lion was not the end result I had pictured when we started this craft.

In fact, my original plan was to make suns by finger painting paper plates.

Instead, they turned into lions.

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I gave the girls paper plates and put a glob of yellow and orange paint on each.

I told them to smear it around with their fingers.

They balked at that suggestion

“Too messy,” said AJ. Really?! They love to be messy, but apparently not today.

“I want a paint brush,” said Lizzie. Well, alright, paint brushes it is.

Now that they were happily equipped with paint brushes, they got to work.

They smeared and painted and made pretty orange and yellow paper plates.

I still assumed we were making suns.

After they dried, we got out the scissors and started cutting.

We cut lines around the edge starting at the outer edge up to the flat part of the plate. We cut them about one inch apart all the way around. Then we bent up every other strip.

“I need a black marker,” said Lizzie.

“What for?” I asked.

“It needs a face.”

“Oh, you’re going to give your sun a face. That’s cool”

“No Momma, it’s not a sun. We’re making lions.”

So, we drew the faces and hung our really cool lions up in the window.

Moral of the story: Sometimes your kids have better ideas than you do.