Russian Crafts

I mentioned in a previous post that as we did history, we just kept skipping Russia over and over.  I decided to remedy that by backing up and covering Russia in one big go, which was probably better anyway since it allowed us to read a nice pile of Russian folktales.  The favorite there was definitely Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave as told by Marianna Meyer, but we read several others.

It also allowed us to do a couple of Russian based craft projects.  First, we made little St. Basil-like towers with paper towel tube bottoms and paper mache tops.  In the project instructions I found for this one, it suggested making the onion domes out of balloons that are just tiny.  I figured that wouldn’t be the best since balloons make it harder to dry.  We just balled up paper into basically the right shape instead.

Then we painted them.  I think they look cute.

The other project we did was to make faux-Matryoshka dolls.  Those are the Russian nesting dolls.  I think I saw this idea online somewhere, but I couldn’t find it to link it.  Since making actual nesting dolls would have been difficult, we made paper cones in different sizes then colored them.

That’s mine in the front of this picture.  Sometimes I don’t do the crafts with the kids, but I know they really like it better when I do, so I try to participate when I can.  BalletBoy pronounced this one a hit because, “it didn’t involve any popsicle sticks.”  Uh-oh. I might need to rethink some of my ideas for our next unit on the Industrial Revolution.

Advertisement