Some Special Flowers to Express Emotions

Spanish

This craft came to me after reading "Érase una vez un niño comepalabras" thinking about how to help my 4 years old son to express his emotions when he does not feel able to communicate with words.

                               

 

MATERIALS:

• A small unpainted clay or plaster flowerpot  (plaster best, you have to paint less layers).
• Acrylic paint.
• Varnish.
• Brush.
• String or narrow ribbon to decorate the pot.
• White or light colored cardboard.
• Pencils and colors.
• Adhesive books plastic cover (I recommend the brand "Aironfix" by the thickness of the plastic that is more rigid than others I've used).
• Wooden sticks as the ones used for ice lollies (I bought a package of painted sticks in "Abacus" is where I find them more easily. If you live in EEUU or Canada, you are lucky having "Michaels" shops).
• Hot glue gun or strong adhesive suitable for plastic.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1 First paint the flowerpot, choose a couple of colors to match. To start, I recommend painting the first layer of white because the brown mud is visible when the paint's dried.

2 Once the first layer dries, use the two chosen colors  to paint the flowerpot into two parts, the top and bottom as shown in the image. Let it dry and apply a layer of varnish to brighten and protect the color.

 3. Then use a string or ribbon that you like to cover the line between the two colours and as a decorative detail. I used a plaited rope that would not look too narrow as the simple rope. I've sticked it around the flowerpot with hot glue ..

                                    

4. Now comes my favourite part, draw the outline of the hands of the kids in cardboard. First let them try it by themselves, it is important to encourage them to do things for themselves. Then you can help them better to trace the drawing. You will need to draw as many hands silhouettes as emotions you want to work. I used the emotions that appear in the story “Érase una vez un niño comepalabras” :

• Happiness
• Sadness
• Love
• Anger
• Fear

5. Now we've got the 5 hands we need. Draw each emotion gesture in the middle of each silhouette. As my son doesn't like to draw, my husband gave me a hand. He is an artists and drew some funny faces, but it's better that the kids make ther own drawings
.

 

6. Once all the emotions are drawn, we have to laminate them as it's going to be a material to manipulate  and in this way we avoid them to be easily ruined . Laminate both sides carefully, paying attention to not leave bubbles. If you try to take it off, you will probably breack the card so it's better to leave it with wrinkles if you see few.

NOTE: Icut out the shape before I laminated it, but I recommend to cut it out after sticking the "Aironfix". Just because you don't need to cut out twice and the edges will look better
.

7. With a gun of hot glue, sitck the stick at the back side of the hand silhoutte. It has to look like a lollipop.

 

8. Fill the pot with something that can leave these "flowers" standing. I used brown coloured padding for teddies, simulating ground. You can use paper shavings or whatever comes to your mind.

                                    

Do you like it? Now you have to explain the kiddos how to use these "flowerhands" (or whatever you want to call it hehe).

THE ACTIVITY:

The idea is really simple, kids only hav to hold one of the hands when they feel like they don't want to talk.
For example, your son is sad because the water has dropped from the cup and he thinks that he's done something wrong. He doesn't want to talk although you ask him what's wrong (you have to pretend that you don't know what has happened, the most important thing is to encourage him to express his emotions). You show him the flowerpot and tell him to hold one of the hands to show you how he is feeling. In this way, he expresses his emotions although he is not speaking and you can talk to him about that it has been an accident and that he shouldn't be worried about it, maybe you can clean it together and he will feel better.
He can understand that there is a solution and a way to feel better.

Do you like the idea? Can you think about any other way to use this craft?