She's Crafty

Storytime & Imagination Craft - "I Took the Moon for a Walk"

This week we read "I Took the Moon for a Walk" by Carolyn Curtis. It was illustrated by Alison Jay and I have to say how stunning I thought the illustrations were. The bright colors were perfect and her style really fit the overall imaginary theme of the book.


It is about a young boy who took an imaginary journey with the moon at nighttime, where they go places and discover the beauty of the World after dark. I loved the pictures of the boy literally holding the Moon's hand, like he really believed the Moon was there with him.


I didn't have a good imagination when I was a child so maybe this is why I loved this book so much. I was extremely shy and was afraid of people making fun of me and my ideas so I was the type that would just go along with what other people's ideas and imaginations were. Sad, I know, but it's ok because now that I have my own children I have made every effort I can to encourage their creativity and imagination.

So after reading the book (Daddy actually took a turn reading this story so it was super fun!), we talked about how if we took the moon for a walk, where would we want to take him. And then we made a cute illustration about it using a yellow cut-out circle of the moon.


Materials you will need:
- white sheet of construction paper
- yellow sheet of construction paper
- pencil
- large cup to draw a circle for the moon
- glue stick
- black marker
- crayons


Directions:
1. Put your large cup upside down on the yellow sheet of construction paper and use your pencil to trace the outline of the circle to make the moon. (I used an old subway cup I had, it seemed the perfect size)


2. Cut out the yellow circle.


3. While your child is cutting out the yellow circle, take the white sheet of construction paper and write at the top "If I took the moon for a walk, we would ____________________" and have your child finish the sentence while you write down exactly what they say.


4. Glue the moon (yellow circle) to the white sheet of construction paper.


5. Draw a face, arms and legs on the moon and a picture of yourself next to the moon or holding hands with the moon.



6. Now just finish illustrating the scene with crayons based on what you and the moon will be doing and it is finished!


Andy decided he wanted to take the moon to the Airplane Museum. I adored the facial expression he made on the moon and his legs all bent with red shoes just like in the story. I also enjoyed that he colored black around his paper to show that it was nighttime when the moon would be out.


My Luke is a HUGE dinosaur fanatic so he (of course!) decided he was going to take the moon to the Dinosaur Park. I asked him why he and the moon looked so sad and he said, "We aren't sad! We are just scared of all those dinosaurs!"  hahaha  Judging by the amount of static in Luke's hair, I am guessing he was REALLY scared!


I made sure to include myself in this project by talking about what places I would like to take the moon also. I feel like by doing this, it gave my kids more excitement to use their imagination to come up with some wild ideas of their own.

Happy Crafting!!

**I got the idea for this craft from "The Mailbox" a magazine for Teacher's.