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Friday, January 30, 2009

Hanimals*

Every Monday Peter comes home with five books in his backpack. They are called Baggy Books. They get their catchy little name from the fact that all five books are in a Ziploc bag.

Two of the books are at his reading level and I have to listen to him read them.

The other three books are more advanced and he is supposed to listen to me read them. This is part of his kindergarten homework.

Yesterday we pulled out the final book for the week.

I was a little perplexed when I looked at it.

It was a PICTURE book. Good, I thought. We will be done with this in no time.

But as we flipped through the pages I knew I was in for an art project.

The title of the book was Hanimals. And the pictures inside were of hands that had been painted to look like animals. IMG_3904

Hands painted to look like animalsHanimals. Get it?

Of course Peter wanted to paint his hand to look like one of the Hanimals.

So we got out the paint and I told him to pick an easy one.

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He picked the squid. Easy enough even for a non-painter like me!

I mixed black, white, blue and green and I think I got pretty close to the color in the picture.

Then I painted his hand. We had to get out the hair dryer to speed things up a little because we were due at a play date in 30 minutes.

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Then I painted white dots and black dots to look like the suction cups.

(Look how happy he is! Sometimes a little unplanned activity and a lot of mess can go a long way to brighten a kid’s day. I’ve got to remember this.)

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Then we used a little Elmer’s glue to glue a googly eye on his hand.

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Pretty cool, huh? I used regular washable paint so it came right off THREE HOURS later. He wouldn’t wash it off until we showed Daddy.

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Here are a few other sample pictures from the book. In case you are inspired to paint your kid’s hands.

A whole gallery of Hanimals can be found here.

*Unfortunately this book is out of print but I did find a few used copies for sale on Amazon.com.

The creator of the book and all of the Hanimals is Mario Mariotti and the photographer is Roberto Marchiori. The book we were looking at was printed by Green Tiger Press and the copy write date was 1980.

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21 comments:

Mari said...

I've seen some of those pictures but didn't know it was a book. What a fun project!

jennwa said...

Peter sure loved that squid. I know I will doing some of these this weekend.

Maggie said...

That is AWESOME!!!! I bet he had a blast. What a fun book!!! And hooray for Mom for being up to the challenge!! LOL

Jill @ Sneaky Momma said...

I used to teach first grade before having my girls. I remember those baggy books! Looks like you're making some wonderful connections with your son. :)

Chris said...

Wow! I'm going to have to do this with my 7-year-old! I think I'll wait until summer so we can do it outside, though. :)

Thanks for sharing!!!

Robin hill farm said...

A little boys dream. Ha ha. :)

He & Me + 3 said...

What a cool book and a cool mom you are. How fun! Great job painting too.

~Jamie said...

Those are really cool! I bet that my kid would play with those for like five days straight! It's the perfect rainy day activity!

3 Bay B Chicks said...

I know it is late at night, but this post is killing me right now, Beth. Are you looking at the "jazz hands" that are modeling the hanimals? Also, can you really say the word "hanimals" without laughing?

This is great and one are one great Mom for staying the course with this.

-Francesca

Badness Jones said...

That's awesome! I totally need to get that book so I can use that idea with the kids at art camp this summer. I bow to you, art goddess!

Rebekah said...

Cute! Loveit Loveit

Kim said...

You did a great job Beth! A very creative idea.

Debbie said...

I've been seeing photos of people's hands painted up like this on Facebook and other places. Must be a new rage. And they are irresistible.

Denise said...

Such a great project.

Grandma T said...

Adorable! And so are you!

Carmen said...

How fun. I'll put a "bookmark" by your blog.

Alicia The Snowflake said...

How cool! That looks like fun!

Anonymous said...

That is totally cool. And thank you for an activity that I can do with the girls on tomorrow's day from school!

Jaina said...

Those things are so cool. You are obviously the coolest mom for helping him do that. Your paint color turned out great!

AlaneM said...

I think this makes you qualify for the cool mom award. (not that you didn't before :)

Heather said...

AWESOME job!!! I LOVE it! ;-)