Sunday, September 11, 2011

Ella and the Seven Dresses

Ella loves fashion.  Every day she walks in wearing an adorable dress and clutching her backpack which holds one or two more for her to change into when the mood strikes her.  She has informed me that she plans to become a fashion designer one day and is encouraging me to add sewing to her Pre-K curriculum this year :)
I knew that Ella would adore Hannah and the Seven Dresses by Marthe Jocelyn.  And she did - except for the ending.  Hannah ends up wearing pants.  Ella wanted me to leave that part off when I read it for a second time (at her request).  Hannah may be swayed by the comfort of pants - but not Ella.  No, she is a dress girl through and through.

I asked Ella if she'd like to design some dresses using scrapbook paper/supplies and she was ecstatic.  I'd planned on just doing a few at a time but Ella was a dress designing machine.  She didn't stop until we'd finished all 7!  She did a fantastic job sorting through materials and matching colors.  Her only complaint was that it took too long for the glue to dry - she wanted to play with them right away!




What we did:  I used a cardboard template of a paper doll and we traced around her on patterned scrapbook paper.  Ella decided if the dresses should be sleeveless, short-sleeved, or long.  I cut the dresses out and then Ella went to town with glue and buttons, rick-rack, yarn, fabric flowers, and other things from my scrapbook stash.  Stay tuned . . . this project continues on Monday :)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

How cute! I have girls in my class that only wear dresses as well. This would be very fun to add to our centers. :)

Kat said...

I was thinking that if I try this in the classroom in the future I might have the boys design shirts.