A Silly Book & Turkey Balloon Prints!
After reading Alison Jackson’s “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie” we decided to create some Turkey Balloon Print Art! I’m excited to walk you through how we made this fun Turkey art with balloons, so let’s get started…
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Summary of “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie”
“I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie” by Alison Jackson and illustrated by Judith Byron Schachner is a silly book about an Old Lady who arrives at her family’s house for thanksgiving with a pie. But instead of handing it to them, she gobbles it up whole. The craziness doesn’t end there, she begins drinking and eating everything in sight. You watch her grow bigger and bigger as the text grows longer and longer; naming each thing she ate and why. I won’t give away the ending but I will say it gets a little scary for a moment there when she swallows some bread and you know the book rhymes, lol.
Reading this book was a tradition in my classroom and it continues to be a tradition in my home as well. Highly recommended.
How We Made Turkey Balloon Prints…
We tend to keep the activities as simple as possible around here. We’re not interested in complicated or costly. We are also all about fostering independence. For this activity we blew up a balloon with a little bit of air, not too much because we wanted the painting to be small to fit on the paper. We’ve done balloon prints before and had a lot of fun making them; especially the elephant butts lol, you can see that here.
This time we decided to paint turkey’s. We chose the six different colors of the rainbow, substituting pink for red as it’s my daughters favorite color. Then she began painting her turkey. I will say, in order for this to work you should either choose something simple to paint or paint quickly. Because the challenge is to stamp the balloon onto the paper before it dries. Also, these turkeys were bigger than our previous balloon prints so it required rolling them in all directions to make sure the entire turkey transferred over.
The first time, 1/2 of the turkey’s head didn’t make it onto the paper but she re-stamped it and it came out just fine. If you watch our Instagram story highlights of this activity you will see my daughter was a bit disappointed with how it turned out. I took that as a teaching moment to reinforce a Growth Mindset outlook. I suggested that the turkey was in fact a bit blurry because its like an old school cartoon character running, because its almost Thanksgiving, lol.
What Happened Next?
We tried again. This time we used what we learned from the first experience and painted a little quicker & squished the balloon together. And it worked! The turkey came out a lot better and important lessons were learned (which is really the point 😉 ) Keep trying, mistakes are merely a way for you to get information that will help you next time, and ask for help when needed.
These moments when things don’t go as planned are awesome. I haven’t always felt that way. I’m a recovering Perfectionist; which is why I named my Blog Parenting Not Perfection because I need to see those words, I need the reminder that its okay if things don’t work out how you would have liked.
As a kid I was taught that people are either good at something or not, I carried that with me for a LONG time. But you know what?! Its just not true. Anyone can learn and improve their skills if they put the time and effort in.
I still get frustrated and sometimes have that knee-jerk reaction to give up. But then I remind myself that I have the opportunity to pass along another kind of message to my daughter. Things won’t always be perfect, in fact, they rarely will be perfect. But that’s not what is important.
Mistakes don’t mean anything or say anything about you, they are there to provide you with helpful information so you can achieve your goal. Parents attitude is everything! If you want to learn more about Growth Mindset for yourself & for your children I recommend BigLifeJournal.com (not sponsored, just love them).
Wait?!? Am I Supposed To Be Making One Too?
I highly recommend getting hands on and doing art projects with your child. If you’d rather not, thats okay too, but please do not correct anything they do. If you want the art to look a certain way – make your own.
Especially if your child is little, its okay if it doesn’t turn out the way you imagined. Maybe its what they imagined. Also, its a process. They are learning. They will learn more through trial and error than if you correct them or do it for them. All they will learn if you “help” is that they didn’t do a good enough job on their own or they can’t do it; not exactly the message you want to give your kid. Am I right?!?
Believe me, I know it can be really challenging to let them make “mistakes”. Try doing the project along side them. It will allow you to focus on your own work, give them appropriate modeling of how to use the materials, and show them that you like art too! A lot of what I talk about in “What about the Sensory Mess?” applies to Art projects as well, you might wanna check it out! I love how each art has its own identity. I would suggest Turkey Balloon Prints if you’re looking for a fun and interesting art activity to connect with your child.
Materials We Used
- “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie” by Alison Jackson (from the library or buy one here)
- Balloons
- Paintbrush
- Paint
- Palette (to hold paint)
- Paper
- Tray (to keep the table from getting messy)
- Scissors (to cut the design out – optional)
Click HERE for Free Printable copy (Email Subscribers Only)
How to Make Turkey Balloon Prints?
- Get a balloon for each person.
- Blow up the balloon as big as you want the balloon prints to be.
- Squeeze the paint colors you’ve chosen onto the palette.
- Get a paintbrush for each color or use a paper towel to wipe the brush between colors.
- Have a damp cloth or baby wipe on hand to wipe the paint off the balloon in between prints.
- Lay the white cardstock paper on the tray.
- Pick up a balloon.
- Decide what kind of design you want.
- Paint a design onto the balloon.
- Hold the balloon over the white paper in the desired location.
- Press the balloon onto the paper in a stamping motion, if its a large design roll the balloon in every direction as you have it squished on the paper and lift.
- The design will be printed onto the paper.
- If you want to make more of the same design; simply add more of each paint color on top of the faded design on the balloon (no need to wipe).
- If you want to make a different design print; wipe the balloon clean with the damp cloth or baby wipe.
- You can make as many designs and prints as you like using the same balloon.
- Have fun and experiment. Remember what painter Bob Ross used to say, “We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy accidents”.
- Allow time to dry.
Click HERE for Free Printable copy (Email Subscribers Only)
Wait, There’s More…
I believe you can easily strengthen communication skills and foster independence all while playing and connecting with your child. To help you do this; I’ve created a FREE printable for each activity called, “Communicating & Connecting”.
It will give you a list of suggestions I’ve found very helpful as a Mom & as a special education teacher; to help you build lifelong skills. Please don’t feel obligated to do everything on the list (but if you do, you’re a rockstar 😉 ).
As a Thank You for subscribing; this is a special FREEBIE for our Email Subscribers Only. 🙂 Click here if you’ve already subscribed. Otherwise, Sign Up below to get the password & access to our entire FREE Printables Library today! 😉
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