I’d been wanting to do this art project for quite a few years. This year, we finally did it. Some of the students said it was their favorite one all year.
First of all they were asked to bring in a jar. I try and tell them what to bring on Monday, and that way we have all week long for those who forget. I also try to bring in a few extras so that no one is left out. I am very forgetful myself, so I do have empathy for people like me.
A week before the actual art day we painted the lids red. This was a mess. The directions I had said to use oil-based paint, and I’ll never do it again. It took like a month to dry, seriously. We had red paint all over our hands, on the bathroom doors, on girls’ white veils-- it was a real mess.
Then at the first art session (ours are usually on Friday) we used epoxy (from Hobby Lobby) to glue down the little trees and animals onto the insides of the lids. I had bought enough objects for everyone to have at least one, so we drew numbers and they lined up to pick their tree, animal, or hay bales. They were told the week before that they could also bring in anything they wanted to put in the bottom of their jar. One of the most creative ones was a Lego sculpture.
We could have done this two days later, but we just waited until the following Friday. We then filled the jars almost to the top with water, added a dash of silver glitter and two drops of glycerin (available at CVS drugstores) to make the water a little thicker so that the glitter lingers in the water longer before floating down, and screwed the lids on tight.
We only had one snow day here this winter, but it snows inside our little globes every day.
