How to Make a Cabbage Paper Mache

To celebrate National Nutrition Month, Yohan's school hosted a fun hat making contest. All the students were required to create a paper hat with vegetable or fruit theme. Parents of preschool students were asked to do the task in behalf of the little ones.

This post also serves as my entry to Kailani's Group Writing Project #1 - "How To".

Jules and I thought hard about Yohan's hat. We decided to make a cabbage hat. Let me share some photos of our cabbage hat making...

Materials:
3 pcs. balloons
1 roll paper napkin
paint brush
flour
water
spray paint (green)
glue gun
scissors
glass containers

Procedure:

1. Inflate the balloons. Tape each balloon on an open glass container, preferably a wide mouth one. Coat a thin amount of flour or cornstarch on all balloons.

2. Put sheets of paper towel around the balloon by wetting each piece with a mixture of 1 part flour and 2 parts water (blend well). Make sure you wet every part of the paper napkin to ensure it sticks well to the balloon. (You can also use newspaper instead of paper napkin).


3. Coat all three balloons with layers of paper napkin using the flour and water mixture.


4. Let the paper mache balls dry under the sun.


5. When the paper mache balls are completely dry, pop the balloons inside.


6. Paint all the three balloons with green and let them dry again under the sun.


7. As soon as the paint is dry, start cutting the leaves of the cabbage. You will use 2 balls for the leaves. Set aside the 3rd ball for later.


8. Draw some veins on each leaf . Use a dark green marker.


9. Glue the leaves to the base of the cabbage. Use a glue gun for better results.


10. Assemble leaves by layers to make it look like a realistic cabbage.


Below is a photo of Yohan and some of his classmates proudly wearing their hats. It was great to see kids wearing different kinds of vegetable/fruit hats.


Yohan won best hat in kinder. There was one winner for every level. All the hard work was worth it.