Choo-choo!

Another book project! "Freight Train" by Donald Crews is a favourite in our house. If you love trains and rainbow colours and fantastically simple artwork then get this book. 

In the summer I was given two huge old rolls of newsprint paper. Huge. And I thought this book would make a perfect collaborative art project with the boys. We had a snowy, no school holiday, so I finally pulled a roll out of the shed. The inside of the tube is full of spider webs and dead bugs, but the boys thought that was cool, so whatever. Anyways, I let them pick a page from the book to copy (thankfully they both wanted the same page, so there was no fight) and off we went. The boys painted the background on their own (I traced a trestle bridge for Jacob to paint over) and then I cut out each train car, in the correct colour, and the boys each picked three to complete. They carefully copied the cars in the book. Then we did the tender and engine together because they did fight over who was going to do the best part. After it was hung on the wall it was noticed that we forgot the steam so I let them sponge it on with strict instructions to NOT paint the wall. Surprisingly they didn't paint the wall. 

Here it is:

Afterwards Jacob insisted on making a smaller pencil drawing all on his own. Here's a cute picture where he is working on it. It turned out fabulous, by the way.

I told you it was cute! What a little sweetie!!