Journey to Bethlehem (small world play)

I had plans to create a small world Bethlehem, and let the kids play in their own version of a nativity they created.

This year we went to a “local” (I think only Texans would say driving for over an hour to another town is local) live Nativity.  The church has created a beautiful recreation of Bethlehem you can walk through, and I want to do a post on that, but let’s face it, who wants to see endless picture of someone else’s field trip?  Okay, I often do, but mine don’t tend to be popular posts.

 

Materials: empty milk cartons, small cardboard boxes, brown acrylic paint, sand, black construction paper

 

First gather all of your materials together (Thank you Jeff for taking pictures).  Pour a small amount of the paint into a cup, then our some of the sand in.  Mix it together.

 

Now start painting your boxes.

 

It works best to spread the paint somewhat think, so it covers up the text and pictures on your cartons.

 

When you are done painting cut small squares of black construction paper to make doors and windows.

 

My kids wanted to be able to go into the houses, so we cut doors into most of them, and that made the kids quite happy.

 

The sand adds a nice bit of texture to the city, and the kids really liked it.

As I was looking at my pinterest boards, I just realized that at lot of my idea came from Sun Hats and Wellie Boots, I pinned the idea to come back to and remembered seeing it, but hadn’t read the post yet, but apparently she did almost the exact same thing.  So go love on her post because, isn’t it a great idea?

Then come back tomorrow to see our angels we make.