I have a confession to make. Up until last month, I’d never heard of or read Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon. Can you believe it? I guess it’s possible that it was read to me as a child. I’ll have to ask my mom about that one. Can you believe his name was Crockett? I kind of love it. Definitely has character.

About a month ago, I ordered this fantastic treasury, HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics: A Child’s First Collection, and I am so glad I did! Just one of the many lovely classics in this text is Harold and it was love at first sight for me. The endearing line drawings highlight the simplicity of the story and the way picture flows to picture is almost magical. Harold’s adventures take us beyond his bedroom for a moonlit walk, a sail on the open seas, a picnic of pies on a deserted beach, up a mountain, high into the sky in a hot air balloon, through a crowded city, and back to Harold’s cozy room again. Each step in the plot comes directly from Harold’s imagination and it’s just a delightful read, both for the child and the adult.

This week, we’re reading Harold and the Purple Crayon every morning and doing a related purple activity together. Yesterday’s activity: covering a balloon in glue-soaked yarn in order to create some sort of 3-D bowl thing. I have to admit, when we finished our project yesterday, I thought we were sunk.

“There goes homeschooling,” I thought to myself. “I’m obviously not cut out for teaching children.”

But guess what? Turns out, it worked! Oh, the joy of failure turned success!

Here’s how it all went down.

The materials. This is about as Pioneer Woman as I get. Sorry folks.

My crazy contraption designed to hold the balloon while we attempted to cover it in goopey strands of yarn. The fact that we only covered half the balloon is evidence of some short attention spans.

Can you see why I was worried? Thoughts running through my head: Was our ratio of water to glue correct? Does it matter if the strands of yarn are long or short? Will this thing ever dry? Will it actually harden? Is it structurally sound? What have I gotten myself into? That last thought probably came about the time I realized that the bathroom door was shut and our hands were covered in glue. Excellent. Note to self: Next time you’d like to wash your hands during and/or after an art activity, leave the bathroom door open.

Moving on.

I was worried. I didn’t want Pearl to be disappointed if all we ended up with was a purple glob of damp yarn. But then, with the magic of time…

Success! Look at our cute little bowl! Isn't it amazing?

Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to be quite as amazed as I was. I just about did a happy little dance in the kitchen this morning when I tapped the yarn and it was hard. And when we popped the balloon and this darling little nest bowl emerged? I could have cried.

Just a couple of the things you can do with it:

A fashionable little cap.

Or a sweet little bowl for your purple collections.

And I think I like it better as a bowl shape instead of the full balloon as planned. Much more functional this way.

So, yeah. It worked out.

Guess we won’t be quitting this homeschooling gig after all.

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