Egg Carton Crafts - Moon

We don't do a lot of crafts here. We do have lots and lots of stuff going on, but it's mostly all about building with blocks, digging and maybe sometimes drawing with markers. But painting, cutting and gluing stuff together into something new - we don't do much of that. Most of my attempts at introducing a craft idea are met with a "yeah, cool, but not now" shoulder shrug or an outright resistance. Still, sometimes the stars line up just right... Like for today's egg carton craft.

Even though M is totally into garbage trucks right now, he still spends a whole lot of time on his "old" interests, space exploration being one of them. In fact, he insisted we pick up America in Space: NASA's First 50 Years  book from the library (it was on display) and has been leafing through it in his spare time.

So late last night he had an idea to make a mock-up lunar surface for his plastic astronauts to practice. It had to be big enough for his lunar module 3D puzzle too. I had an empty egg carton laying around and asked if he would need it. YES!

Today he dug up some sand and sifted it to get rid of contaminants not present in lunar soil (his explanation, not mine). He then cut the carton in half (he only wanted to use the top of it) and spread half a bottle of glue on it. Then it was as simple as dumping sand on top and waiting for it to dry. But wait, Moon has rocks on it, doesn't it? So I went to dig through my supplies for another bottle of glue while M went to the yard to find  some rocks. They had to be just right - small and sparkly.

It was interesting to observe him looking for rocks. He gets easily bored and frustrated with large tasks and I was afraid that was going to happen here as well (since he wanted "a lot of rocks"). But he broke the task down into smaller, more manageable chunks - "now I'll go get 4 rocks and then - 3 more" and ended up collecting 20 or so of them.

Then he glued them onto the sand-covered carton in just the right spots, making sure to leave enough smooth surface for the lunar module to land on (the Sea of Tranquility, you know). And he covered the glue with some more sand. And then we waited (I used the time to make a tiny American flag with a flag sticker, a toothpick and some air-dry clay).

Finally, it was time to put everything together. Black paper first (the darkness of Space), then the Earth (M's WorldBank piggy bank). Then the freshly minted lunar surface. Finally, the astronauts (in white) and cosmonauts (in red), the lunar landing module and the flag were carefully placed. I stepped away to get something and returned back to "The Eagle has landed!" announcement.