I just knew I needed to include There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!in my Back to School book series. The Old Lady inhales all kinds of first day of school items.
Children would love creating a There Was an Old Lady mask to go with the book. I tried to come up with a simple mask that would go with all her books. This mask will also be easy for you to replicate.
Creating the There Was an Old Lady Mask
Supplies
- Paper plates with ruffled edges
- Scissors
- Crayola Multi-Ethnic Washable Tempera Paints
- Paint (Black, Gray, Yellow, BlueO
- Glue
Steps for Creating the Mask
Cutting Out the Mask
You will need to start by cutting out the old lady face, hair bun, headband, and glasses out of the paper plates. First you will need to fold the plate in half. Then start by cutting on one side of the fold. When you get to where you want the nose, dip below the fold with your scissors and cut it out. Then cut out the eye holes. Next you can use part of the bottom section to cut out the hair bun. The glasses and headband can be cut out of half a second plate. The glasses are made by tracing the square eye section and half the nose area onto the plate folded in half. Then you just cut them out.
Insights:
The old lady on the cover of the Swallowed Some Books has hair band. The other covers don’t have her wearing one. You could leave it off the mask if you want to use the mask with other books.
The glasses worn by the old lady books change from book to book. Many have her wearing glasses with round frames. You may want make round glasses instead of square ones.
Painting the Mask
- Most of the There Was an Old Lady books show her having pale skin. We didn’t have peach paint at home. We ended up mixing brown and white paint to make here skin. Multicultural Colors would be perfect for this project. Your children could paint the skin to match theirs if you like.
- The Old Lady’s hair and bun were painted with gray and black paint. We fork painted her hair to give it texture.
- The glasses weren’t painted. They are white on the book’s cover. Your children may want to outline the glasses with marker like we did.
- The headband was painted in alternating stripes of blue and yellow. It could be any color. We tried to match it to the book.
Putting the Mask Together
You will need to glue the glasses, headband, and bun onto the facial mask section. We tried to make it like the book, but you can glue them on however you want.
More Books in Our Back to School book series
Llama Llama Misses Mama (coming soon)
The Gingerbread man Loose in School (coming soon)
