Log Cabin Out of Paper Bags (Little House on the Prairie Craft)

Remember the colorful paper beads we made two weeks ago from magazine paper?  Well today the girls (3 years old) and I turned brown paper lunch bags into a log cabin using a similar technique.  My Little House on the Prairie enthusiasts had a great time with this project (and Mom had quite a bit of fun too).  We worked on it all throughout the day, but the mechanics of it are fairly simple.  Here are the instructions..

I took regular brown paper lunch sacks and cut them into six strips each.  Then we put glue along the edge of each strip and rolled them into logs around markers:

 At first we wrapped the strips around a single marker, but after everyone struggled with getting the marker out after it was wrapped, L came up with the idea of joining two markers together.  She seriously came up with that solution all by herself, and I was a very proud parent (and felt silly that I hadn't thought of that myself).  We also made some shorter logs to use for making a door and window.  

I think we ended up with 36 large logs.  I was going to have the kids count them and divide them into 4 groups, but they were too excited to get started.

I found a cardboard lid for the base, and showed the girls how to glue down our logs.  Then it was just a matter of building and building..

Most of the artwork we do around here involves glue sticks, not white glue, so the kids were very excited about trying their hand at squeezing out lines of white glue.  The building process took all day because we'd add a couple more layers of logs each time and then wait for them to dry before continuing in order to have a bit more structural integrity.  I also added some supports in the corner from pieces of paper bags so everything wouldn't collapse.

This is was very much a collaborative project between me and the kids, but I made every effort to let them do the bulk of the work.  After adding a folded piece of construction paper for the roof, our log cabin was done:

Of course we read some of our Little House picture books throughout the day.

I have to admit that our final masterpiece was really neat.  It was also a fun toy, as I took out the girls' Little House paper dolls...

 

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