Frozen Foil Forest Bringing Poetry to Life

In sixth grade we memorized a poem. It starts like this, "Whose woods these are...."

Do you know it too? Probably. It's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

This well known poem, while full of great imagery, is great for introducing kids to poetry.

It is also fitting for these colder months of the year.

We wanted to bring the poem to life with an interesting multi-media collage art project; our Frozen Foil Forests.

Supplies for Frozen Foil Forests

• Construction Paper
• Epsom Salt
• Boiling Water
• Aluminum Foil
• Paintbrushes
• Scissors
• Glue

To start with we chose some darker colored construction paper and some ice paint for the sparkly, snowy ground. 

For our ice paint, I mixed up 1/2 cup boiling water and 1/2 cup Epsom salt and it made a ton! 

The kids started painting the ground for their forest, and while that was drying they continued painting other frosty pictures even mixing food coloring in with the paint.

Once the ground was dry, it was time to add the forest.

They glued strips of Aluminum foil on their ground to make the trunk of the frosty trees. 

Then they tore the strips into smaller pieces to create branches. For the branches, they only glued a small part to the trunk to allow them to stick out a bit from the page.

The girls took it upon themselves to add a little person and a horse to their forests too. After all, how can it go with the poem if there isn't someone watching it snow?

I love how cold the foil made the pictures feel, as if you were really looking into the snowy woods.

It was really easy for the kids to work with too.  Now I will have to come up with more reasons to work it into crafts!

Bringing poetry to life is a great way to get littler kids interested in poems; no memorizing needed!