Melting Zebra!

As Makenna's year in 3rd grade is coming to an end, we knew from Kiley's 3rd grade year that Makenna would soon be assigned an animal report. After a lot of thought and many "change-of-minds," Makenna finally settled on the zebra. She did an incredible job of searching for information on the internet both at home and at the computer lab at school. She wrote an excellent report that required very little editing on my part (another writer in the family perhaps?). Next came the optional, although mandatory in Makenna's mind, art project. Kiley did her 3rd grade animal report on macaws and our friend, Jaye, made a clay model of a macaw, which we cooked for the clay to harden and Kiley painted. This time around, Makenna also called on Jaye for a clay model of a zebra. With the project due a couple of days after Memorial Day and Jaye's presence at our holiday bbq, we handed Jaye all the clay we had in the house, (I believe he had to use 3-4 different colors of clay to have enough to make the zebra) Jaye began working away and handed over a perfectly formed zebra in what seemed like minutes! Makenna was thrilled and couldn't wait for us to bake it the next day so she could paint it. The next day was busy, so we didn't get around to baking it until the end of the day when Makenna was going to bed. Although she needed to take it to school the next morning, she had already determined she wanted to leave the zebra multi colored so that it would be an "abstract" zebra, so all she had to do in the morning was paint the eyes, nose, mouth and lines for the hooves. I was busy folding laundry when John entered the room with shock on his face and the words, "it melted." It melted??? How did it melt? Apparantly, only one of the colorful clays we used was cookable. The picture below shows the results. Fear set in for both of us as we thought about how heartbroken Makenna would be in the morning when we broke the news to her. We both gathered up the remainer of all the clay we had and both went to work on trying to form a zebra. I think we were both hoping God would temporarily grant us both some amazing artistic ability, but it was useless, neither us have any talent when it comes to clay! I can paint you a mural, but all I know how to do with clay is roll a ball or flatten it into a pancake. I think John's only artistic ability involves stick figures. Our only hope was some sort of downloadable paper folding project. With each of us on our laptops, and the time nearing midnight, we searched away until we found the perfect project. It involved cutting out a few random shapes and a toilet paper roll. With cardstock placed in the printer, we hit the print button and prayed for the best in the morning. Fortunately, the surprise project in the morning instantly relieved Makenna's disappointment over the clay incident. The result is pictured below. The funniest part of this all was that at open house a couple of nights later, her zebra project was an absolute hit! Several people even asked us where we found such a great project. God is good!