Mardi Gras Play Dough and Masks

We are currently studying the state of Louisiana and I decided to spend one more day on Mardi Gras fun before moving on to all of the other wonderful things about the state.

We are reading Mimi's First Mardi Gras by Alice Couvillon.  We love the way the book is illustrated mostly in the colors of Mardi Gras.  It is a great introduction to Mardi Gras, and it features all of the fun details we have been talking about - parades, King Cake with a tiny baby doll inside, beignets, and beads!

I mentioned in an earlier post that there are three colors associated with Mardi Gras and each color has a meaning.  Purple stands for justice, green symbolizes faith, and gold is for power.  The colors were chosen by Rex, the King of Carnival, in 1892 and he assigned their meaning. 

I considered making some of our favorite homemade play dough this week, but I noticed that we had three brand new containers of the store bought variety in Mardi Gras colors, so that worked out great.

I have no idea why he wanted his vest on to play with play doh.

 

When I was a sophomore in college, I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with some friends.  I remember that there were houses painted (the whole house, really) in the bright Mardi Gras colors.  I was telling C and R about this, and C decided to make his own Mardi Gras house using one of our cookie cutters.

He thought it would look even better if he pushed his Mardi Gras beads into the dough to make designs.

C and R each made their own Mardi Gras masks too.  We learned that by law, float riders in the Mardi Gras parades must always have a mask on.  Also, on Fat Tuesday, masking is legal for everyone else, and the elaborate masks that some wear add to the fun.  C and R used fun foam (I cut out the masks and they decorated them), pom poms, feathers, and sequins to make their masks.