Have you ever made a bean mosaic? I hadn’t, but I had seen them and kept the idea tucked in the back of my mind. Mosaics are fun to make- relaxing; rhythmic. I like to think they help promote patience in kids, but I have nothing to back that up with…
Here I’ll show you how to make a mosaic using dried beans and legumes in the form of a lovely fall leaf. I even have a printout you can download if you or your kids don’t want to draw your own leaf.
Fen and I worked on this like a jigsaw puzzle, sort of coming and going over the course of 2 days, adding beans whenever the mood struck.
Bean Mosaic
Materials:
- Piece of cardboard
- Glue (we used Aleene’s Tacky Glue)
- Printout of leaf (or you can draw your own)
- Beans and legumes (we used green and yellow split peas, white beans, kidney beans and black beans)
Directions:
Gather your beans and glue the leaf printout onto the cardboard. We used Mod Podge, since I can’t stand using Elmer’s on paper. Let it dry completely. Alternatively, if your child is feeling adventurous, let them draw a leaf onto a piece of paper and glue it onto the cardboard. Add in a border line if so desired.
We started by using the black beans to outline the leaf and the border. Lay down a nice fat line of glue and add the beans, one by one.
Next we added in some leaf veins with green split peas.
We filled in the leaf with red at the bottom, yellow at the top, and a mixture in the middle.
Now for the great expanse of background… we globbed out lines of glue starting around the leaf and working out toward the border.
We ended up using about half the bottle of glue. For reals.
Here’s the finished bean mosaic, and check out the fancy outside border!
How about a delicious-looking bean soup recipe for all of those leftovers?
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