Watermelons

Egyptian Wall Painting

Tessa is studying Egypt so she is making a wall carving. The carving has her name in hieroglyphics and a picture of a Egyptian girl. First she traced her picture onto see through paper. We made the self drying dough from a recipe we found on the internet. We placed it in  a pan with wax paper under it. We placed it aside for about a day. Once it was almost dry she put her drawing upside down onto the clay. She then took a pencil and drew over her drawing so that the pencil would transfer onto the clay. We waited again for it to dry completely. As it dried it split apart in one large crack. Then as it dried even further the crack pulled apart so that it was in two pieces. I fixed it with decoupage and painted the rest of the picture with it. Once that dried she used paint and sharpie markers to paint it.

She still has to finish the painting.

Painting

Mr. Wheels loves to paint. Today I just pulled out a marker and made a 3x3 grid on the paper at the easel. He picked the color he wanted to use I wrote the word in a square and he painted it. He didn't didn't always stay in the lines, but that is OK. He knows his colors pretty well because of an IPad app that I found: Shapes Toddler Preschool. He can also learn his letters, numbers, and shapes. The shapes portion is free, but you can add colors, numbers, and letters for about $0.99.

At first my goal for this activity was to keep him busy while his sister did her school work, but I realized this was a good activity for a lot of reasons. He was developing his fine motor skills, decision making, word differentiation, wow lots of cool stuff.

African Savannah

We are studying Africa this week. For art today we are making a mural of a savannah. Kit is using paint, markers and colored pencils. I photocopied and printed animals from one of our books. Mr. Wheels also painted and glued the animals on. He loves painting. While we painted I put on some African music. We don't always take time to do art. There are days when I don't want to make the mess, but this is what makes learning fun. We always have a good time. We had a peaceful time today.We did'n't finish today, we will have to work on it next week.n

Lunch Art

Some parents say, "Don't play with your food." Well I didn't say it today. Kit made a picture out of her trail mix and sub sandwich.

Shirt Painting

When we went to the library Kit found a craft book. She often finds craft books and wants to make all sorts of things. The title was Make Clothes Fun. We decided to do one of the projects. We designed a  a snowflake stencil with the Snowflake Station App and painted a t-shirt.

Materials

1. Fabric paint
2. The book
3. Freezer paper
4. Iron
5. Paint brushes

Art

Today we had art. Mr. Wheels painted and Kit made a maple leaf stamp from clay. We were to make a ball of clay, flatten it out, then then press leaf to it. Next Kit used a toothpick to make the indentations more pronounced. She then put the clay into some paint and stamped it to paper. At first we were not very successful that is because we started with play-doe instead of clay. After we used clay it worked a lot better. I was really proud of how Kit handled the failure she actually became a scientist about it. She did experiments to see you how to make the best print. She counted sometimes to see if leaving it longer or shorter would make a better print. She also painted on the paint instead of stamping it into the paint to see if that would make a better print. In the end she was able to have two good prints. Mr. Wheels loves to paint . He gets his apron on and he uses his paint brush to smear paint all over the paper. He has his own easel, he looks so cute. Since Kit was making stamps I let Mr. Wheels use stamps too. We had jungle stamps, I would hold it, he painted on the paint, and then I let him stamp it on the paper. Most of the time it was just a big smear on the paper when he was finished. He didn't care he was doing the same thing as his sister and he loved it.

Mr. Wheels Painting

Kit above with her clay down for the print. Below are 2 prints. The left is one of her first, the right is one of the last.

Mexican Piñata

This year Kit is studying world history. This week she is learning about Mexico In the picture below she is making a piñata. We had a bit of difficulty at first. I was a bit overwhelmed with the mess of the project and all of my homeschool stuff out. We had fun after a while. The piñata is drying for today and tomorrow we will put on some color on it. I hope to have a Mexican party in a couple of days and burst our piñata.

While Kit was making the piñata mr. Wheels was learning to glue colored cars on paper.