Contour Leaves- Today's Nature Study

I have been excited to try this idea over at Art Projects for Kids for weeks. If you haven't been to this blog before, it is a must see. Kathy is an art educator and has a super blog detailing some fun projects. And hey, while copying the links for this post , I found I'm in her favorites bar. That. Is. Cool.

Ok on with the results of our fall contour leaves project! Thanks for another fun project Kathy!

A word on materials- the project calls for pencil, black felt tip pen, and colored pencils. I pulled out the Prismacolors for this one. I'm in love! I tried some color blending and had a great time. Very therapeutic. You should try it some time!

Step 1: trace the pattern for the leaves onto a piece of paper. I used the document linked from Kathy's site and printed one. The kids shared it and I did the tracing for the 3 and 6 yr olds.
Step 2: trace the leaf outline with a black felt tip pen- in our case a Crayola marker. We added the veins so if they aren't super accurate forgive us!Step 3: Use colored pencils to color in the leaves. I encouraged the kids to try blending colors. We used more than one color in the leaf and use the Prismacolor blending pencil to smooth out the transition in color. Very. Cool.

Step 4: Draw contour lines around the leaves one at a time. As they go, the students will have to decide which leaf will be out front and have continuous lines. This one was a bit tougher for the younger kids, but I think did ok for a start. R8 did a nice job. She has such an artistic flare!

I-6 gives it a shot. He grew tired and finished his in two sittings.

J3 had an enjoyable time coloring his leaves and he did an impressive job following directions and adding his contour lines. I just love that he followed the instructions and did his best. For inquiring minds, yes I let him use the Prismas too under supervision of course. After all, raw talent needs superior art products too. Yes?

R8's finished product- she did two more besides

I did my own along with them so they'd have a model to look at and I'm so glad I did. I made one more eventually as well.

J3 holds up his project

We finally got around to finishing our oak tree study as a family. We pulled out the nature journals and talked all about oaks. I did my entry too- here's a partial look. I took my second contour drawing and glued it on the next page.

Now we finally have a nice fall display. The one with the blue leaf belongs to E10.

Next week we are going to try another leaf drawing from Art Projects for Kids. This one will be done with oil pastels.

I Am an Artist

We began another Before FIAR book this week called I Am an Artist. What a great little book and just perfect because J3 loves to look all around him and discover and discuss almost anything he sees. He has a real fondness for the things in nature and is particularly attuned to what kind of day it is outside. I thought he would enjoy this book and he does.

We did a leaf book with different colored and shaped leaves.

Saturday we took a walk to the soccer fields to watch his brothers play and we found all sorts of sugar maple leaves along the way. He also pointed out a few pine cones in different sizes. His favorite outdoor creature is the spruce tree. He calls them funny trees and will show you how they laugh. I'm not so sure about all that, but he can't wait until a few months from now when we have a funny tree in the house.

On tap for this week, we'll be looking at clouds and our fall nature study from FIAR. We will make a leaf collage from our collection on Saturday and I think we'll do a short apple study in honor of autumn and the apple harvest which has begun here in NY state.

Stay tuned for updates as I add them.

The second time I read the Artist book to J3, he asked for this one below. He called it the "other" artist book. We figured out he was asking for God Says I Am. On the first page it says, His hand painted the world with the light that he made. God says, "I am an artist." He remembered it and asked for it- what a connection. Way to go J3!

One of the nature items in the artist book is the cloud. We are artists any time we see faces in the clouds the book reads. So, I thought Charles Shaw's, It Looked Like Spilt Milk would be a fun read to go with our study.

Writing Time!

I decided to try out Lynn's new idea and use five vocabulary words from Arabella for R8 to use in her writing yesterday. Wow! What a success! You can see below she got to choose words randomly from a pile and then write a sentence at a time. I'm really pleased with the way she put it all together. It's a fine little story. The best part is that her writing has improved even since last year! We did a spelling placement test yesterday and discovered that she is ready for level B- no way! R8 is pleased. She is a better speller than she thought.

In case you can't make it out, I'll type it out here for you. Her word list was: wharf, white cap, jumble, drift, and hoist. She was very excited and this is what she came up with.

The wave had a white cap and it was so tall you could hardly see the top. The sailors were in a big jumble and that could not be fixed. The captain said, "Hoist the sails!", but the sailors were in too much of a big mess to listen. Then they saw the wharf and they screamed and shouted. When they got out of the boat, it started to drift away.

Table Top Time

I started this week with something new I'm calling table top time. Others might know it as circle time or meeting time. At our house we're going with table top time.

Basically, we meet at the school table after read aloud time (which is right after breakfast). We say The Pledge (every American child needs to know the Pledge to the Flag, yes?), we check on the weather and record it, and we talk about what day it is using our trusty calendar.

Once all those housekeeping details are finished, we hit the books. There's math workbook time and math manipulative time. I-6 does his reading- practices site words stuck to the poll next to him, reads his daily story aloud to me, arranges sentences with word cards, and writes down his sentences for the day.

J3 works on whatever suits him at that moment- this day it was Boggle Jr. He also loves pattern blocks and the alphabet pages for the Cuisenaire Rods.

E10 does his math and spelling. R8 does math and grammar work. Here's a sampling from our first day.


I-6 took his turn with the pattern blocks before doing his math page

J3 chose Boggle Jr today. You have to match the letters with what's on the card.

I-6 insisted I show you all that he finished the butterfly with precision.

Today for our grammar lesson we talked about how the author of Arabella, Wendy Orr uses sentence fragments on purpose throughout her book- author's license. This was the perfect opportunity to remind R8 of how to write a complete sentence. Boy...for a girl who randomly capitalizes words in the middle of her sentences and is not a stranger to the occasional sentence fragment, she sure knows her stuff! Imagine my surprise when I ask what the subject of a sentence is and she says immediately, "What the sentence is about!" In fact, she told me everything that went onto the Checklist Poster below. This is hung where she can look right at it from her seat.

I have a few things to add to table top time including the daily geography moment and possibly our foreign language time. This is the time when we'll complete the week's Sketch Tuesday and two times a week we'll do our Nature Study. We night even mention what happened that day in history but I'm still thinking on that one.

Boys...

Today I was doing table top time with the kids, when I heard some pinging. Yup...it was definitely pinging. When I turned around this is what I saw. J3 putting buttons into R8's foam ring gun and shooting. Yes, it worked. Probably a lot like buckshot because buttons flew everywhere. Only a boy would think to use buttons as weapons. I rest my case.

I've been learning a lot about boys recently. On many levels. Here a few more favorites for your reflection.

• "Mommy, does everybody have armpits?" Yes, everyone has armpits. "Daddy, if someone got their arm bitten off by a shark, would they still have armpits? - conversation last week with I-6.
• "Whoaaa! That's a BIG poop! Check it out!" - Joshua on a recent potty mission
• "Daddy, did you know that some people call toots farts?" - E10 after a few weeks ago after a friend's 10 year old birthday overnight extravaganza. I kept him from that yucky boy word for 10 years. Sigh.

Dan says I'm witnessing thecomplex inner workings of the boy mind as it goes from button shooting/rough and tumble to handsome/refined young man.

Yes. It appears so. I'll keep you posted.

The Grasshopper Game

This year I acquired two of Peggy Kaye's learning games books. One of them is Games for Math. It's a great book full of some hands on activities for math. It is an excellent compliment to our Horizons math program for our kinesthetic R8. (don't ask what's up with the underlining. I am having trouble with blogger not letting me post text above my top picture and when I fiddle with it, this is what happens...bear with me I don't have the time to get rid of it)

Our participants are ready for the start of the Grasshopper Game

The playing field

The idea is to hop to the number based on the number sentence I give you to complete. R8 did some multiplication (can you believe she is a third grader already??) I-6 did some addition and subtraction to practice his first grade math.

When J3 wandered in, he couldn't be left out so he got to identify numbers. You know he can pretty well read numbers 1 to 10. Not bad for a 3 yr old!

Thoughts on Paints

Remember when I mentioned the new paints we used on our salt dough maps? I thought I'd share what paints we used and the stuff we have to go with them. We actually have several types of paints. Every house needs a good set of watercolors, some temperas, and these BioColor Paints.

Prang watercolors are the best and I have some tube watercolors to try out as well. I'm not sure how that will turn out. I will post more on watercolors another time. I also have a variety of tempera paints but just the basics. Right now I have some bingo bottles full of temperas, but they need replacing which I will do soon with the BioColor paints. I also have red, blue, yellow, black and white. I went with the that we could do some color blending with the temperas.

I started with Activity Paints when my kids were young because it could be used as easel paint or fingerpaint. After all these years, the activity paint is running out so I replaced with the BioColor.

This paint is not washable necessarily but it can do so many things that I had to give it a try!

I went for lots of colors.

I wanted the kit because it comes with all these cool things. Check out the shimmer, puffy, fabric, and glitter media. You can add these things to the BioColor paint to make it look different or have different properties. How cool is THAT? I also went for the paint pallettes which worked out really well. Each child had their own tray and I filled it with different colored paints. What's nice is that although I had to do lots of call backs, I didn't waste paint by pouring it out onto a plate. Also, I didn't have to worry about paint cups in the middle of the table being shared. I really like how the trays worked out.

The paint's texture is very smooth and I mentioned that I have temperas for blending. That's because the BioColor paint doesn't blend. It marbelizes! Wait until you see what fun things we do with that fact!!

When Your Daddy is a Scientist...

You never know where you'll find him next. We've seen this exhibit at our local science center for a while now. Nanotechnology is sort of "buzzy" right now and they are trying to make some good exhibits on the topic. There is already a traveling exhibit out there called, "It's a Nano-world" which features a video with Dan in it as a photolithography engineer. The kids used to love it when it was in town. They'd run up and watch daddy all the time. It was particularly funny when other visitors would come up and they'd say, "That's my daddy!"

This new exhibit is basically a simulation of a clean room- a highly filtered lab that keeps even dust out. Dust is huge on micro-devices. Below you can see the kids can put on the clean room suits and have a good time.

We've seen this one in its finished form a few times now. We actually tested the proto-type because Dan helped with the ideas on the exhibit- another very cool aspect of the job. Well imagine our surprise when Dan goes..."Hey that's me!" That big guy is an employee of the center so I didn't pay attention to the bottom frame...

THIS is Dan! The "scientist" that uses special equipment. Love it!

Dan you have the coolest job in the world. We're proud of you!

Happy Birthday E10!

Whoa...double digits!! Where has the time gone? With our oldest turning ten, it means that we've been at this parenting thing TEN years. Ten years? It means I've been home from teaching science for TEN years. Ten years?

It also means new territory...we are considering a new bed time later than his siblings. He's the proud owner of his very own Leatherman Micra. He will get a new 24" bike this weekend. A real big guy bike. He and Dan will be going on an overnight to camp together as soon as the weather permits. He just cannot wait and he can't wait to take along that new Leatherman.

Big stuff...bigger boy.

We love you E10!

New games! The newest add on to Catan- Barbarians and Traders, the Catan card game which is not a card game for the faint of heart- it plays a lot like the real thing, and Ticket to Ride which we can't wait to try out. Word on the street is this game rocks! We'll let you know. Can you see that little Leatherman down there? It is a prized possession that he actually cannot possess all that often just yet!

More Ocean Connections

This past Saturday we went to our local science center with friends and found a few ocean connections. I love it when a field trip comes together! We have been continuing to study the ocean- waves, ocean zones, continents and oceans, we've been a few ocean going explorers so far. We've also been following the Arabella lessons- doing parallel sentence construction, lists in stories, and today we'll review complete sentences.

In this exhibit, you have to blow the air onto the sails to make the boat go. Just like Arabella!

They have a touch tank and that day it was actually open. This is a chocolate chip starfish.

Look at all those tiny grippy "feet".

J3 takes a turn at holding the starfish- he had trouble with the whole keep it under water thing...

Great Nemo line- All drains lead to the ocean...in this case we find out what happens when we put water down our drain in this neck of the woods. Ours drains into the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

I-6 loves this under water video they always have going- check out the blue whales. Last year we got to meet the photographer that got so close to them.

World Domination...

...RISK style!

I just want to say that I am gray and I was about to own the world! Mwwahhhhaaaaa!

E9 is going through another RISK phase. Lucky for us he loves a good game and he's fun to play with!

Tomorrow is his birthday...I wonder if we'll be playing any new games. Stay tuned!

Letter Time with J3

J3 came to me yesterday afternoon with his dumptruck saying I want to play with tiles. That usually means he wants to take out the Bananagrams game and scoop the letters and dump them. Which of course means that I get to play letters with him at the same time.

Can you name this one? What does T say? That sort of thing. Since he loves to watch the Leapfrog videos on occasion, he has a lot of sounds and letters nailed down.

Here he insisted on making a row of Rs. He kept saying, "I need more Rs!"

He knows the first letter of his name and I'm working on getting him to recognize what is whole name looks like. I line up the letters and ask him what it is. Soon I hope I can have him arrange the letters of his name in order on his own. What...he's only 3 you say? Yeah...but he's good for it.

Moms and Dads....are you taking notes? Ways I can spend time with J3 in November...

Salt Dough Maps- Step by Step

So, we've been working on salt dough maps over the last week. Everyone should do this at least once. I mean why just draw or color a map when you can build one and paint one? It makes a tidy mess and a pot to wash and when it's all done you get to store it somehow until the social studies fair or you can't stand it any more. Whichever comes first. I highly recommend it.

The first step is to draw an outline of your map or country or whatever onto a piece of cardboard. The kids draw the shape of their country onto a thin piece of cardboard. I mix up the dough according to the directions and let the kids cover their areas first. Then they consult the map and try to match the topographical information with their sculpting skills. Once it has been built up we add toothpick paper labels and set them aside to dry. Once good and dry (think 48 hours), you can paint on top. Then are you all set! Make sure the supplies get put away!

The recipe comes from this book- a compliation of the Kid Concoction Books. The couple writes this serise has a neat story. I saw them last year at the MOPS Int'l convention. The salt dough recipe is easy and quick and it doesn't make too much of a mess.

E9 is working on his map of Japan

R8 is doing Hawaii

I-6 is making Madagascar.

J3 is also making Madagascar...well he is making something fun that is what he thinks!

After the painting stage he insisted I take a picture of his hand.

R8 works on the ocean surrounding her islands

Japan

Hawaii- check out the multi colors- R8 is ever the artist!

J3's finished product

And Madagascar... impressive no?

This evening after dinner the kids shared their islands with each other and got a chance to practice some oral skills and show off their hard work.