Science? Yes, please!

We know our daughter loves art. Now to test the science hypothesis...

A couple weeks ago I bought a children's book from Barnes and Noble called "My Body." I got it knowing that Aislin was interested in bones/the skeletal system, so I had planned to use it for a home preschool lesson and wondered if it would be as successful as the flower anatomy lesson we had last spring. It took me forever to get around to this lesson! This brand new book sat in its B&N bag for weeks, and then after I had cleaned the desk a couple days ago, it sat on top of a shelf. It wasn't until Aislin saw it on the shelf that I remembered it was there...and that something I had paid for was going unused! Sometimes that's all the motivation one needs ;)

So today we finally did the lesson.

The book is broken up into several different topics related to the body, from its senses to its skeleton, so I just showed the kids the few pages related to the skeleton. (At least I'll have tons of material to use for different lessons later on!) The kids stayed engaged throughout group time because they got to poke themselves and feel their different bones. Afterwards, we went upstairs for the art activity, which was putting a skeleton together, identifying the parts we had just learned about, and then coloring those parts with the same color of their labels.

It was a lot of work! Still, Aislin got through it without whining or getting distracted.

I had given Des something to color, but he, on the other hand, doesn't care as much for art lol. Go figure ;) Tim and I have thought about getting him legos or blocks of different shapes (since the kids have long since grown tired of the square alphabet/number blocks that they've had since Aislin was a year old), so that'll be another experiment ;)

Conclusion: YES, Aislin's strongest interests are rooted in science and art. Yes, she can focus on something without being totally annoying, and usually that focus is at its best when she's learning from her two favorite subjects. And yes, this lesson was as successful as the one on flower anatomy!

Watercolor Art Project

Last night I poured over a number of art activities found in The Artful Parent and decided to try a few. So today, we made our own watercolor paints and tried watercolor resist with contact paper.

I learned that Des was too young to be around for the paint-making process. I should have mixed the paint ingredients with Aislin while Des was engrossed in doing something downstairs, and then brought him up when it was time to paint. I also learned that making our own watercolor paints used a lot of our baking materials, and that, unless I owned baking soda, corn starch and everything else in big Costco-sized cans, buying a set of watercolor paints would probably be cheaper than making our own!

 This was taken after we had finished painting, which is why the yellow and green paints no longer look yellow and green! I now need to buy a new bottle of white vinegar and a new can of corn starch....

In spite of the bumps we ran into, including trying to use a muffin baking pan for the paints and then realizing the cups were too small for mixing the ingredients, the project itself was a lot of fun :) Des enjoyed naming the shapes I made out of contact paper and then smashing the paintbrush into his construction paper...while Aislin enjoyed putting drops of food coloring on top of her watercolor strokes.

Letting our work dry with the contact paper still on. 

I think my kids got a little carried away with the watercolors because, although their contact paper-shapes were firmly pressed onto their papers, the paint still seeped under the contact paper.

Desmond's work after his shapes were peeled off.

 After it dried.

You can see some of the shapes pretty well, but I think they might would have been clearer if he had also tried playing with the food coloring. But he was content spreading the yellow and green around :)

Aisin's work after her shapes were peeled off.

After it dried.

I love all the colors! The paint definitely seeped under her shapes so you have to look closely for a heart, a triangle and the letter B! 

My work after my stars were peeled off.

After it dried.

Stinkin' awesome!! I used the first picture as my phone's wallpaper lol :D

Plan for next time: 

Buy a set of watercolor paints and watercolor paper, and try a new activity...perhaps Leaf Paint and Print or Yarn Painting! 

Aislin the Artist

A few days ago, my husband and I were talking about what we could do to nurture our daughter's interests. She's the type who (and don't think I'm bragging here because, believe me, I sometimes get embarrassed by this...) gets bored easily when something doesn't strike her interest, is below her developmental level or has been taught to her enough times that she doesn't see the need to sit through another lesson. Today at a preschool library story time, for example, the librarian had chosen books that weren't really stimulating for a 4-year-old but were useful for interacting with a group of kids...so Aislin interacted, and then chose to stand up and start skipping around the room while everyone else sat and faced forward. (While having the discipline and respectfulness to endure a boring moment is definitely something my husband and I want her to learn...you can't help but sympathize with the kid!)

What we had determined was that Aislin's strongest interests are in science and art. And today our hypothesis was confirmed :)

 Aislin's play-dough flower made at the end of story time

Sometimes it kind of breaks my heart knowing that she's not as interested in story time, or books in general, as I am...but I'm so proud of her for the interests she does have. I was really impressed that she made that play-dough flower by herself, and I bet she even named each part as she put it all together ;)

Oh, and...gotta love that imagination, too :)

"These peas are for you!" 

Finis!

Our leaf art is now complete! And the kids and I LOVE the finished product :)

Aislin's leaf

My boring leaf, which looks much cooler in this bronze frame!

 Our Fall wall

*All frames purchased at the Dollar Tree. $4 (plus tax) for super cute wall decor!  

The above art work, by the way, was made with washable paints in condiment bottles and a spray bottle, contact paper, and leaves snipped from the neighborhood trees! See post Leaf Art.

Leaf Art

I'm in love with this art project.

Desmond's leaf

At first I was worried that I'd have to discreetly throw out the kids' work...because when we were all done, theirs barely looked like anything. Aislin had so much fun squirting and mixing the paint, and spraying paint on her paper, that it was a wet calamity by the time she was done. And Des' leaf had moved around so much on his paper that you could hardly tell there was ever a leaf to begin with! Once they had started to dry, though, it was my art that turned out totally...boring :P

So neat it was hardly interesting, huh?

Aislin's awesome art work :)

The beginning photos:

It may have turned out boring afterwards but I had fun spreading the paint with my fingers heehee ;)

I heart condiment bottles!!! 

The plan is to hit up the dollar store and buy little frames for our fall art. Since mine is dull, I'll have to find a poem or something to cut and glue onto the page. And for the kids' work, I'm thinking of getting little 4x6 or 5x7 frames and separating their leaves. Little frames of children's art work are adorable, and I'll show you what I mean once their up on the wall!

A New Home School Year

Voila--a finished board!!
First...we picked leaves for the border! Des was taking a nap while Tim was doing some work on his laptop, so Aislin and I took a small paper bag and a pair of scissors and walked out to the road. We collected 18 colorful leaves :) (And if you're wondering why they look kind of funny, it's because they're taped onto yellow, orange, black, and white construction paper with clear vinyl.)
Second...we painted pumpkins by mixing red and yellow paint. We printed pumpkins on card stock and squeezed paint onto the paper, then placed the paper in a plastic bag. The kids had fun squishing and spreading the paint around until it resembled orange. And the pumpkins look beautiful!
Now, I may have made the scarecrow with the disproportionately-shaped head and cut out the letters, but the kids made the awesome trees along the sides of the board:

After cutting out a rectangular piece of brown construction paper for the tree trunk, we squeezed red paint onto a small paper plate and yellow paint onto another. The kids then pressed one hand into one plate and stamped their hand-print onto blue paper. After going around in a circle, they repeated the process with their other hand and the other plate. And now they have two lovely trees with fall leaves :)

Inspiration taken from The Mailbox Magazine, Preschool Aug./Sept. 2012 edition, page 46. 

We had some paint leftover, so I let the kids do their own art projects until they'd had their fill. While Aislin was busy mixing colors to make her favorite one (why yes, it is pink), Des decided to continue making hand-prints. He certainly enjoyed it!

An update on our card-in-a-jar experiment: 

Today the kids chose FOUR cards. Yes, four, because the first two went by so quickly. The first two were songs ("My Hands" and "Nephi's Courage"), so once we finished singing, the kids just kind of stood around not sure of what to do. I asked, "Do you want to pick two more cards?" The answer was a simultaneous, "Okay!" So the third card was yet another song ("Do As I'm Doing") while the fourth read "Bible Storybook". This meant pulling out their bible board book (with the flaps covering some of the pictures). From it I read the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Umm...the story was barely a paragraph long, SO...I think I'll try to expand on it next time and maybe with some extra pictures and an actual bible by my side :) 

Thus was the end of our first week back in home preschool!

A Trip Down Fairy Tale Lane

The kids had a blast with the fairy tale theme two weeks ago, so the theme for last week ended up being Fairy Tales & Nursery Rhymes since it's impossible to squeeze the most memorable fairy tales into one week of curriculum :)
Here are a few pictures of the kids' art work from the past couple weeks:

Aislin's Cinderella coloring sheets turned into a crown :) I broke the story up into six clip art pictures to help her with story sequencing and give her something to color afterwards, but it was all her idea to cut the pictures up, glue them onto two thin strips of construction paper and then connect the two to make a crown! I thought it fit the story perfectly :)

"The Little Red Hen" by Aislin

"Jack and the Beanstalk" and "The Three Little Pigs" by Desmond

In other news, Aislin's last ballet class is next Monday; we're taking our first out-of-state family road trip in a couple of weeks during which we'll be celebrating my birthday AND Des turning 2; and, come December, the kids will have a younger sibling :)