Nature Scavenger Hunt

For art this week we talked about how artists use nature in their art.  Our art book suggested going on a nature walk and drawing specific items.  I figured this was a great opportunity to use our Christmas present (a pass to the White Tanks).  We loaded my backpack with art supplies and water and headed for the trails. 

The book gave us a list of items to find and draw: seed pot, interesting leaf, stick or twig, feather, something soft, something stiff, bird, tree, cloud shape, wild grass, neat rock, thorn, wild flower, insect, broken egg, bird next, water, fish, animal.  We search and discussed and drew.  We didn't find anything and some of the stuff we found was boring, but some was neat.  We found some huge thorns, a cactus skeleton, some lizards and a few hummingbirds, rocks with petroglyphs and some neat seeds.   

For the most part we drew while we were walking, but at the end of our hike we sat at the tables and put finishing touches on our pictures.

Art Class

A mom from our homeschool group offered to teach a 4-week art class for the kids.  She took a class from the Phoenix Art Museum and got posters of art work and activity ideas.  She taught the classes back in November on landscape, texture, portraits and still life.  The kids had fun and learned a lot. 

landscape art

still-life art

Thanksgiving Activities

Yesterday the kids did some activities to help them prepare for Thanksgiving.  We started by reading a story about the first Thanksgiving.  Then we made a turkey that I found in a folder of stuff my grandma gave me.  The kids used water colors to paint a turkey, then used black glue to trace the outline of the turnkey.  It was supposed to make a neat looking turkey, but ours didn't turn out too neat looking.  Our black glue was more of a gray and it was too watery so that it spread too much. 

This is my grandma's sample glued to a piece of brown construction paper.

Here is a picture of how one of the kids' turned out.

Our next activity came from a new blog I found.  The kids took coffee filters and colored them with markers.  Then they sprayed the filters with water and set them aside to dry.  Meanwhile they took construction paper and made a turkey (circle head and smaller circle body, beak, waddle, legs, and eyes).  When the filter was dry they cut it in half and glued their turkey body to the filter making it's tail feathers.  I think these turned out cute.

For our last activity we read a short rhyming, repeating book about turkeys being all over the farm.  The kids colored turkeys and hid them throughout the house.  Then they wrote a sentence similar to the book: Turkey by the ______ and made a short book and went on a turkey hunt.  I love finding ways to get the kids excited about writing. 

Also, all month we've been making a gratitude chart.  Every morning I asked someone to tell me something that they were thankful for.  The trick was it had to be something new, something that no one had mentioned before.  Here's what they said:
Braedi--talents, the gospel, gratitude
Corbin--animals, puff pancakes, stoplights
Dyllan--my family, friends, clothes
Ephram--bikes, my mom and dad, firetrucks
Faythe--Jesus, swing sets, Heavenly Father
Jonathan--Ashlee, books, pickles
Ashlee--food, my husband, my garden
I'm thankful for this time of year where we can focus on our blessings.  I'm looking forward to our feast tomorrow.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Cave Art

Have you ever had a kid that you didn't know what they were interested in?  That you couldn't figure out what they wanted to learn about?  And neither can the kids?  I have one of those kids--Dyllan.  Dyllan is so easy going.  She just goes with the flow and doesn't express an interest in anything in particular. 

A few months ago I learned about a way to inspire kids--build off their sparks.  How do I do that if the child doesn't show a spark?!?!  Last month at my leadership education family builder meeting a friend mentioned how she follows Dianne Jeppson's idea using the Core Knowledge books.  I have thought that is was a great idea just not something that would work for my family, but that night I had an epiphany.  I felt that I could use those books with Dyllan to give her a place to start picking something that she was interested in.  I found What your First Grade needs to Know at the library and today I pulled the book out while working with Dyllan. 

She went right to the art section.  The first chapter in that section was about the first artists and their drawings.  These artist were the "cave men" that probably living during the ice age and their drawings were cave paintings.  We talked about what kinds of pictures they would draw and why.  There was an activity idea at the end of that part: get a cardboard box and pretend it's your cave and draw your own cave painting.  Dyllan was very excited to do this project.  I didn' have a box, but I had some large paper.  We taped it to the wall and she went to work.  While she drew I read some more from the book (in the History section) about the people that lived during the ice age.  Now maybe we can get a book about the ice age and learn a little bit more.  It was fun to see her get excited about something. 

It's Fall!

For "art class" this week we did something not out of our art book.  We read a book about autumn and painted leaves. 

When I taught, I had a paper tree in my classroom that we changed with the seasons.  It was a simple way to talk about the seasons and surrounding holidays.  I wish I had the space (and know-how) to have a tree in our house. 

As my older kids get older, I realize how much my younger kids have missed.  What I mean is that I've taught mostly to Braedi and Corbin, but poor Dyllan and Ephram (and soon Faythe) weren't old enough to get anything out of those fun lessons.  Lesson like seasons, the human body, plants and animals and other fun subjects.  I need to do the fun learning activities again to them. 

I mentioned before that I want to do more with holidays and I thought painting leaves would get us started on fall and Halloween.  Fall is one of my favorite seasons (in places that have real seasons) and I was excited to share with the kids the beauty of the leaves changing color.  Maybe we'll be able to take a trip North to look at some of the changes. 

For now the leaves are hanging on the sliding glass door, but maybe I'll find a better place for them. 

Artists Imagine

This year for art, I decided to forgo the co-op that we had been doing and do art on our own.  Last year I used a fantastic book that I found at the library called Making amazing art : 40 activities using the 7 elements of art design.   This year I found an art curriculum called ARTistic Pursuits.  Each lesson has a theme, a sample art work to study and an art activity.  So far the kids have liked it. 

This week we looked at how artists imagine and studied a painting by Marc Chagall.  The kids went on an imagination walk gathering images for their brains to work with.  Then they used water color crayons to make a picture of a time they enjoyed.  They were supposed to use their imaginations to add things to the picture, but I think they were too caught up in using new art supplies that they forgot that detail. 

Art Museum

Our art/music co-op went to the Arizona Museum for Youth on Tuesday.  It's a teeny-tiny, hands-on museum geared toward kids.  It's way out in Mesa.  The kids had a lot of fun.  There were a lot of art activities for them to participate in and a Charlie Brown exhibit.  We stayed for about 2 hours. 

At this station there was a picture that was divided into a grid.
Braedi drew a good picture/copy, but lost it while at the museum.

One of Ephram's creations

Faythe finger painting with Audrey. 

Corbin dressed up as Snoopy

Dyllan and Delaney dressed up as Lucy

Dyllan dressed up as Sally

Ephram and Faythe watching a Charlie Brown video in Snoopy's doghouse

This was a giant lite-brite

Corbin playing Schroeder's piano

I don't know what this chairs had to do with art, but the kids loved them

Reading Activities

We've been doing a lot of reading aloud lately. Sometimes I'll read the book and sometimes we'll listen to an audio book. During this time the kids play quietly or quietly work on a project. During our last book we finished a puzzle. Here are some of the other things that have been created while listening to books.

More Collages

We did another collage activity for art co-op on Wednesday. The kids were given 2 ovals cut from scrapbook paper and given directions to make an animal using the ovals and other pieces of paper. They had to cut out the other body parts and glue them to the ovals. Ephram made a frog, Corbin made a make believe creature that he calls a jabbercat, and the rest of us made cats. I like to see the creativity in their projects.

Collages

The word collage comes from the french word coller which means "to glue." It is a way to create art by gluing papers and small objects to a flat surface. Making a collage has been around for a long time, but wasn't considered art until Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque began gluing newspaper prints and wallpaper patterns to their canvases. They thought the normal forms of art were boring and too limited so they looked for a new way to express their ideas.

Our art co-op created collages today. I gave each kid a picture of a face that I printed on-line as a base. Then they looked through magazines to find new eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and hair to make a funny face. The kids came up with some great faces. The picture is upside down--I can't figure out how to change it. Maybe it makes the faces even funnier?