Category: Arts and Crafts

2

African Art Projects – Moroccan Tiles, African Masks, African Music

This year we have been studying world cultures focusing primarily on Africa.  We started out with some basic facts about Africa and then moving on to Egypt including a study of Ancient Egypt.  From there we studied the Islam and its history.  We learned about the spread of Islam and moved on to a study the countries of northern Africa.  We looked at some of the beautiful examples of Moroccan...

0

Art: Learning About Perspective

The kids spent a couple of weeks learning about perspective in their art class. Even ED did her own drawing!  They came home with some really pretty art work!   Here is LD working on his homework for art class: The kids used oil pastels to add color to their drawings. If you are interested in doing a lesson on perspective with your kids here are a couple good resources:...

0

Easy Sparkly Winter Playdough

We made some play dough together at the beginning of the week and ED has been playing with it every single morning!  Play dough is really easy to make and has a wonderful consistency.   Here’s how we made made ours: 1 cup flour 1/3 cup salt 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar (in the spice aisle of your grocery store) 1 Tablespoon oil 1 cup of near boiling water almost...

2

Last Minute Girl/Boy Gift Ideas for 4-8 year olds ($5-15)

There are so many last minute gifts to get…your child’s secret buddy, your niece,  your neighbor’s son, the giving tree or your child’s best friend. Here are a couple of unique gifts we’ve given out because they were such HUGE hits with our own kids. 4- to 8-year-old girl The past month, my kids have been obsessed with fuzzy felt friends. We sent this kit as a gift to my 5-year-old (almost...

Art and Music (and extras) in Our Homeschool 4

Art and Music (and extras) in Our Homeschool

It’s that crazy time of year, isn’t it? This is the time of year when I have to look at the broad scope of learning and not focus on the spelling that doesn’t get done one day or the units that I’m dying to get into, but we can’t seem to find enough time at home to delve into them! Is it that way for you? On the other hand,...

3

Ancient Egypt Death Mask Craft

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Ours was truly wonderful. I love Thanksgiving because its a time to focus on family and the best part is the dinnertime conversation about what we are thankful for. The kids have such precious things on their minds! Anyway, we’re back to school now—and we’re finishing up some pretty fun projects. We had stepped away from our Ancient Egypt unit for several...

Beautiful Star Craft and Other Holiday Crafts 0

Beautiful Star Craft and Other Holiday Crafts

I noticed that people have been viewing some of my holiday posts this weekend. Last year I posted our holiday crafts way too late to be of much use, but wanted to share this beautiful star craft we made last year early enough that you could round up the supplies you need to do this with your kids (toothpicks, gold spray paint). Click here to see the post about how...

0

Fall Themed Craft: Spaghetti Tree

  The last time we did spaghetti art, we simply colored strands different colors and made a free for all.  This time, we had a specific goal in mind… barren trees.  They turned out well! Cook spaghetti and cool with cold water. Mix glue and paint together. Dip the spaghetti into the glue-paint mixture and form into the desired shape We placed ours on wax paper, but you could also...

Fall Themed Craft: Cinnamon Ornaments 0

Fall Themed Craft: Cinnamon Ornaments

If your kids are home for election day, this is a quick craft that smells great!! These ornaments are SO easy to make and smell wonderful! The last time we made these (3 or 4 years ago!), we made them for our Christmas tree, but with the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg I thought they’d be the perfect craft for the fall season! We made them into necklaces and also...

0

Pumpkin Pie Scented Playdough

The scent of this playdough brought even my 9-year-old running! So much for the schoolwork that was supposed to get done while ED was happily playing! I had to change course and do some read-alouds while the kids were occupied. Here’s how we made it: 1 cup flour 1/3 cup salt 1 1/2  tsp cloves 1 1/2 or 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar 1 Tablespoon...

A Great Art Material for 4-10 year olds 2

A Great Art Material for 4-10 year olds

LD has been gone most afternoons so the girls and I have been doing various crafts and activities together.  Yesterday we pulled out the Model Magic. It’s just such a great material to work with, I thought it was worth another mention.  It is soft and pliable and it is easy even for my four year old to mix and blend colors. It is self-hardening and clean to work with. ...

4th of July Craft 4

4th of July Stars

These stars are wonderful for decorating your garden for Independence Day! We took a heavy duty paper plate and cut out a star. Then you decorate the star with toothpicks. As you can see we broke the ends of lots of the toothpicks to get the lengths we wanted. After the glue dried, we painted the stars. We used spray paint (and you can tell I didn’t get the hang...

Art Lessons My Kids Love 2

Art Lessons My Kids Love

We don’t have the kids enrolled in any formal art program nor am I an artist!  I have really benefited from the expertise of an art teacher named Kathy who shares the projects and lessons she does with her elementary students at Art Projects for Kids.   If you are looking for some wonderful lessons to do with your kids this summer, you might want to check out Kathy’s website. You...

3

Whale Unit (and the Arctic) – Buoyancy

Have you ever started a unit and then something else unfolds?  Well this is a unit I started to put together on the Arctic.  You might even recall that we covered Antarctica for a couple of days to lead up to this unit. The more we got into it, the more this turned into a full blown study of whales!  We spent more than a week reading, doing experiments and...