Even Steven and Odd Todd Gingerbread Cut Outs

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We have been enjoying the Christmas season here at our house. We have also been doing a lot of learning. We read the book, Even Steven and Odd Todd by Kathryn Cristaldi which teaches children about odd and even numbers. We decided to make a Christmas themed craft about Even Steven and Odd Todd to reinforce the odd even pattern. We cut out a ginger bead chain out of paper. The original intent was to use brown paper, but we were out of brown construction paper and we did not have a paper bag so we improvised and used yellow paper instead. Even Steven all looks the same with a white button on his right arm, black button on his left arm, and a blue heart in the middle. Every Odd Todd looks different although Little BBQ did not want him to look too different because he wanted Odd Todd to have friends and dress nice. I think my little boy is already very socially conscious.

Posted on virtual refrigerator

Cheap and Easy Bathtub Paint

One of my friends posted a great idea for bathtub paint on Pinterest. The original idea came from Meet the Dubiens. The idea was so simple that I was kicking myself for never thinking of it before. To make easy bathtub paint just add a few drops of food coloring to shaving cream. We have tried to play with shaving cream in the bath tub before, but Miss Bubbles and Little BBQ were never that interested. I guess white shaving cream on a white bathtub wall is just not that enchanting, but when you add color the shaving cream it is a whole new story. Both kids were excited and loved painting on the bathtub walls with the colored shaving cream. The best part is that it is much cheaper than buying expensive bath tub paint from the store. Miss Bubbles has painted in the bath tub twice today, and I am thankful that this is much easier to clean up after than her usual painting adventures. I call this activity a double win for me and the kids on this gloomy rainy day.

Posted on For The Kids Friday

Egg Shell Art

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We were originally going to have 18 cascarones this year, but I dropped some of the eggs on the floor, and they shattered. Instead of crushing them further and adding them to my garden like I normally would I decided to make an art project out of the crushed eggs. Little BBQ took the egg shells and added them to egg dye. We dyed them like a normal egg. Then I let Little BBQ have a bottle of glue and the dried crushed eggs. He took my patterns from my marshmallow Easter candy and glued the egg shells to the patterns creating a fun little Easter project that we will probably do again in winter when I don't have a garden that needs extra calcium from the egg shells.

Materials (source: from our home)

Broken egg shells
Cups
Hot Water
Food coloring
Vinegar
Paper towels
Paper
Glue

Directions

1. For each color of egg shell, you will need 1 cup for dying the shells, 1 cup hot water, a few drops of food coloring, and 1 tsp vinegar. Mix these ingredients together and add the eggs shells.
2. Once the egg shells are the desired color, remove the egg shells and let them dry overnight on a paper towel.
3. On the next day, glue the egg shells to a piece of paper to create a work of art.


Posted on Easter Blog Hop

Cascarones

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As a kid we used to make cascarones for Easter and Fiesta. Everyone would meticulously save their hollowed out eggs for moths to later dye and fill with confetti. The belief is that a person who has a cascarone broken over their head will have good luck. Our family saves those little paper dots from the hole puncher to put inside the eggs making this a fun frugal project.

Little BBQ called the tissue paper that covers the hole in the egg a "hat." He told me that the eggs were faces and we were putting hats on top of the eggs. I thought it was a cute and funny story. We will definitely be doing this project again next year.

Materials (makes 12 cascarones)

12 Eggs
Cups
Hot water
Food Coloring
White Vinegar
Paper towels or drying rack
Confetti or hole punch dots
Tissue paper
Scissors
Glue

Directions

1. Poke a small hole at the top of the egg and remove the insides. Wash out the egg shell with hot water and allow the egg shell to dry over night.
2. Decide how many different colors of cascarones that you want to make. We made four different colors. For each color, you need 1 cup, 1 cup of hot water, several drops of food coloring, and 1 tsp of white vinegar. Mix all of these ingredients together for each color inside the cup.
3. Carefully dye each egg by placing the egg in the cup with the desired color. The longer you let the egg sit the color, then the darker the egg with become. Place the dyed eggs on a drying rack.
4. When the eggs are fully dry, carefully insert the confetti inside each egg.
5. Cut little tissue paper squares to cover the holes.
6. Glue the tissue paper squares over the hole of the egg.
7. Let the glue dry and break them on top of people's heads that you want to have good luck.


Posted on Easter Blog Hop

Melting Experiment: Molded Crayons

It has been a rainy week here in the Midwest which means lots of energy has been flowing through our house. We decided to make some molded crayons in spring shapes. My mom did this project with me as a kid. As a kid we did the project as an art project, but I decided to use this opportunity to teach Little BBQ about melting. Melting is simply changing a solid to a liquid by using heat. This leads to a discussion about what is solid and what is liquid? We ran around the house and found examples of both solids and liquids.

To get the pretty spring molded shapes we use a candy mold. The crayons were all broken already peeled crayons, so this was a frugal rainy day activity. We heated the broken crayons in the microwave. We sorted the crayons into different containers for each color. It took about 4 minutes to melt the crayons in the microwave. Using oven mitts Little BBQ poured the liquid crayons into the molds. The first time we melted the wax in the microwave we made the wax too hot and melted part of the mold, so you want to take crayons out of the microwave as soon as they become liquid so you can preserve your candy mold for later use. Once the crayons were dry we flipped the mold over and the crayons fell out. Little BBQ went a little nuts pouring the wax on top of the mold and over filled some of the molds, so we broke off the excess crayon after we took the crayons out of the mold. You can remelt the excess crayon again. To clean out the dishes that you melt the crayon inside, microwave the dish for about 30 seconds and wipe away the warm wax with a paper towel (I did this part).

This was a fun project that we all enjoyed. Miss Bubbles enjoys coloring with the large butterflies because they fit into her hand easily. Little BBQ thought that they were pretty. I think we will do this project again when we accumulate more broken crayons.

Materials

broken crayons with papers removed
microwave safe bowls
oven mitts
candy mold

Directions

1. Sort the broken crayons by color. Place the different colors in a different bowl.
2. Microwave the crayons until just melted, about 4 minutes on high.
3. Using oven mitts, carefully remove the melted wax from the microwave.
4. Pour the wax over the mold. You can add several different colors to the mold.
5. Allow the wax to cool.
6. Turn over the mold and pop out the new crayons. Any excess wax can be trimmed and remelted.

Shaving Cream Art

We love art in our house on long rainy days. We have done shaving cream art a few times. The first time we did shaving cream art Little BBQ went nuts mixing the colors that he ended up with a mud green colored design. We also used a whole 8 ½ x 11” sheet of paper for the art design, but I have found that I like doing this project with smaller sheets of paper because it seems more manageable to dip the paper in the shaving cream with a small piece of the paper than with a large piece of paper. This time around we did the shaving cream art with Easter cut outs that were my patterns for my Easter marshmallow candy. 

Materials from Artful Parenting

Large flat container

Shaving cream

Food Coloring

Spoon or other item to mix the colors together with

Paper, cut into any size and shape desired

Wash cloth or paper towels

Directions

1.       Fill the bottom of the container with shaving cream.
2.       Add several drops of various colored food coloring to the shaving cream. Mix the colors together using a spoon or other mixing item. Be careful not to over mix the colors.
3.       Dip one side of the sheet of paper onto the shaving cream. Press down on the paper to make sure that the entire surface of the paper is coated with colored shaving cream.
4.       Lift up the sheet of paper out of the shaving cream and lay down  the paper shaving cream side up to absorb the colors for 2 minutes.
5.       Wipe the shaving off the paper shapes.
6.       Allow the paper to fully dry and enjoy your shaving cream art.

Music: Making a Zither

This week we have been working on slowly reading The Story of the Incredible Orchestra by Bruce Koscielniak which is an amazing nonfiction book of the history of the orchestra. We read the page on early musical instruments and came across a zither. I was unfamiliar with a zither, so we went on you tube and found some videos of people playing zithers.  We really enjoyed the relaxing music that large zithers produce (found in the korean video). It is a bit rustic sounding but still really pretty. It reminds me a bit of a harp.  A small zither reminds me more of a banjo (found in the Austrian and German videos). Some of our favorite zither music is listed below:

Traditional Korean Zither Music

Zither Music From Austria

Zither Music from Germany 

We also decided to make a zither. Our zither only ended up with 12 strings because I wanted enough room for Little BBQ to easily strum his zither.

Materials

A shallow card board box (I used a box for canning jars)

Scissors (they need to be sharp enough to cut through the card board box)

12-40 pieces of string long enough to drape across the box

Tape

Stuff to decorate the zither (we used patches of cloth and glue)

Directions

1.       Cut two parallel sides of the card board box at the crease.

2.       Gently move the sides inward about 1 inch to make a trapezoid. Fold the back end up towards the inward folding sides. Tape the trapezoid together.

3.       Trim the back end of the box to be the same height as the sides.

4.       Tape string across the zither from one inward folded side to the other inward folded side.

5.       Trim the excess string.

6.       Decorate your zither.

Book: Doggone Dogs

Little BBQ has requested a project using clay, so I decided to use clay in our story time activity. Doggone Dogs by Karen Beaumont is quickly become one of our favorite books in our house. The book reads very quickly so even Miss Bubbles can sit through it, and it has a lot of fun rhyming words to keeps the rhythm of the book fast paced. The illustrations are very silly. Every time I read the book, Little BBQ notices something new about one of the illustrations every time making this book great to read over and over. This is one of the most request books in our house for read aloud, and Little BBQ enjoys reading this book silently. I love the versatility of the book. For our story time activity we make dogs out of clay. I showed Little BBQ step by step how to make the dog with the red clay, and he followed along with the yellow clay. Little BBQ is very proud of his dogs. He will not let anyone touch his dogs. I think I see more clay projects in our future.

Book: Imaginary Garden

Spring is here at is raining…a lot. With the warmer weather the kids and I are anxious to get outside and get our hands dirty in the garden, but Mother Nature has had other plans for us.  To quell our desire to be outside we indulged ourselves into fantasy land with the book, The Imaginary Garden, by Andrew Larsen. The book is about a little girl and her grandfather. The little girl loves her grandfather’s flower garden, but her grandfather moves to an apartment where he can no longer garden. To recreate the grandfather’s garden the pair decide to take a trip down fantasy lane and paint a picture of their ideal garden. As the season goes on the pair update the picture with more blooms.

Since we have already placed our seed order for the season, we did not need our seed catalogues anymore. Instead of throwing the seed catalogue away, Little BBQ was allowed to cut pictures from the catalogue and make his own imaginary garden.  I was nervous about letting him use big boy scissors for the first time instead of toddler scissors, but he did well with the transition.

The Very Hungry Little Caterpillar

Once a week we go to the library and stash up on books to read for the week. Last week we got the classic children’s book, The Very Hungry Little Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The book has wonderful colored pictures a very simple story that early readers can read by themselves.  The hole through the food is ingenious and Little BBQ’s favorite part. The book also teaches children about the life cycle of a butterfly.  I used the book to help teach Little BBQ about sequencing of events. We discuss what comes first in the life cycle of the butterfly and relate that to how human babies grow up to be adults. To end our study of the book we did an art project showing the life cycle of a butterfly. The leaf cut outs were leftovers from a thankful tree that we completed around Thanksgiving. The egg is a marshmallow. The little caterpillar is made of a series of marshmallows. The big caterpillar is made of pom poms, and the butterfly is made of a coffee filter and a twist tie. 

Tibetan Prayer Flags

This week homeschooling has been very slow because Little BBQ has been sick. When Little BBQ is sick, he does not want to do anything but sleep. It really stresses and freaks me out when he is sick because he is such an active little kid. He is the type of kid that can barely sit through dinner, and when he is sitting, he is fidgeting. Now that Little BBQ is feeling better we can continue on with our schooling. We started a small unit study on Tibet. Little BBQ picked some books about Tibet from the library last week, so we have been enjoying some Tibetan folklore.


One of the stories that we read was “Yeshi’s Luck” from the book Tibetan Tales for Little Buddhas. The lesson in the story is that we don’t know what life is going bring us; things that at first might seem bad can be good and vice versa, so we should just take life as it comes at us. I really wanted to focus on this story this week because Little BBQ has an explosive temper because he is a very passionate child. While I love his passion, I need to teach him different ways to cope with his temper other than throwing things or hitting things. Contained in the story is a chant, “Om Mani Padmé Hung” that is pronounced OHM MAHnee peMAY hoong. The chant means, “the jewel is in the lotus blossom.” Every time an event occurs in the story the father repeats this chant to clear his mind. I am trying to teach Little BBQ to do the same thing whenever he feels a temper tantrum coming on. Little BBQ really likes the chant and says it really slowly to really annunciate the different sounds in the chant. So far he has said the chant after he has a temper tantrum and not before, but it is a start.

The other cool thing that the story highlights at the end is prayer flags. In Tibet, people write prayers on pieces of bright colored cloth and put them on a string and hang them outside (Rose, 2004, p 4). We obviously don’t know any Tibetan prayers, so we put things that we are thankful for on our Tibetan prayer flags. Some things that Little BBQ included on his flags were, “mommy, daddy, little sister, pink, food, kitties, and sun.” I also wrote a poem on one flag that was contained in the story. The poem is posted below.

Life is like a potter’s clay
changing shape from day to day.
As stars sparkle in the sky
light and dark go quickly by.
What’s the future, no one knows.
Be at peace with how life goes.

(Rose, 2004, p 23)

I am having Little BBQ memorize the poem. When things upset him, we discuss the poem. The poem is really beautifully and speaks to us all on those hard days when life seems to take a turn for the worse. I think our whole family can learn a lot from the Tibetan culture. I hope you enjoy our paper version of Tibetan prayer flags.

Box Assemblage

This week for math Little BBQ has been working on the concept of enclosure. For a young learner, “enclosure is when objects are grouped together and fenced or held together as a unit” such as a dozen eggs in an egg cart (Math Arts p151.) To explore this concept creatively Little BBQ made a box assemblage. We took box from my canning jars and went outside. Little BBQ was allowed to collect outside objects to place inside of his assemblage (a 3-D collage.) As we were gluing the objects inside of his box we discussed the fact that all the items inside the box are now together as a unit instead of a single leaf or rock they are a unit composed of lots of leaves, rocks, sticks, and grass. We also brainstormed other things that come as unit like eggs, bags of apples, and berries inside of boxes. Overall, the project was a lot of fun. I think this is a fun way to creatively learn about enclosure.

Materials (modified from Math Arts p 163)

A cardboard box
Small objects to put inside the box (we used items from nature)
Glue

Process

1. Choose the small objects to be placed inside the enclosure.

2. Place the objects inside the box.

3. Rearrange the items until the young artist is satisfied with arrangement.

4. Glue the objects inside the box.

5. Display the assemblage in a special place.

This post was featured on Carnival of Homeschooling
Books that we read this week:

The Spice of Life

As you can see by this blog, I love to cook. I want to transfer that passion for cooking on to my son, and thankfully he has taken quiet an interest in cooking. Cooking is special because you have to do it to sustain yourself, so the better you are it then the more enjoyable the experience is going to be. I want to teach Little BBQ about spices and the way they melt together to creating exciting culinary achievements. To help him appreciate spices we did a spice collage today. We smelled and identified each spice before he was allowed to dump it on his collage.


He really liked the scent of cinnamon, but he was not a fan of curry which is ironic because he loves Indian food. The end result was a highly fragrant collage that is hanging in Little BBQ’s “art gallery.” This activity was another great rainy day activity.

Materials

Paper (we used red construction paper but you can use any type of paper)
Variety of ground herbs and spices (we used oregano, curry, lemon pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika, mustard, and garlic)
Glue

Instructions

1. Make a glue picture or pattern on the paper.

2. Smell an herb or spice and identify the herb or spice.

3. Place the herb or spice on top of the glue.

4. Brush off any excess herb or spice into a trash bag.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 until the picture is complete

Rain Dancer

This spring has been super rainy, and super rainy days mean lots of time indoors which is pure torture for an active preschooler. I have been so desperate for ideas for things to do that I have scoured blogs and even bought some books to help me find some rainy day inspiration. I finally found an interesting book called Science Arts by Mary Ann F. Kohl and Jean Potter. The book combines two of my favorite things, art and science. As a kid I remember all the beautiful pictures found in science books such as volcanoes, cells, animals, metabolite pathways, and all the other things that intrigue a young student. I remember wanting to be a medical illustrator, but my art skills were less than stellar. I even had an art teacher tell me I was talentless. He was probably right, but I still love all the pretty pictures in science books. And even better, I have made my own pretty science pictures over the years using microscopes and stains. I love the marvels of modern science that let me see our world even when our eyes don’t allow us to.


Now I am mother of two children, and I want them to appreciate science and art as much as I do. I want them to get excited about the world around them. I want them to discover both art and science. Today I let my son explore diffusion through art. It was another dark rainy day, and I was excited when I saw this activity called, “Rain Dancer” in the book Science Arts because it actually used the rain in the activity. The age recommendation was age 4 and up, but I decided to let Little BBQ try it anyway even though he is only 3.5 years old. He was a little young to understand the concept of diffusion, but he did enjoy the process of doing the project which was great. We are definitely going to save this activity for another rainy day.

Modified from the book Science Arts page 24:

Materials

Rainy day
White paper (we used computer paper)
Kids paint
Paintbrushes

Art experiment:

1. Paint the white sheet of paper.

2. Put the painted paper outside and let the rain hit the paper.

3. Bring the paper back inside after 5 minutes or until desired amount of spreading has occured.

Little BBQ tore the paper trying to bring it inside, but the concept is still there.

Science Concept Learned:

Diffusion occurs when the water droplets hit the paint on the paper. The pigments from the paint are in high concentration on the paper, but the pigments begin to diffuse or spread out across the paper once the water hits the paint.

This post was featured on Carnival of Homeschooling. and Homeschool Showcase #60