Here Comes The Sun - 19 August 2010

A day of art and craft and learning about the sun & heat... The homeschool group came over to our home today and we had a great day of art & craft, cooking, science in the garden, using a sundial & watching a documentary on the sun. Then because it was such a lovely day lots of running around in the garden afterwards.

We made beautiful sun-catchers using beads and crystals.


We used black cardboard outlines and cellophane to create other sun-catchers to stick up on windows.






And because creativity requires a full stomach we all made home made pizza's from scratch.

Earth Painting - 24 June 2010

A great homeschool activity and a lot of fun (and mess)...

We made our own natural paints using two types of soil, charcoal & turmeric.

Charlie pounding the charcoal with a mortar and pestle




Great earth shades of different textures & colours











Some of the finished masterpieces


These paintings led into great discussions of Indians, Aboriginals & American Indians paintings. How these different cultures all used natural resources around them to create beautiful works of art.

Glue, Dirt & Tin Can's!

I mentioned in a previous post that our theme for this term in our homeschool group was earth & keeping that in mind I went digging for some crafts to incorporate the theme. I found a great site where they had recyclable crafts which included plants and soil as well. (Kid's just love a craft with dirt involved!) It's amazing what you can do with a old milk carton and a empty tin can ~ you can help save the earth and have lots of fun doing it!

They were basic ideas, easy to do and they look great sitting on my front veranda - smile

My handsome son with his tin can herb pot and recycled milk carton flower pot.



Even Lola enjoyed painting and putting stickers on her tin can. She is very proud of her plant and she just looks cute in Charlie's bike helmet - big grin!



Pernella with her beautiful creations


These are the links to the craft's:

tin can herb pot

Recycled Flower Pot

And I thought I would just end with a lovely photo of my big girl with her plants that she has brought with her pocket money. I think she has a green thumb like her Grandad.


Have a look at some other entries at We made it Friday Showcase hosted by -

Colourwheel Bouquet Art Lesson -

This was a great art lesson that I found on 'Deep Space Sparkle'
This term we are learning about Primary Colours and Secondary Colours and I thought this would be a great art lesson to start us off... We all had a lot of fun doing this - yes even I gave it ago and so did our two year old - smile...

Master Charlie's piece `~


Miss Pernella's work


And Mum's attempt (can you tell it's been ages since I've have had the chance to scrapbook so playing with any type of paper is fun)


You can see other fantastic ideas on The Ramblings of a Crazy Womans blog on We Made It!!! Friday Showcase!!!

More bears, more colour's...

Here are just a few more things Lola and I have been doing...

To help her learn about colours I separated all the different coloured crayons and put them in their different shades into plastic cups and put them on a tray. She then coloured pictures from Brown Bear, Brown Bear.



I printed of this picture of a giant cupcake and Lola used different colours of glitter to decorate it. For the Brown Bear printout Lola got to use Mummy's special coffee to sprinkle over him. I laminated the glitter cupcake and coffee bear so that we could stick them up on the wall and there would be no mess.



Pernella did this activity when she was in pre-school and I kept the idea in the back of my head. I just divided a page into two and wrote down a colour in each corner and then gave Lola a heap of different coloured items for her to stick onto the right colour written on the page. She really enjoyed doing this activity.



I have started putting up her pieces of art work on the wall which she loves me doing and likes to show our visitors her 'school work'...



I made Lola this simple story book about her as she goes into the garden at night out through the blue door. It has lots of different colours in it as well as things she has to do at night like brush her teeth, put on her pj's & say her prayers. She loves being the star of her own book and it was well worth the time it took for me to make it.

I Can Do - bears, bears and colours...

When I purchased Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle - I didn't realise how much Lola would love this book. We read it every day, two or three times a day! Lola can even quote the book off by heart. I brought the book for March's theme of bears and soon realised that it fit straight into April's theme of colours...

So I have combined Bears and Colours for Lola's 'I Can Do' activities

I finally found a use for all those tiny little beanie kids that the kids have..
Lola had great fun throwing the bears into each of the coloured boxes.





These are the 'Bear books' we have been reading together.



I have really been enjoying putting together fun, easy and inexpensive activities for Lola to play with. This is another fantastic idea that I got from Making Learning Fun web site. It's a Brown Bear Clank Can - so easy to make and lots of fun to use.



These are our number cards with the characters from Brown Bear on each of them -

/

Our Head & Tail card's



and 'put the Bear from smallest to largest' card's.


All these activities I got from 1+1+1=1 blog

Art Class at Home

Ahh the joys of having a friend with a talent...smile! I asked Lisa if she would mind running a few art classes for our home school group. Our first class was 'Making A Collage'.

The children could either choose a photo of themselves and enhance the collage with things they liked, hobbies, souvenirs etc, etc... or they could choose a subject of any kind and use bits and pieces to reinforce their concept.



Both Pernella & Charlie decided to choose a subject instead of a photo...


No surprise that Pernella went with the reptile theme... it really looks effective with how she has used the stones, twigs, leaves and cut out reptiles...





And I can't say I am surprised with Charlie's choice of subject either - skeletons and a grave yard - big grin!




It was a great morning - fun to explore another genre of art... next month we are doing charcoal sketching.

Hmmm what to do with a toddler when you home school....

I have read some great blogs which have wonderful activities you can do with a toddler at home and I have used several of their ideas...
But no-one tells you how difficult it can actually be keeping your toddler amused while you homeschool the older children - surely I am not the only one who has struggled with this?

After much searching and trying to find some answers and coming up with very little in the blog world - I have discovered a few things that actually keep our two year old entertained while we home learn...

Lola now has her Í can do activities' with our monthly theme and we have our special time just us together working on some of her activities in the morning. When I am doing book work with Pernella & Charlie, Lola now has her own book bag with books, colouring books, crayons that are her 'school books' that come out only when we are sitting around the table...

I brought a red plastic tub and filled it with lots of knick knacks... lids, beads, plastic lizards, spoons, empty containers etc, etc.. so she can dig around and play with whats inside - a huge success - (Hubby found his missing sunglasses in there on the weekend - big grin!) Puzzles have proven to be a big hit - those I have made and store brought one's.

I know juggling school work will get easier as Lola gets older and then we have to start all over again with Molly - big grin...




Lola loves helping with the dishes so I set her up with her teaset and washing up bowl... but it wasn't long before out come the teaset and in went the doll!




lots of fun...

Our Week in Words (With a few photo's added)

The start of my week... My desk is there somewhere... I like to think it is organised chaos but...? Maybe some filing might be in order!


A fun activity Pernella & Charlie tried this week was soap carving. Messy but fun... The first soap they carved up had to have something to do with our study on Ancient Rome and the next soap they had a free choice of what to do.


One of our favourite excursions is to our local Lifeline store. They have a book attic and this is where we go to hunt for more books for home. I am always amazed at what books people get rid of. We always seem to come home with a great collection. Here are a few of the books we got this week and all for a few dollars.


A quiet week this week - lots of school work done, still getting use to Ace. Worked out we would need to do about 3 pages of each subject to get the 9 paces completed per term. Then we need to work in our social studies, science, poetry, art & nature & handwriting. Me thinks I need to sit down and work out a schedule.

Our nature study was up close and personal this week with a tree snake that likes to visit our back verandah quite often. Also Pernella's tadpoles have legs now but I think we might have to move them before our friendly snake has them for a snack.

Made sure we took some time out this week to just have some fun together. I brought some Áir drying clay'(4 kg's from Overflow for only $9.99) and have decided that on Monday morning before we start our book work that the kids can have some creative time first. (I got this idea from my friend Di, another home school Mum - who says it works wonders in helping the children focus for the day).

Things I've learnt this week ~
Setting my timer for 15 minutes is a great motivater in doing my housework. Taking 5 minutes, drinking a coffee and watching the rain fall from my front verendah puts every thing into perspective. That garage sales are a fantastic place to pick up cheap resources for home schooling. That somedays I need to borrow Lola's mantra of Í Can Do'...

Quote of the Day
"I need regular moments in my life like that morning walk, times of refreshment and restoration that fill up the spiritual well in my heart that is too often left dry by the spirit-draining hustle and bustle of contemporary life. If I don't take care to keep it filled, I soon find I have no spiritual refreshment to give to those God has put into my life, especially my always-thirsty children. When I let my well run dry, I am no longer able to be a source of refreshing water to them, or to others. To say it more simply, I cannot keep giving out without taking in."
Sally Clarkson