October 15, 2014

Halloween-y Fun

Well I had grand plans of writing a beautiful post yesterday evening, but a migraine kind of changed that plan pretty quickly! So I figure that I will let those thoughts percolate and instead share a fun little craft the girls did today! They have embraced the season of Halloween and I thought that finding a fun project would be good! So after browsing pintrest together, they found a sweet little witch made out of a tiny flower pot. Well, Bunny was so enthralled, she ran around the house checking to see if we happened to have all the materials…..and low and behold we did (those are the benefits of living with a craft obsessed momma). She collect everything and the girls got to work. I helped here and there, but they did all of it on their own. The only thing I had to help with was making the hats out of felt! It just amazes me how big my girls are getting. It seems like just yesterday we were finger painting and making leaf collages out of contact paper. Now they can paint, cut, and use the glue gun all by themselves! The results are awesome too! I guess I taught them well! 😉 I love that creativity is such a part of everything we do here. All this creativity seems to build their ability to think, and problem solve quicker then when they don’t spend as much time making things. I think it is such an important things…..plus its fun for all of us!

What about you? Does creativity make it on your list of daily fun?

March 21, 2014

A Springtime Craft!

Stephanie Family moments, projects 0 Comments

Happy First day of Spring! We are so excited that it is finally here and I cant wait for the weather to catch up with the idea! 🙂 With the temperature in the 40s all week so far, the snow is almost melted and that makes things feel so much better! The girls got out to play and find some of the things buried by all the snow!

And since it was the first day of my favorite season, I thought it deserved some celebration. I found some inspiration on Pintrest and came up with a pretty spring craft for the girls and I to make together! Beads, birds, and tiny eggs….what could be better! All you need to make these sweet bird hangers is:
a twig (perfect to use one from the collection that my kids always seem to have),
some wire,
beads,
a small nest,
eggs,
and a bird.

I simply cut a length of wire, wrapped it around one end of the stick and let the girls add whatever beads they wanted. When they had filled the wire with beads, I wrapped the other end of the wire around the stick and hot glued the ends so they stayed! Then we hot glued the nest and eggs to the stick. The bird was a bit more challenging. I didn’t have any of those little birds, but they Pup decided that pompoms would make a perfect bird! She was right! So out came pompoms, feathers, googly eyes and more hot glue! Each girl easily built a bird and glued it to the hanger too! I loved that this project was not just something we could do, but also was something that they were able to be very creative with too! Plus they look adorable hanging up!

A perfect touch of spring to an otherwise dreary looking outside! I hope you had a chance to have some springtime fun today too!

January 31, 2014

Juicey Expiriment

Stephanie cooking, projects, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Well it appears that Carly has finally chosen a project to work on. She has discovered the joy of squeezing fruit and turning it into juice! She is using mostly citrus fruits, a little bit of sugar, and a splash of Sierra Mist! It is actually really yummy! She is now hoping to see what other fruits taste like. It will be interesting to see what happens when she has to figure out how to get the juice out of them! My hope is that she will dig deep into the flavors and even how the fruit grows. Who knows, maybe she will even try growing some new things this spring! Here are some pictures of her first batch!

So there you have it! This is turning into a very yummy project for all of us! She is so proud to serve her drinks to everyone in the family. She has made two batched today already! We are all going to be drinking alot in the next week or so! We will see what concoctions she comes up!

January 29, 2014

Foxy Fun

Stephanie projects, Reading and Writing, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Well I realized that I have not posted much about our school days! Well to be honest, the pictures look about the same day after day. It is pretty same old, same old here! In fact it has been kind of nice to have things working on a simple work plan. Bunny does her math every day, grammar three days a week, and spelling twice a week. We are going to be adding some chemistry in soon, but for the most part, it is simple and predictable. However there is some fun learning going on here too. Pup has decided that she wants to learn everything about foxes. I don’t know why, or where this came from, but we are going at it. She does so well with the project based homeschooling. We are reading books, constructing foxes, and watching videos on the internet. She loves to study the things that she finds and we have been using that to learn other things too. We have been spelling fox and other CVC words. We have also been rhyming words with fox. She is working hard and I love to see her working on her own!

As you can see, Pup is working really hard! I love seeing her working so hard! I see this work happening for a while! I hope you are having fun learning with your kids. There is something so fun about fostering a passion in your school room!

January 23, 2014

Penguin Puppets

Stephanie Art, projects, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Today we got to join my mom and the kids for a wintery craft! They were making penguin puppets out of paper! Simple, happy, creative fun. Here is what they did! Starting with a piece of black construction paper, roll it and glue it on the short side. Then you flatten the top and glue it shut. Then you cut the glued top in an arch to create the head. After that its cut and paste on the details. The kids had a great time making them all sorts of personalities!

So simple and so much fun! There was so much personality added to these little guys. Bunny added glasses to hers, Pup made a scarf, my brother made a tie, and V made a waiter with a wine glass! So what do wintery crafts have you done this winter?

March 2, 2013

Work for Everyone!

Stephanie Elementary, Homeschooling, Math, Montessori Work Day, projects 4 Comments

Well this week was a bit of a rough one with the places we needed to go and the things that we needed to do. Pup went to town on her Cheetah work, which I showed you the other day, and Bunny….well…we have had better weeks. I did spend some serious time looking into some new ways to do math in the hopes of helping Bunny remember how she really does love math. I dont know what to do with her about that. I re-presented bead frame and found some of the bead frame paper to help. We did a ton of problems and she admitted that it was kinda fun! 😉 I think that I am also going to present her with adding fractions next week. She loves them and has done quite a bit of work on the equivalencies. On the project side, we decided to boil her into to help it get darker, and it worked! She was so happy and excited that it worked! We were able to use a calligraphy pen to write words and she also dyed some paper with it to make it a nice light pink! She is now saving up some beet tops from some of our cooking to use to make some more ink! I guess I was wrong on her interest. She is really trying to find another way to do it. What I dont have is alot of ways to get information. There are no books on it in our library, and there are not too many good websites either. I need to do a little research for her I think. Not maybe the proper way, but it is just too difficult for her to sit and wade through all the website with me. So that will make it into our plan for next week’s worth! She has also been doing alot of creating with some of the creative materials on the art shelf! She found some wood scraps and made a stool. Here is some other work that she has done this week!

Pup’s work toward the end of the week was a bit more playful, but still good! She also has been creating a bunch of stuff with the art shelf! She used some wood scraps to make a computer. She was so proud of it and played with it all day! It now has a place of honor on her desk! We have also been reading more cheetah books and she played with her animals on the painted board of Africa she made!

So that is what we did during this week! I hope that we are going to have more fun this week, but with Pup’s birthday on Tuesday, we’ll see! 🙂 After all there is alot of other fun things to do with a birthday coming up! She and I decided on a zoo theme and she asked that I use her Cheetah model for decoration, so we will! 🙂 I hope you had a wonderful school week and are headed into a great weekend!

February 28, 2013

Cheetahs Everywhere!

Stephanie Homeschooling, Montessori Work Day, projects, Trays 0 Comments

Work this week has been really hard to get good work time in due to appointments and stuff like that. Have you ever had a week like that? Well we did get a few things done though. I think that the most notable work that has been done is on Pup’s Cheetah work has been going strong. Pup’s Cheetah work has just captured her heart. She has made so many things this week and really wanted read and play with cheetahs. She painted the sculpture she made last week. She painted a board like the grasslands of Africa for her toy cheetah to play on. We read and re-read book after book, and we finally got the movie she wanted to watch about Cheetahs. But we have also done some other things too! We played go fetch with cards and counters and she also built the binomial cube without the box! To support her study, I made some new tray for her that are sort of cheetah like! Here is what we have going on! 🙂

Pouring Water

(Ok, not really cheetah like, but fun!)

Wood Piece Transfer

Cheetah Playdough

Sewing a Button

(I think Bunny will like this too)

Scrubbing a Cheetah

(and Zebra and Elephant….you get the idea! I made a few African animal dirty so it was more fun!)

She loved the scrubbing!

She worked really hard to make a cheetah out of felt. She did it all herself and was really proud of it! She has it hanging on her bulletin board!

She did great with this! She is really understanding her numbers! Bunny thinks its no fair that she has all the fun math! I think it maybe the pretty pink hearts!

She has made quite a few playdough cheetahs too. I love that they have eyes and mouths! She is holding here by the tail since it wouldnt stand.

So there you have a project in full swing! My plan for tomorrow is to read some more cheetah books and to get Bunny interested in some new work! I hope your work week is going well! Happy Schooling!

February 23, 2013

Our First Taste of Project Work

Stephanie Homeschooling, Learning with Play, projects 2 Comments

Well over the last few days I have tried really hard to work some project time into our life here. Bunny is still doing all her regular Montessori work, but we had been working on some other things too. She is still working on the ink inquiry and I even helped her ask the librarian for more information. This is something she has never done and its pretty hard for her to talk to people she doesnt know. I was proud that she was able to talk to them. We ended up having to just find information on the interent since there were no books on how to make ink. So we found this tutorial and started to make some flower petal ink. We also saw a recipe for beet ink that she wanted to try too. I am hoping (fingers crossed) that it works out. I also borrowed some calligraphy pens and tips for her to try to use. I was thinking that using feathers would be fun too. I also am waiting for the right time to mention to her that our museum has some documents that were written by monks. I thought she may like to go and see that too. Plus I have the timeline of writing that I took off the wall the other day and She said she liked it. I was thinking that she would have a better interest in it if I represent it. So I may do that later next week. Anyway, the project has been a little slow going and I dont think that this will be a long interest because is not a deep passion, but it is a great way to get out feet wet! You saw some of her work in my last post and here is the rest of it. I love that she made a paint brush out of feathers today like the ones Brother Theophane used in the book that launched this project!

Pup however is another story! She has taken off on the idea of project work and we are working, playing, and reading non stop! Her passion is Cheetahs and she is absorbing all of it! We have talked about Africa, about all of the how a cheetah lives, what a cheetah looks like, and about baby cubs! We have drawn then, sculpted them, and played with some miniature animals. When I asked her where we could learn about cheetahs, she told me we should get a nature movie we had gotten from the library a while ago. So we went to find it. It wasnt there, but we ordered it and I showed her the cheetah books and she picked out all her own! We have read a lot of them and a few of them twice, even at bedtime. She is living in her project and I have never seen her work like this. I really want to get some more things for her and I think that a trip to the zoo is inevitable (despite the fact that it is cold)! Here is her work.

So there you have our first tiny steps toward project homeschooling. I am encouraged over how this is working out and how the girls are responding. I think that this combined with our Montessori work will really make a really beautiful experience. We will see. I am excited and the girls are too. In fact I think that Pup being so excited is more surprising then anything! I hope you had a great week! Happy Schooling!

January 19, 2013

Rainbow Ice!

Stephanie Homeschooling, projects, Science 0 Comments

Well as promised here is our awesome project for today! The girls LOVED this just like I thought that they would and I think that I can see them asking for it again another day! I found this idea at The Artful Parent and I knew we just had to try it! Last night, I froze water into several different sized containers. This morning I gathered the other materials, salt, liquid water color (You can use food coloring as well. Plus I did add water to my paint), medicine droppers, and trays; then I called the girls upstairs. Let’s just say the girl were excited! 😉 We talked for a minute about how salt melts ice, and about how it lowers the melting temperature of the ice. Neither of the girls were very interested and I cant blame them with all the colors ready to play with! We started off by sprinkling salt on the ice block (that I put on a cookie sheet). We let them sit for a minute before dripping color on them. The colors will fill the cracks and crevice left by the salt as it melts the ice. What you get is a beautiful Tie Dyed like look!

Isnt it beautiful! I thought it was pretty and so did the girls! They loved it so much that they wanted to do it again. So after we flipped the ice over and did both sides, I rinsed it and we did it again! That only works once though. I also would use one ice at a time so when they want to do more, you have a backup! 🙂 Our art is now preserved in these pictures because sadly it doesnt last. However, they are currently sitting outside where it is about 23 degrees, so maybe they will last longer! Happy Schooling!

January 5, 2013

Making Snow

Stephanie projects 2 Comments

Yesterday I was in the school room getting my trays all ready for our start on Monday! We are going to be starting back and talking about the seasons, so I was making a bunch of winter trays for Pup! While I was working away, the girls came down too and they started working. What they did was make snowflakes! Bunny found a way to take a piece of paper and used the circle inset to make some snowflakes! She made the snowflakes and then Pup colored them! I was really impressed with their cooperation and with Bunny’s finding a way to make them without any help! Bunny made a step by step tutorial for you! 😉

Step 1: Trace a circle

Step 2: Cut out the circle

Step 3: Fold it in half 3 times

Step 4: Cut triangles and lines in the edges.

Step 5: Unfold your snowflake

When they were done, they tossed them in the air like a snowstorm!

Here is what they look like!

After that, Bunny designed a craft for Pup to do! It was too cute! She drew a snowman with the circle inset, then on another piece of paper she drew the other parts of snowman for Pup to cut out and glue onto the snowman! They turned out really cute and they had a great time!

Ahhh…the beauty of the prepared environment at work here! So this is our start of winter fun! Be sure to stop back soon, I have all sorts of new tray to share with you all! I hope you are having a great January! Happy Schooling!