Tired, Need Sleep.

Too Much To Do (or a lazy mom whines)

2012-01-26T15:25:00.001-06:00

“I used to think that we can have almost anything we want from life, that it’s just a question of organization. But now I’m beginning to think that we have to make a choice more often than we’d like. The important thing is to make sure that it’s our choice, no one else’s, and that we make it honestly.”
- Adam Dalgliesh in Death of an Expert Witness, by P.D. James

I just can. not. fit it all in.

After being sick most of December and having some set backs in January, I have been feeling overwhelmed with the daily stuff that life is made of. I want to blog… but then when it comes down to it, I’d rather read a good book, soak in the tub, or stare at a blank wall.

I keep thinking I need to write in my journal for M – all these things I want to remember – things I want him to remember – words of wisdom… that sort of thing. But well, when it comes down to it… it just hasn’t been happening. (I hope that doesn’t make me a bad mother, because I’m afraid this is just the way it’s going to be for a while.)

I’m trying to organize some trouble spots in our home, our time, and the two pack rats I live with. Or trying to at least live with them without going crazy. Ok, more honestly, trying to figure out how to throw things away without them noticing. ;)

I’ve been rediscovering my passion for sewing and crocheting and creating beautiful things with my hands. I’ve even taken up loom-knitting. I am a crocheter through and through, but I do understand that a knitted something-or-other is nice to have sometimes too. ;)

I’m trying to work out the struggle inside that I’m having with facing these final months of small-childhood for M… the last of our days completely together; this time when I can see so clearly into his heart and mind.

I’m in the process of opening an Etsy store (don’t hold me to this, I’m only mentioning it in the hopes that it will actually make me work on it), revamping my blog, and creating a new site to house the free printables I offer. I’m working on an Easter e-book with a friend, and creating some reading helps for M’s “school time”. I’m putting together a space unit and an ocean unit, and thinking about plans for learning about how the human body works.

I think there are some reviews I’m supposed to be working on too.

And then there are friends, family, daily housekeeping, raising a small boy who wants my every minute, errands, and social events.

Sheesh. But seriously, how do you make choices to not do some of these things? They all seem so necessary… or else are things I really enjoy! I’ve realized that I’m so busy trying to organize everything into something manageable that I’m losing peace and joy in the struggle. Sometimes choices have to be made!

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? How do you cut back, or even choose the areas in which to cut back?

There are so many interesting things I want to share with you, so I’m going to try to get back into blogging. I’m hoping to share the basics of the reading program we are going through, and our arts and crafts activities a couple of times a month. I want to write about all the amazingly good books we’ve been reading and how we are fitting more books than ever into our days, our new chore system (new as in started 6 months ago, but just not written about yet), and lots of other things… look for some good announcements soon about a few of the things I’m working on. :)

Thanks for reading, and letting me vent (I am amazed to see that my readership has gone up over the past few months instead of down – you are all so appreciated!).

Here’s to getting back into the swing of things!

Have a beautiful day! :)

A Slow Advent

2011-12-22T15:27:00.001-06:00

Oh, this poor little neglected blog of mine.

This Advent has not gone exactly as planned. Not at all as planned, actually. There’s been a month’s worth of sickness and many, many things have just been laid aside. I am ashamed to say I’ve turned to store-bought craft kits to keep M busy. There is nothing wrong with these really, but they aren’t exactly the memory-making activities I had hoped for. Maybe we will get to them during the actual Christmas season (which lasts from Christmas day to Epiphany), or maybe not. I am thankful to just be well and functioning again, to be honest.

M was sick the first week of Advent, and then for almost two weeks it was my turn. I was couch-bound, watching the house get messier and messier through feverish eyes, and not caring. That nasty flu finally caught up with this anti-flu-shot girl, and gave me quite a beating. We all had it to a degree, but somehow I was the lucky winner of the worst case. Poor M was getting his own breakfast and lunch most days! He felt very proud, but it hurt this mama’s heart a tiny bit to see him taking care of himself like that. And then I had an awful case of pink eye, you know, just to round things off nicely. That meant no cuddling or snuggling with anyone, which after being sick for a long time is just incredibly depressing!

But somehow I was given the grace to realize that Advent is all about waiting and hoping and remembering just exactly where to look for the joy. I woke up on Joy Sunday (3rd Sunday of Advent), unable to go to church, again. And I wondered, just what was it I was supposed to be joyful about? None of my plans were actually happening, the house was a disaster, and I was being treated like a pink-eyed leper.

But time and time again, these past few months, I’ve been brought to a place where I’m gently reminded that fulfillment, joy, etc. are not found in plans, good times, or even health. Joy is found in placing hope – confident hope – in God and His goodness and love and mercy. Hoping for what I know is coming… Who I know is coming. Each evening of this Advent when we’ve managed to have our little devotional time, M places a straw (length of yarn) in our manger and whispers, “Come, Baby Jesus, be born in our hearts.” The simple and even boring Advent that has been our lot this year has, in the end, become a greater blessing in a way than a lot of fun and good times could ever be (although fun and good times are blessings too!). Our emptiness is slowly being filled with an amazing sense of anticipation – the joy of knowing that what we truly hope for, what we most need, is coming soon.

We are better this week, finally getting back to normal. But we are not going to try to fit a lot in. We are going to work on preparing our fantastically messy home and our hearts for the Love that is on its way. I’m just going to go slowly through the days, and savor the sense of anticipation as much as I can.

M has recently discovered Johnny Cash, and as I write this, Hey Porter is on (blaring even, you might say), and these particular lines are perfect:

“Go tell that engineer to make
that lonesome whistle scream.
We're not so far from home,
so take it easy on the steam.”

Blessings,

Magic Bubble ARt – review

2011-12-16T21:21:00.001-06:00

Growing Tree Toys recently sent us this fun little kit to use and review.

We’ve done bubble art before – with dishsoap, water, and food coloring – and truly the fun part of this is the bubble blowing. So, yes, that’s simple to do at home without a kit; but I noticed that the colors this time, with the kit, turned out to be much more vibrant, and the included crafts were a bonus.

Here’s everything the kit includes:The picture is so very bright it isn’t showing the tons of punch out pieces that came with this. There are 90 shapes and stickers included, and a little booklet that gives ideas of things to make.

Also included: pipe cleaners, dye, a stir stick, straws, green embroidery thread, paper cups, and a large bottle (much more than we needed) of soap with gold glitter in it.

I was not sure about the glitter soap, but it did sparkle up the bubbles (as long as we occasionally stirred it), and looked so pretty on the paper after it had dried! I’m afraid my photos aren’t good enough to show this, but take my word for it – very pretty!

The basic concept is to fill the cups about 1/3 full with water, soap, and dye; then stick in a straw and start blowing bubbles onto the papers and shapes. This MUST be done over some sort of covering – we used an old towel – because the dye will stain.

M really had so much fun doing this. I wish the kit had more disposable cups because they got very soggy very quickly, what with the bubbles spilling over the sides, but obviously regular cups could be used also.

Blowing 4 colors of bubbles all at the same time proved to be a lot of fun too: Take a look at that towel – definitely a good thing we used it! Fingers were stained too, but all in the name of fun, and no worse than when dying Easter eggs.

Now, M would have been content to blow bubbles all day long, but he knew this was a review and very seriously did every single craft included. In one sitting. He is a sucker for punching perforated shapes out of cardstock, so I think that had something to do with it. ;)

Here is a look at about half of the bubble prints he made:

A few things he crafted from all this colorful goodness…

A crown:

A hot air balloon:

Flowers:

Stick puppets, a fish, a door hanger, and some pretty patterned paper to use in the future:

As we were doing this (yes, I did get in on a little of the fun too!), I kept thinking about how perfect this would be for a birthday part, or any group of children. More cups and straws would have to be used, but there is definitely enough soap and dye mixture and paper crafts to make this fun and engaging for a group of 4 to 5 children.

M ended up loving this much more than I anticipated!

Have a beautiful day! :)

*I was provided a free Kid Concoctions’ Magic Bubble Art kit in exchange for writing a review. This review is entirely my own, honest opinion of the product.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

I hope you are all feasting away today with family and friends, and enjoying life’s many blessings! Fill your tummies with good food and your hearts with happiness. :)

A photo of our finished Thanksgiving Tree: (Forgive the rotten exposure. It looks better in real life.)

M wanted to place our leaves on the tree with our lists facing outwards, which made me wonder, why did we bother decorating them? ;) But the littlest person usually gets their way about this type of thing, so this year we have white leaves on our tree.

Each night for the past week we’ve written things for which we are thankful on leaves, and then tacked them to the tree.

I thought you might enjoy M’s top 7 things he is thankful for this year:

Our house
Our farm and apple trees
Mommy
Christmas
Food
Cupcakes, and Mommy, and Cake
Fish and Fishing for Fish (he has never gone fishing, by the way, but why get hung up on details?)

There is a glaring omission here, isn’t there? ;) Why did Mommy end up on the list two times (and what is the “Mommy” in between cupcakes and cake all about??), but no mention of Daddy? I giggle about this, mainly because I am not Daddy. I’m sure the thought of Daddy was in there somewhere. I think next year perhaps we will list our thanks for two weeks – to give us time to make sure everything is covered, and no feelings are hurt.

Just for the record, I did put Daddy on the very first of my leaves, and he is very loved.

Now, I’m off to stake out a place for my post-dinner nap. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

A garden of Gratitude

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

(Heh, heh – this vintage picture makes me smile!)

This is the month to be mindful of our thankfulness, a wonderful idea. I’ve been trying to set aside time each day to list my blessings. How neat to find that paying attention to my blessings and focusing on being grateful has worked to increase my gratefulness and my blessings! I decided to list things a little at a time, each day, and will share these as one post sometime around Thanksgiving.

I am thankful…

For the sense of empathy M has… his heart for poor children, hungry children, babies we know and don’t know, neighbors… and the specifics he’s able to articulate in prayer for them. I worry about his tender heart so much, but I know that this is really a blessing and I’m learning to be thankful for it.
That my 5 year old “big boy” has begun taking my shirt to bed with him (like when he was a baby – does he even remember?) to snuggle with and smell as he sleeps. That is love.
For all the beautiful nature surrounding us, and for a renewed eagerness to be out in it as much as possible.
For good books that prove how amazing and inspirational words can be when the right person puts them together in the right way.
For a husband that comes home from work tired, and still finds the time to read a chapter or two of Hank, the Cowdog out loud, sometimes with only one tired eye open. And still knows how to make us laugh at all the silly parts.
For being closer (not there quite yet) to making peace with the possibility that no more babies are in my future.
For a small house that only takes a few hours to clean. I’m convinced God knew what he was doing because he knows how I am about cleaning.
For magic erasers.
For my new sewing table and the little sewing / mama-craft nook in our home that I finally found a way to make.
For forgiveness, from everyone – God, my husband, my son… everyone.
For glorious autumn days that help me remember to be joyful.
For coffee.
For Coke.
For an oven that still bakes lovely things like pumpkin bread and apple crisp even though it is ancient.
For routines and good habits.
For wisdom when I (remember to) ask for it.
For intuition.
For our neighbors and our friendly little lane.
For traditions.
For the books we read out loud and the friends we make with the characters in them.
For the women I meet with every Monday morning… they have each become so important to me.
For friends that remember to ask about specifics in my life, showing that they are sincere in their care.
For such good role models as the people in numbers 22 and 23.
That so many people have taken a look at our Jesse Tree packet and have downloaded it or printed it to use with their families. It feels good to share wonderful things with others and it’s humbling to think of helping someone “out there” with something our little family does.
For occasional, unexpected moments of peace and quiet.
For soft, thick, cozy yarn and the pleasure of making something out of it, just for me.
For the joy of making things for others too. {Lest you think #27 was selfish. ;) }
For catching the moment on a windy day when yellow leaves are falling so quickly and thickly that you can’t see past them.
For catching sight of little boys trying to hula hoop. :)
That the worst thing my 5 year old has to worry about is finding where he mislaid his newest and most favorite rock.
For children’s audio books.
For the library, and that it is so close to our home.
For my husband’s job, and his willingness to support us while I stay home.
For a better understanding and appreciation of the work of a stay-at-home mom.
For my health and the health of everyone I love.
For my weekly hour in our church’s adoration chapel.
For visiting relatives.
For turkey dinners and naps afterwards.
For a warm, cozy bed.
To live in freedom.
For our military, the sacrifices they and their families make.
For the beauty of falling snow.
For the pure joy snow gives to the children I know.
For the cozy inside feeling snow gives me.
For second (and third, and fourth…) chances to get things right.
For the gift of being a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend, and every other role I’ve been given – I am truly blessed.

Art Time – Oh the things You can do with Melted crayons

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-06:00

Our Thanksgiving tree (find the pattern here) was up and ready to go, one week before Thanksgiving:But no autumn-themed scrapbook paper to make our leaves from! Target dollar spot, you really let me down this year. I checked other places too – and could not find a single (cheap) autumn pattern anywhere – sigh. I just love those scrapbook leaves.

Ah well, this was a great opportunity for an art project I’ve been meaning to do for ages – coloring with crayons on a warming plate.

We used scrapbook scissors (pinking and scalloping) to cut leaves from white cardstock; covered our little cup warmer with foil because melting wax tends to leak through paper, even cardstock; put the leaves on top of the foil and slowly drew with the crayons.(I do not have a warming tray, but this little cup warmer works great for small projects like these leaves. You could also use a cookie tray taken from a warm oven, but make sure little hands don’t get burned!)

The crayon melts as you draw and begins to glide across the paper. There’s something very relaxing about doing this! M enjoyed it so much, he stopped making designs and began to just color entire leaves. The smooth movement and the deep saturated colors on the paper put him into a sort of trance. :) I think this would be a great rest time activity! After he was done we turned the warmer off, crumpled up the foil, and were done. No mess, which is always a plus, right? :)

Our leaves (mostly):

We also made some great little autumn shapes by melting old crayons and pouring them into cookie cutters… this is always fun because it involves SMASHING crayons with a hammer or piece of wood, or whatever you may have lying around that would make a good smasher. ;)

Sort:

Smash:

Melt and pour:

Let harden, then pop out:

A little wax leaked out the bottom of the cookie cutters, but everything turned out okay. Still, I would use the flexible, non-stick muffin trays in place of cookie cutters, if you have them.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Art Time – Autumn Glitter Shapes

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

We made these last week, using some autumn cookie cutters from Target’s dollar spot.

Glitter is always so much fun, isn’t it? And so pretty as it makes its way around the entire house. Isn’t it fun to see a dusting of glitter sitting there, shimmering away on your couch as the sun hits it, two weeks later? And then you realize you most likely had glitter on your bottom when you wore your black pants to church that morning, and you feel so thankful to have given someone behind you a pretty little treat like that. Ah glitter. We all need a little sparkle in our lives, don’t we? ;)

So we gathered up some colored construction paper, glue, our cookie cutters and some glitter. Trays were helpful for keeping the glitter under control, but apparently not helpful enough.

We had a saucer full of glue, into which we dipped our cookie cutters (wide side down). Then we let them sit on our page for a while to let the glue drip down enough. Next up was shaking on the glitter and then tapping it off. I could have sworn I’d taken photos of actually doing this…

After they dried, M punched holes in the corners, we strung them up on ribbons, and added them to our oil pastel leaf banner, out in our breezeway:

Pretty, yes? A great outside activity too, if you ask me. ;)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Fun with Math and Wiki Stix

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned our Wiki Stix before. We’ve had them for ages, and I bring them out once in a while just for “something to do” – M loves them. He kind of forgets about them, but when he sees them, he loves them. They keep him busy for a loooong time, if that helps sway your decision to go buy some. ;)

I put out simple activities for M most mornings. Occasionally I am stumped for something new to do and go through my craft and school supplies for inspiration. So one morning last week I gathered up our autumn-themed play dough mats (placed in plastic page protectors), and our Wiki Stix and set them out for him:

He really enjoyed this! This would be wonderful counting practice for younger children. I can’t say M really counted as he did this, because that is no longer a challenge for him, but he enjoyed making little spirals out of the Wiki Stix and sticking them to the pages. This is good fine motor skill practice! The best part about this, and what I intended it for, was that it helped him work on forming the numerals, an area in which he needs practice.

Honestly, I can not look at those little hands without
wanting to kiss them or have a little nibble on them!

I love when something comes together that is so much fun for him he doesn’t realize he is working on anything. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Inspiration…

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

I struggle with depression. Have I mentioned that before? I meant to write about this, especially in relation to post-partum depression, at some point this year, but well, the year seems to have gotten away from me. I’m not going to write much about it in this post either because, oh la la, it is just not something I want to get into today. Some day though, I promise! :)

{By the way, it is not uncommon for women who have fertility problems to have trouble with depression too – an imbalance in hormones can wreak havoc on our bodies, minds, and souls in many ways.}

I am usually able to keep it at bay, without drugs, although I do take a very, very mild dose of an antidepressant to help me sleep. Sleep is so important. So are vitamins, outside time (I need to work on this!), finding the right pace for my days (not too busy or over-extended, not too empty), time spent nourishing my soul with prayer and inspirational reading, keeping a focus on goals, and making sure priorities are kept in proper order. It is possible to still be a good mother and wife – a wonderful mother and wife – and fight depression at the same time!

One thing I’ve often noticed about myself is that keeping all of these things going (the things mentioned in the paragraph above) is much easier when I am in the middle of reading some sort of helpful book about motherhood, the spiritual life, homemaking… anything along those lines. And if I’m not currently reading and enjoying something like that, lack of motivation and then depression can settle in pretty quickly. I’ve always considered this to be a weakness of mine… And then I began reading Jamie Martin’s book, Steady Days: A Journey Toward Intentional, Professional Motherhood. (You can find Jamie here, here, and here. She is amazing.)

I’ve had this book on my to-read list for ages. Recently, it finally seemed like the right time to pick it up and immediately I was struck with her acknowledgement of the power of words. And it’s true. Words put together in the right way can have real power. I feel like this is something I’ve always known, have perhaps even mentioned myself, but somehow this time I realized it in a completely different way. God uses the words of others to lift us up and encourage us and keep us going. It’s a wonderful gift to have these words, and it is not a weakness to need them!

Jamie mentioned making a box full of quotes that inspire her. If it is good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. :) Just thinking about doing this made me feel more calm and peaceful… the idea of having something to look to on those days when I need an extra nudge upward so I don’t find myself spiraling downward… what a blessing that would be for my whole family.

So I bought a little wooden box at Michaels and decorated it with some paint pens: Hee hee – it looks to me like something my 10-year old self would have made, not exactly the piece of beauty I had envisioned, but it will work. :)

And I began filling it up with inspiration:

Now I’m off to tell Jamie about it and give her back a little of the encouragement she has given me. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Art Cart – independent artwork

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

~a sampling~ ;)

The weather has taken on a definite it’s-still-fall-but-winter-is-nearer-than-you’d-like-it-to-be feeling here, which is strange, seeing as how it must still be mid-July, right? (Have the past few months just flown by or what? Please tell me it is not just me!)

And so of course we’ve been spending more time indoors and the art cart I made for M last spring has become popular again. I love seeing what he makes all on his own with no interference or direction. I love, love, love it. I love it for many reasons, and two very small reasons are because it keeps him busy and happy and requires no work on my part. I’m sure there are more noble reasons than that, but I am so giddy about him keeping busy and happy and it not taking any work on my part that I can’t think of those right now.

I just wanted to share a little of what is hanging up around here that M has done completely on his own. I miss doing those Art Box posts, darn it, so you may all have to sit through a post like this from time to time. (Well, you don’t really HAVE to, just let me imagine you are.)

A little sparkle:

Newly discovered magnetic tape (by M, I’ve known about this stuff for ages) has inspired all kinds of new magnets which just appear here and there:

This… thing (the hole punch has been discovered also):

Collage:

And, I believe, some works in process:

Super-cute Mr. and Mrs. Frog (M did ask me to draw the hands and feet for these, but everything else was his, including the idea:

And a homemade kite, with string wrapped around a tp tube, hee hee:

Have a beautiful day! :)

Free Printable jesse Tree ornaments and devotions for advent 2011

2011-11-09T06:58:00.001-06:00

Jesse Tree Packet 2011
“But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and
from his roots a bud shall blossom.” – Isaiah 11:1

Since we’ve started having a Jesse Tree during Advent, I can’t imagine not having one. It has added such focus, and a sense of peace to what can be the most chaotic time of year.

The Jesse Tree is a small tree (we use a tree cut out of felt, but many families use a miniature tree, or a branch tucked into a pot) that is decorated throughout Advent with ornaments that trace the lineage of Jesus all the way from creation to His birth. It shows, in a simple way, God’s plan of salvation throughout history.

This tradition has blessed us in ways we never imagined. And there’s the added bonus of M really getting it. The cuddled up story time, the hands-on ornaments, the little Advent box we open each evening (it contains the ornament for the day and the devotional card)… all of this appeals to a child’s heart. I am amazed when M knows these stories at other times of the year, and realize what an impact the Jesse Tree has had on him.

Sometimes, after a particularly trying day, we light a little votive candle to help set a reflective mood as we prepare ourselves to focus on the “reason for the season”. As this time for the Jesse Tree is set aside every single evening during Advent, we find that our focus throughout the day is changed too… all the superfluous stuff is more easily set aside because our hearts are in tune with what truly matters. (Knowing how special this time can be really motivates me to have all my gift shopping done before Advent begins. Some years I’m better at this than others, but having even some of it done makes for a more peaceful Advent.)

This year, Advent begins on Sunday, November 27th. There are 4 full weeks – 28 days - of Advent this year. That’s the maximum number of days Advent can have.

Because the number of days during Advent changes from year to year, some years all of the ornaments and readings will be used, and other years some will be skipped. In our family we use the ornaments and readings for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sundays as our “optional” ornaments… these are extra ornaments that relate to the season of Advent (Light, Joy and Hope, Peace) but aren’t directly related to the ancestral line from which Jesus came. There are some prophets included in the Jesse Tree also, and in years where we need to skip more than the three ornaments mentioned above, we start picking these guys off. :) For those years, we are most likely to skip Ezekiel, Daniel, or Elijah… we like to include Isaiah each year. I have nothing against the other guys… we love them too! :) But someone’s gotta go when there’s more ornaments than days, right? ;)

To avoid all of this change from year to year, some families pick only 24 ornaments and use these same 24 ornaments every year, beginning their Jesse Tree on December 1st and ending it on Christmas Eve. That is a perfectly fine way of doing it too! There really is no right or wrong way to do this, and if you search online you will see there are many versions of the Jesse Tree. The main thing is to show how God’s plan of salvation was unveiled throughout history and how each person in Jesus’ lineage played an important role in this plan.

Take a look at the packet I’ve put together for this year. You can find it here, or by clicking on the controls in the image at the top of this post. There is a schedule (specific to this year) for the ornaments and Scripture readings, as well as a word or phrase for each day to reflect on (these lead to some wonderful conversations!) and a short prayer for each day.

I’ve changed some things this year to make them better suited for us, and I hope they will work well for your family too. The ornaments can be printed and colored, or use them as templates for felt ornaments, or in any other way you can think of.

Some of the Scripture references on the cards are different this year – I used some that just made more sense to me, and the Annunciation (when Gabriel appeared to Mary) is included this year. I know it really happened about 9 months prior to the birth of Jesus, but it’s an important part of the whole story, I think.

I’m hoping this helps simplify the process of making the Jesse Tree a tradition in your family, and that you will be as richly blessed by it as we have.

As always, feel free to share this link with others (please do!), but do not post it on your own site, sell it, etc. Thank you!

Have a beautiful day! :)

2011 Homeschool Blog Awards are Open!

2011-11-07T14:46:00.001-06:00

You can go vote for your favorite homeschool blog by clicking on the button above. There are 20 categories in which to vote!

Tired, Need Sleep has been nominated for the Best Crafts, Plans and Projects Blog. I am a little astonished by this considering my sporadic, at best, blogging this past year! A big thank you and hug to anyone who took the time to nominate this little blog of mine. I feel very honored. :)

The awards are a good opportunity to find more homeschool blogs; I hope you will take a few minutes to look over the lists, visit some blogs, and vote for your favorites!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Happy November :)

2011-11-02T19:46:00.001-05:00

We are having one of those weeks. I won’t go into it because I’m pretty sure you all understand what one of those weeks means. :) I haven’t looked at my to-do list once today and yet I am so tired I could drop. But good friends to visit with made the day totally worth it. I’m thinking I’ll leave the to-do list hidden away for the rest of the week. ;)

I wanted to take a moment and get on here to post a photo of M on Halloween:

He was a road. Yep, a road. :) This was his idea, and I was just thankful it was do-able. :) That’s a green “go” light on his forehead. He had a stop sign on his back:

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween and you are all enjoying lots of sugar along with your children. (Mainly because I do not want to be the only mother that steals candy out of the bowl when no one is looking.) ;)

And here’s a photo of M’s oil pastel artwork made into banners and hanging in our breezeway: I love the feel of this photo – it just makes me happy every time I look at it!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Oct. 28, 2011

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
-Henry Ward Beecher

M – and a hula hoop. :)

Besides trying his best to figure out how to “work” a hula hoop (which was hilarious, by the way), M had a great week…

Independent Activities:

I bought a Kumon book of crafts a few months ago to keep M busy on a long car trip (it was perfect for that), and he recently re-discovered it when I was sorting through some craft supplies:

There are 80 pages of crafts in this book. It has kept him busy and interested all week long. It’s great for scissor practice and folding practice. It calls for glue, but M has (thankfully) chosen to use double stick tape instead. All kinds of neat little things can be made – a dancing dog and a rooster that flaps his wings are two of our favorites so far, As well as this little fishing game:

Making the fish…

and then catching one.

The only downside, as you can imagine, is having somewhere near 80 little paper crafts lying around the house. :) Still, I highly recommend it.

Pin punching autumn shapes:

M still really enjoys these. There are two ways to do this – place push pins around the outline of the shapes, like this: Or use one pin to make holes all along the outside of a shape and then punch it out (like a perforated shape). He loves doing both, and they are both great fine motor skill work.

Design and Drill set – well, this was supposed to be a photo of M drilling a design, but then he decided to make hand shadows where the sun was shining on the floor. :) (I wrote more about this great toy a while back in this post, if you are interested.)

Science:

We have a drawer full of “dead” batteries. I am not sure why M insists on keeping batteries that are all used up, but we have learned to just not ask questions about these things or we will get an earful on batteries, which may just be his favorite conversation topic ever. Anyway, they came in handy this week when M decided to build a battery tester with his Snap Circuits set: (the railroad track is just there for decoration, because we LOVE stepping over things like that in this house. All. the. time.) Turns out, many of the batteries still had plenty of energy in them to light a 2 watt lightbulb or make a small motor go, so now they’ve been relocated to the “non-dead” drawer and it’s only slightly annoying when we have to go through them again trying to find one that will actually work in something important. ;)

Math:

We played a “penny drop” game this week. This was kind of taken from Peggy Kaye’s book, Games for Math:

I made a quick chart of numbers 1 through 9 and we took turns tossing or dropping a penny on the page. Whichever number the penny landed on was the number of linking people we would pick and link together.Once they were all gone we looked at our rows and guessed who had more (simple graphing), then counted them to see if we were correct. This was fun, but not much of a challenge for M. However, I love these little linking people and just had to use them for something. ;)

Literacy:

M has been practicing his writing. He seems to have a preference for the letters M T H E and W. ;) An occasional N and A get in there too. He has been seeing how tiny he can write, and then of course I have to read it back to him, which really is about as much fun as you’d imagine. ;)

We played a little game matching up objects with their beginning sounds for a few random letters (based on whatever small wooden pieces I could find lying around, which were originally from Michael’s). I had written the word on the back of the objects so we could self-check to see if we had chosen the correct letter. M matched upper case to lower case also: I was glad to find that he didn’t have any difficulty with this, seeing as how we didn’t do much of this sort of thing over the summer.

We also played a feeling game with the large foam letters. M would close his eyes (he decided against a blindfold, very emphatically) and picked a letter. He would feel it for several seconds and make a guess. I usually gave him a choice between two letters and he did really great!

But I don’t quite understand the bare shoulder thing going on here, or why he insists on wearing snowman pajamas already. :)

M also made up a little story this week and had me write it down on his whiteboard so he could copy it: I do not take dictation as quickly as he’d like, so I may have missed a few parts. :) I think this is a great idea for helping him focus on spelling and phonics. In the near future I plan to see if he would like to make up a story for me to type out for him, and then have him try to sound out some of the easier words… we’ll see how it goes. He is definitely more interested in this kind of thing if it builds on something he’s already created.

Art/ Sensory/ Spelling/ Science:

This was the hit of the week. You can read about it in this post from earlier in the week.

Creative Play:

M was awfully proud of the suspension “bridge”, which was actually more of an entire suspension track, that he made:The photo is not terribly clear, but he had an entire train track built up in the air around our living room, held up here and there by whatever was handy. His trains actually went around the whole thing a few times, until of course the inevitable and spectacular crash happened. :)

M went to a Build and Grow class at Lowe’s (for children 5 and up) and got to build this little wooden monster truck with a real flashing light and glow-in-the-dark stickers. :) He was very proud of himself and enjoyed hammering real nails into wood! The apron and safety goggles, as well as the supplies for building the truck were all free. This is a great program, and Home Depot has a similar one. I highly recommend it for any wood craft lovers out there!!

And we made some delicious pumpkin muffins:I wish I could pass them around to all of you, they were the perfect treat for this time of year!

I am linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up. Check them out for some great homeschooling posts!

Have a toasty warm and beautiful day! :)

Art Time and a little spelling Practice

2011-10-26T07:25:00.001-05:00

Deborah over at Teach Preschool has a wonderful Facebook page, where she shares great ideas that she runs across when she is online. It is truly fabulous. And that is where I found this little idea about puffy paint (and I’m kicking myself for not noting the blog where she saw it).

This project was definitely a hit!

We’ve done something similar to this, here, and that was also a hit with M, but today’s version gets microwaved and turns all soft and puffy (or hard if you put it in for too long – oops!)

Recipe: 1 Cup of flour, 3 tsp of baking powder, and 1 tsp of salt. Mix these together, then add enough water to make it pourable, but not runny. It’s a bit like pancake batter, so go for that consistency, although I think ours would have been better just a tiny bit thicker than we had it.

I used a funnel to pour it into 3 squeeze bottles, filling them up about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way; then added food coloring and shook them up until it was mixed in. The shaking part may not have been the smartest decision since it made the baking powder want to explode out of the bottles, but oh well. You might want to mix your colors in bowls, and then transfer them to the bottles. ;)

I had written our last name on some cardboard, in “bubble” letters and M filled them in with the paint. He loved this. I’ve been trying to get him interested in learning how to spell our last name, and was so happy that this worked!

This is how the paint looked wet, as M filled in the letters:

He loved doing our last name so much, he asked me to write his first and middle names out for him too, so I did and he painted his entire name. :)

We put the painted cardboard in the microwave for about 20 seconds at a time, testing it each time to see if it was done. It puffs up and feels a bit like play dough, except firmer and not mold-able of course.

Very cool results:

I was thinking of this as art, but M kept referring to it as our “science experiment”, and I guess he was right too! So, we had art, spelling, and science – and fun – all in one. It doesn’t get better than that! :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Art Time! Autumn oil pastel artwork

2011-10-25T07:41:00.001-05:00

M and I recently made some autumn-themed artwork with oil pastels. They turned out so pretty and were fun to make too. M had to get past an initial “this feels weird on my fingers, and oh ack, it is making them dirty too” sort of thing, but then I reminded him that he is washable and he began to enjoy the process. :) (That conversation was a bit surreal for me, considering the fact that he is normally drawn to dirt and messiness.)

Our supplies:

Construction paper in light colors, and cut in half (we used a light brown, white, and yellow); shape templates cut out so there are both the negative and the positive pieces (I found these printable shapes at Lakeshore Learning – they have quite a few free printables); and oil pastels. We tried using cotton balls to smear the pastels, but found using our fingers gave us a much better result.

The framed picture is there because we took a few minutes to look at it and talk about the many, many autumn activities going on in it. I love this set of seasonal prints that I got for free at a book sale. They weren’t painted by anyone famous or anything, but the detail and the style really appeal to me. I’ve framed them and placed them in our breezeway above M’s little desk (we’ll switch them out each season):

We talked about the colors of autumn, and M decided that just about any color can be an autumn color if you do it right, so we decided to use all the colors of oil pastels.

We each chose a cut out shape, or a page with the shape missing, and talked a tiny bit about how these are referred to as positive and negative spaces.

To do this, place your shape on a piece of paper, and color around the outline, using quite a bit of pressure:

Then use your finger to smear and smudge the color onto the paper. For the above photo, you’d smear the pastel outward, for the photo below M smeared it inward:

And look – pretty, pretty artwork:

We made several of these and plan to string them into a banner. Hopefully I’ll have a picture of that to share at the end of the week.

The inspiration for this art project was from this post over at Catholic Icing. I thought it would make a beautiful project for fall. It would be fun to do something similar with watercolors, don’t you think? That just might have to make it onto our art to-do list!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Oct. 21, 2011

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”

- Henry Ward Beecher

I never see M more joyful than when he is playing in the leaves! But why does he wear his bike helmet non-stop? Do your children do this?? :)

Technology really seems to have something against me this year. I lost my USB cable for my camera, so there are not many photos for this week. {Sigh.} We actually had a really great week and I was very excited to write about it. Ah, the irony. :)

However, for you that means a nice short and sweet post. :) Here’s a bit of what M’s week was like…

Nature Basket – I recently added a magnifying glass to this to add a new level of interest. Here are M’s fall treasures thus far:

Pinecones, sticks, interesting weeds and rocks, a cattail, 3 feathers,
and a shell from our river walk.

Remember last week when he learned our phone number and how to properly use a phone? Well, this week he learned our cell phone number, and took to calling himself and talking to himself on both the cell and the home phone: I am not kidding. He was actually having a conversation with himself. :) Looks like a good one too, doesn’t it?

FINE MOTOR SKILL WORK:

Scissor Practice – I folded some construction paper in half and drew one half of an image on the front: M had to try to cut right on the lines and then guess what it was before he opened it up. This tied nicely into our recent discussions about symmetry too. Interestingly, he didn’t guess any of them right. He guessed a hill, a blahblahblah (some nonsense word), a Christmas tree (?!), and a robot. :) They turned out to be, in order: a pumpkin, an acorn, a leaf, and a scarecrow – he could tell when they were opened up (thankfully!). I drew the pumpkin, acorn, and scarecrow freehand, and found a maple leaf template on Google Images (I’m not sure of the link, but there are many available).

He did great with these and stayed right on the cutting line, having trouble only with the scarecrow who unfortunately lost part of his hat, and had his head entirely cut off. :) Thank goodness for tape! M had a lot of fun putting funny faces on them (the stickers are from Michael’s) and hanging them on the window! This turned out to be a big hit!

Lacing cards – I sometimes forget about these, but we have many of them, and it is easy to make your own. M still loves to do these, and he comes up with new things to do with them:Like “sew” them together and hang them up as part of the fall decor. Sometimes I think our home looks like we have a 5 year old decorator, and then I realize we actually do and that I love it. :)

Caramel Apples – We had fun making caramel apples this week – just 3 of them because somehow we ended up with a very small amount of caramels. :) M was in charge of unwrapping all the caramels (great fine motor work that takes a long time, but is highly motivating):

I think we added a bit too much milk to the mix because even after our caramel had cooled and we had dipped the apples, only a very thin layer covered them. But they were delicious! And I think they were beautiful, don’t you?

Crocheting! That’s right – crocheting! I’ve been crocheting for over 30 years now, and over the summer M took a huge interest in this and we’ve been crocheting up a storm together ever since. This is how we do it:My hands are on bottom, holding the crocheted fabric. I love seeing how much alike our hands look. :)

It is too difficult for him to maneuver the crochet hook and yarn while holding onto the fabric, so we snuggle up and I hold the fabric for him. He does everything else and he has really gotten very good at it. Of course I guide him and talk him through it as needed. It’s a good little extra snuggle time for us. :)

Here’s a “shaving washcloth” he made for Daddy’s birthday:

We did manage to squeeze in some math, science, art, and a little phonics work too, but those pictures are still waiting. Hopefully I’ll be able to share them next week!

Linking up to:

Have a beautiful day! :)

Science Sunday – Heat and insulators

2011-10-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

We did two science experiments this week, both related to heat.

{I find many good ideas for preschool and early elementary science activities over at Kids Science Experiments. There are a lot to choose from, and most are very easy to prepare for.}

First Experiment – Magic Jumping Coin

To do this you need a glass bottle, icy water, and a quarter.

Place the bottle neck and the quarter in the icy water for about a minute:

Take them out and place the quarter over the bottle opening. Place your warm hands around the bottle neck:

After a few seconds the coin will “jump” (more of a small “pop” up and back down). Why? The molecules in warm air move around more and take up more space than the molecules in cold air. When your hands warm up the air in the cold bottle, the molecules start moving around more and to make room, they “pop” the coin off the top of the bottle.

Second Experiment – Insulators

***Note!*** Karen from Science Matters (click on the link to check out her awesome blog) emailed me with some good information about the experiment below. Apparently we did it all wrong, and that is proof that learning is a lifetime sort of thing, right? ;) Here’s some good information and ideas that she gave me:

“To truly test the insulating properties of the materials, you'd want to wrap the sides of the glass (around where the water is) in the material. You actually lose more heat through the sides of the glass than the top. It's not surprising that the temperatures were very similar, since all 4 water samples were losing heat through the glass at about the same rate.
It's surprising that the aluminum foil insulated as well as it did - aluminum is a conductor, basically the opposite of an insulator - it carries heat away. Think of stirring a big pot of soup... if you used a metal spoon, what would happen after the spoon was in the pot for awhile? It would get hot - too hot to tough eventually. It's carrying the heat away from the soup (and to your hand). A pot holder or an oven mitt is a great insulator - if you put that around the spoon, it will be insulated and the heat won't reach your hand (or it will take a very long time to do so).
Wool is a great natural insulator - it's job, on the animal, is to keep that animal warm by trapping its body heat. Cotton does pretty well, when it's dry. The problem with cotton, is that when it gets wet (either from sweat or from precipitation) is that it traps the water, which kills its insulating properties. (That would be a great experiment - comparing a dry cotton cloth with a wet one).
If you ever decide to re-try the experiment, some other fun materials to test: a pot holder, bubble wrap. Of you could try several different mittens/gloves and see which would do the best job at keeping your hands warm!”

We gathered up our materials: 4 glasses, 4 rubber bands, a fluffy sock, newspaper, aluminum foil, and a cotton cloth:M and I both guessed about which of these materials would keep hot water warm for the longest amount of time. I guessed the aluminum foil, M guessed the cotton cloth.

We heated some water in the microwave, and filled each glass to about 2 inches below the top.

Then we quickly placed our insulating materials over the glasses, and held them in place with rubber bands:

We set the timer for 30 minutes, then checked the glasses:

Each one still felt pretty warm, so we got out our candy thermometer and took their temperatures:

The glass that was covered with the cotton cloth had the warmest water. The aluminum foil glass had the second warmest. The sock glass was in third place, and the newspaper glass was the coolest.

We were supposed to use a woolen sock, but I could not find one (I know my husband has some that are real wool, but they are stored away right now). I’m guessing the wool would be the best insulator, and so I guess it makes sense that cotton came in first with our experiment, although I was surprised at first.

To make the experiment as accurate as possible, we should have had 4 candy thermometers and placed them in the glasses all at the same time. However, the cotton-covered glass was the third one we tested, and it was still warmest, so I suspect our results were correct.

Check out the Science Sunday link-up to find more fun science activities!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Scribble Art – Giveaway Winner!

2011-10-15T08:34:00.001-05:00

There were 77 total entries for this giveaway; I hope you all enjoyed reading MaryAnn Kohl’s thoughts about the importance of art in early childhood. If you didn’t win, be sure to check out her website, where you can order her books or even download an e-version of many of her books! Many libraries also have them! These books are an indispensable part of our home. I know I have been encouraged to do more art with my son, and I hope many of you have also!

Here’s the random winner:

Comment # 31 was on the second post of the series, and was made by Andrea, who said, “As a kindergarten teacher, I've noticed so much problem-solving and cooperation that develops as children interact at the art centre.Thanks for sharing your other ideas about how art helps development.”

Andrea, I’ll be getting in touch with you to get your shipping address!

On a side note, I received a couple of entries late yesterday via email. Apparently my comments section was loading slowly, and this kept more people from entering. I’m truly sorry for this, and wish I had known about this problem sooner. I’ve begun using Disqus.com for comments, and while it is great for the most part, it does load slowly. I promise to find a fix for this before my next giveaway.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Oct. 14, 2011

2011-10-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
- Henry Ward Beecher

M’s finished “autumn decoration”, caught in early morning October sunlight.
Beautiful, isn’t it?

We’ve settled into a sort of routine, finally. Mondays we do math. Tuesdays we do science. Fridays are our field trip days. These days have been going well, for the most part. Wednesdays I plan literacy activities, and Thursdays are for art. But M’s enthusiasm and my motivation just seem to dwindle away on those days. It does not help that I plan too many things on my own to-do list for Thursdays, making it easier to decide to not get out the paints, or whatever, after all. And M is not enthusiastic about any of the literacy activities I plan and I am ambivalent about forcing him at this age. Will it help him prepare for Kindergarten? Do I really think it’s age appropriate? (Truthfully, no!) Isn’t having fun and enjoying himself more important at 5 years old? If I could be certain of homeschooling him next year, I would not worry about it a bit and would just let him run and play and forget about any sort of formal learning this year (except for what he loves and would beg for on his own, which is science and art, and some days math). But, if he goes to school the truth is he will need to know quite a bit literacy-wise in order to avoid all those awful labels that schools love so much. {sigh}

Ah well, on to what we did accomplish this week:

FIELD TRIP:

This week we went on a nature walk in an area near the Mississippi River. Photos pretty much sum it up, I think. Next week I’ll try to have a picture of M’s nature basket; he has found some wonderful things this fall!

I love how the trees form a canopy over the path to the river!

M in front of a giant cottonwood tree.

A peaceful part of the river.

Daddy came too!

There was this very cool partial rock wall not far from the water’s edge.
Not sure what it is for, but M loved it!

MATH:

M’s favorite dot-to-dots are from a book I found on Amazon:

I may have mentioned this late last spring, but it’s worth mentioning again. The dot-to-dots in this book all go from 1 to 100 and they are not too difficult, not too easy – just the right amount of challenge and success. M loves them! And for the most part, the pictures aren’t easy to guess at, so working a puzzle is worthwhile in order to see what the picture turns out to be.

Check out that tripod grasp! {Love the tattoos too. :)}

More patterns and pattern blocks this week:

The Hit of the Week was learning our phone number. :) M had so much fun with this! First I wrote our number out on his whiteboard, and he used 3 colors of dry-erase markers to trace over the numbers (rainbow numbers, we call them):

Obviously not our real phone number. :)

Then I showed him how to use our cell phone to press the numbers and push the “talk” button. He absolutely LOVED this and called me about 20 times that day, then called Daddy when he came home from work. :)

Love that little pointer finger all set to push buttons! :)

We started by sitting next to each other so I could help him with the numbers. Then we progressed on to calling from separate rooms, then on to calling without looking at the whiteboard at all.He did great. :) By the end of the day he knew our number by heart. We also practiced answering the phone properly (I called him and he answered).

SCIENCE:

M worked with his Snap Circuits set again, and we used a small cup of water to connect the circuit, making a light turn on (this activity was in the book that came along with his set; I was a little hesitant about it at first, but it seemed perfectly safe). Interestingly, the circuit wasn’t strong enough to make a small motor go. We guessed that too much of the energy from the batteries (2 AAs) went out into the water, and not enough made it’s way into the rest of the circuit. The water “watered down” the electricity. Clever little pun, no? :)

We also baked brownies in M’s Easy Bake Oven (found at a garage sale). We made two pans – one with a pinch of baking soda, and one with 2 pinches of baking soda (the brownies are tiny; you could do this in the regular oven, but of course you’d need to use the right amount of baking soda for one batch and about half that amount for the other batch.)

The brownies tasted the same, but the second batch rose about twice as high as the first batch (why didn’t I take photos of the final product??!). This was a great hands-on way to find out exactly what baking soda does.

We also did a couple of heat-related experiments, which I will post about on Sunday, so check back!

INDEPENDENT ACTIVITIES:

This year nearby friends may come over at anytime to play (as opposed to actual “play dates” last year) and because of this I’m no longer placing little activities on M’s shelves like I used to. His shelves also hold his toys, and I do not want to be taking school activities on and off the shelves all day long. So I’m now setting one or two things out for him on our art/kitchen table each morning. Usually these are activities he can do on his own after a little instruction from me, and normally they focus on fine motor skills, often combined with a math or literacy type of work. He does not do everything I plan for him, and I am really trying to be ok with that and working to find more activities that appeal to him. This is so much more difficult than it used to be!

This week he enjoyed…

Making robots, from this kit: :

Sticking a variety of autumn decor into florist’s foam:He used velcro dots to attach the mini gourds and pumpkins around the outside of the basket. You can see his final masterpiece in the photo at the top of this post. It really turned out nice, and this is always a favorite with him.

While I had the velcro out, I gave him a little bucket of craft sticks, old ribbon spools, and plastic lids. He placed pieces of velcro on each of them (see the original idea here), then enjoyed sticking the pieces together to create little sculptures:

One of his creations:

And a new puzzle from the dollar store, which we did together:

I found these little linking people at Target’s dollar spot a while back. I’m sure they are for children younger than M, but I just couldn’t resist getting them. I set them out for him to just play with. He enjoyed linking them together, and placed little groups of “happy little people” all around our house (I bought 3 sets, so we have 36 total). :) We’ll use these for patterning and math activities too.

That was it for this week! I’m gathering ideas on helping M learn how to spell our last name, which is quite long, and we’ll be working on this for the next couple of weeks. Any ideas or tips for this? I’d love to hear some!

I am linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up. Check them out for some great homeschooling posts!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – oct. 7, 2011

2011-10-07T05:00:00.000-05:00

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for MaryAnn Kohl’s book, Scribble Art! It is chock full of great art projects for little people. I’d say it’s perfect for toddler to 6th grade age. You can read my three-part series in which MaryAnn discusses the importance of art in early childhood; the giveaway is at the end of the third post!

M, showing me “tricks” on his bike. :)

No school for us this week – our neighbors had a baby (yay for babies!) and we were busy cooking dinners and baking treats to take them when they came home. :)

We also worked on all those apples! We dehydrated two large batches; they make such a good, healthy snack over the winter! M has an apple peeler-corer-slicer (you know, the kind you clamp to a table and turn the crank?), which he absolutely can not get enough of. :)

Look at that concentration! :)

We also managed to get in a little bike-riding practice (he just recently began riding without his training wheels):

And a little nature/playground time too: What a monkey!

More daredevil tricks. :)

This is the very best kind of learning – spending time together and talking about anything and everything a five year old boy thinks about. I love how a little time spent working or playing together makes his little heart open up to me. One of my greatest hopes is that he will always be able to talk to me about anything. Trust is such a fragile thing, isn’t it?

Anyway, as you know, I adore autumn… I’ve been feeling very inspired in this brisker weather… it’s perfect for cozying up to the table and creating something beautiful! I’ll be sharing our newest creations with you over the next few weeks, but for now I thought you might enjoy a glance at some of the autumn-themed art M has done in the past. Some of these were such favorites, we do them more than once, but of course I only bother blogging about them once. :) (I’m sure it’s like that for a lot of you other mama-bloggers too.)

I am always on the lookout for inspiring art ideas, so if you have any autumn-themed art going on in your house, and you’ve blogged about it, leave me a comment with the link; I would love to come take a look!

Favorite Autumn-themed Art and Craft Projects:

Top row: Leaf Guys, Autumn Sparkle Tree, Hand and Armprint Autumn Tree
Bottom row: Nature Collage, 3-d nature art

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up. Check them out for some great homeschooling posts!

Have a beautiful day! :)

MaryAnn Kohl: The Importance of Art in Early Childhood, Part 3

2011-10-05T16:24:00.000-05:00

~Part One is here~ ~Part Two is here~

***Enter to win a copy of MaryAnn Kohl’s book, Scribble Art!
Rules for entering are at the end of this post.***

Here is a little collage I put together of just a few of the projects we’ve done that were taken from Scribble Art:

1. Salty Watercolors (like magic!)

2. Painting with a variety of things, mixing colors, gluing things on (so much fun!)

3. Dipping colored chalk in white paint and drawing on black paper

4. Drawing with our homemade “scribble cookies” (shaped like Christmas trees)

5. Painting with melted crayons (one of our favorites!)

Whoever wins this book is in for such a treat!! :)

Art versus Crafts

Here is the third and final question I asked of MaryAnn:

3. Is it truly important to do "art", where a child simply enjoys the process, with no expectations placed on what the finished product will look like; instead of making "crafts" where a finished product is the goal? Don't crafts help develop a child's creative side and give them a final product that they can be proud of?

MARYANN: I love art and I love crafts too, but they are very different. It is art where a child learns to trust his own thinking and finds out how art materials behave and learns to control them, all within his own power. It is art that holds the unknown and the excitement of discovery and exploration. Crafts are fun and teach skills like following directions and give a child an activity that has a product that may work around a theme like Fall Leaves or Dinosaurs, and all of that is good. Children are often proud of crafts they have created, though sometimes their final products fall short of the sample they were shown and they can feel disappointed too. With art, they are the only judge of a final product, but truly, it is the learning and the exploring that has the most value, that is, the process of experiencing art. The final product is like a road map of what occurred, not the reason for the exploration. So yes, do a craft, and yes, do art!

MaryAnn wrote the following to me at the conclusion of our interview, and I think this may just be the most important message of all:

MARYANN: I'd like to explore what makes art special a little further: Children express themselves through art on a fundamental level. Sometimes their artwork is the manifestation of that expression, but more often, the physical process of creating is the expression. Picture the toddler who has a new baby sister busily pummeling his fists into Play-Doh; a six-year-old joyfully painting flowers with huge arm movements blending, reds and yellows; a ten year-old drawing a portrait of her grandmother who recently passed away. Creating art allows children to work through feelings and emotions, and referring to a finished piece of artwork helps a child talk about feelings in a new and meaningful way. Art also develops a child's creativity. Rather than being told what to do, answers and directions come from the child. Art is an experience that requires freethinking, experimentation, and analysis -- all part of creativity. And it is the creative person who develops his thinking process so that he can become an adult who can think, who is not afraid to try new things and new ways of solving problems and making the world a better place.

Thank you so much, MaryAnn, for taking the time to share your thoughts and knowledge with us. I hope my readers have enjoyed this; I’m very grateful for the awareness you work so hard to bring to educators and parents regarding why art is so important. Children seem to intuitively know this already, and now I can better understand why they love art so much!

Giveaway Rules

MaryAnn’s wonderful website is Bright Ring. Please visit it and follow the link to her Free Art Activities (the link is located on her left sidebar). To enter this giveaway, come back here and leave a comment letting me know which art project you think would appeal most to the children in your life. :) While on her website, you can also join her mailing list and check out her blog!

This giveaway will run through Friday, October 14th. I will pick a winner via random.org and post the winner on Saturday the 15th. Be sure to check back! More good news – if you just can’t wait to get one of MaryAnn’s books, she has many of them available as e-books!

For more great information about MaryAnn, her work, and her thoughts about children and art, you might be interested in reading the excellent interviews she did with Jean over at The Artful Parent (here, here, and here).

Good luck with the giveaway everyone, and have a beautiful day! :)

Maryann kohl: the importance of art in early childhood, part two

2011-10-04T13:43:00.002-05:00

How Art Affects Development

~Part one is here.~

***Remember! There is a giveaway of MaryAnn Kohl’s book, Scribble Art at the end of this series! Any comments left on this post or the first post will earn you an extra entry in the giveaway. Comments on part one and part two will be closed when the final post is published.***

The second question I asked of MaryAnn Kohl is below, and her answer is packed full of information that I think will be of interest to many of you (it sure was to me!). Being a good parent and/or teacher means, in part, helping our children develop skills that will serve them well their whole lives long. In early childhood, art is an easy and fun way to accomplish some of these goals. I’m so excited to be able to share this!

2. Is a child's development affected by allowing them to experience art and explore art materials at an early age?

MARYANN: Art may seem like fun and games -- and it is! -- but you may not realize that your child is actually learning a lot through art activities. Your children will gain useful life skills through art, so encourage them to get creative, and you will quickly see that your children are picking up these skills:

Communication Skills:

When a child draws a picture, paints a portrait, or hangs buttons from a wobbly mobile, that child is beginning to communicate visually. A child may draw to document an actual experience like playing in the park, release feelings of joy by painting swirling colors, or share an emotionally charged experience like the passing of a loved one through art. Art goes beyond verbal language to communicate feelings that might not otherwise be expressed.

Problem-Solving Skills:

When children explore art ideas, they are testing possibilities and working through challenges, much like a scientist who experiments and finds solutions. Should I use a shorter piece of yarn to balance my mobile? This tape isn't holding -- what should I try instead? How did I make brown -- I thought I made orange? Art allows children to make their own assessments, while also teaching them that a problem may have more than one answer. Instead of following specific rules or directions, the child's brain becomes engaged in the discovery of "how" and "why." Even when experimenting or learning how to handle art materials effectively, children are solving challenges and coming up with new ways to handle unexpected outcomes.

Social & Emotional Skills:

Art helps children come to terms with themselves and the control they have over their efforts. Through art, they also practice sharing and taking turns, as well as appreciating one another's efforts. Art fosters positive mental health by allowing a child to show individual uniqueness as well as success and accomplishment, all part of a positive self-concept.

Fine Motor Skills:

Fine motor skills enable a child do things like delicately turn the page of a book or fill in a sheet of paper with written words. Holding a paintbrush so that it will make the desired marks, snipping paper with scissors into definite shapes, drawing with a crayon, or squeezing glue from a bottle in a controlled manner all help develop a child's fine motor skills and control of materials.

Isn’t it amazing how much goodness art can add to our lives? I value “art time” in our home because of the joy that creating and experimenting give to M (and honestly, to me too, when I sit and do art with him); but I find that I value it even more and am purposeful in making it part of our day when I remember how beneficial art is to his overall development. Thank you, MaryAnn! :)

Post three will focus on “Art” versus “Crafts”, and I’ll talk a bit more about Scribble Art, hopefully posting some photos of the actual projects we’ve done that were found in this treasure of a book. (I think this was the first book of MaryAnn’s that we bought, and it is most likely the one we’ve gone to most often in the past few years. I’m very excited that one of my readers will win it!)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Maryann kohl discusses the importance of art in early childhood – part one

2011-10-03T07:55:00.002-05:00

***There is a giveaway at the end of this series; don’t miss it!***

Art, when you think about it, is an amazing thing. The possibilities contained within a new box of crayons, a set of paints, a little glue, some scissors, construction paper, and so on, are astounding. To be able to take a few items and create something that never was before, something unique and totally your own… well, who wouldn’t jump at the chance? And if you are a toddler or a preschooler (or even an older child!), you might actually do a little jumping as you set to work. ;) Excitement just pours out of their little bodies, doesn’t it? It can’t be contained! We mamas know a little about this too – our bodies were pretty involved in the sweetest creations of all, weren’t they?

Giveaway

As you may know, we are big fans of MaryAnn Kohl around here. In the past I’ve said that we are her biggest fans, but as that seemed to surprise some of you that consider yourselves to be her biggest fans, I’ll just leave it at “big fans”. ;) I was recently in touch with MaryAnn, who has graciously offered to send one of my readers a copy of Scribble Art: This is one of our very favorite books of hers, one we go to again and again, knowing we will always find something interesting to do and experience. MaryAnn has over 20 other books, each one full of art activities – you are sure to find one that is just right for your family!

(The giveaway will be at the end of this 3-part series, but comments on these first two posts will earn you extra entries!)

Interview

MaryAnn, even more graciously, offered to answer a few questions for us. I had three that came to mind, from conversations I’ve had with other moms, either online or in real life. We often refer to our home as the “art gallery” – if you’ve seen my kitchen walls and cupboards, you know why. :) M loves to “do art”, and I do my best to encourage it, but I find it hard to explain just why art is so important to us. And, I am not immune to “mess stress” either, although I try hard to not let it interfere with M’s creativity. Sometimes this means closing my eyes and just not looking. ;)

I’m separating the three questions and answers into three posts so we have time to really think about and focus on MaryAnn’s answers. She has so much wisdom to share. :)

1. Many moms of small children are so busy keeping their homes reasonably clean and tidy (with the care of their families genuinely at heart!) that it's hard to deal with the extra messiness of art projects. Is it truly important for small children to experience art? Do you think there are benefits of letting small children "do art" at home versus just waiting until they are in school and letting them get messy there?

MARYANN: Art is one of those activities in a child's life that can be messy, but it doesn't have to be. If messiness is a detriment to providing your child with exploration and discovery through art activities, go easy! Provide blank paper and crayons and feel good about it. Research shows that children who draw frequently without adult interference do better in all other academics. So easy -- and yet so important. A little preparation goes a long way for children doing art at home. Keep a trash receptacle near where the child is working. If possible, provide a small table near a shelf or closet where art materials are stored. Providing materials that are "self-serve" for children can make things easier for parents in the long run. Such materials would be crayons, paper, tape, stapler, scissors, and materials like catalogs or magazines for cutting, ribbons and sewing trim, cotton balls, or other collage materials (depending on suitability for the child's age and ability).

Yes, it is truly important for children to experience art, and not just copying an adult's idea of how things should be made, but allowing a child to experiment and explore and create with their own ideas using materials on hand. The benefits of having art supplies and an area to work at home are many. One of the most important is that the child has a quiet place to go and unwind after a busy day at childcare or school, where they can freely draw or create at will. Parents benefit because the child is involved while dinner is being made or while folding laundry, etc. Art is one of the only creative activities where a child can rest while being busy. Reading is another. In fact, children who have art in their lives tend to also be good readers!

Isn’t that beautifully said? And how often do children get to follow their own ideas? So often, they just have to follow the plans of others! Art is a great way to respect their ideas and help develop their independence and self-esteem; as well as validate their ideas and creativity as good and worthwhile.

Come back tomorrow for question number two, and don’t forget to leave a comment for an extra entry to win Scribble Art! In the meantime, check out MaryAnn’s website, Bright Ring Publishing – she has free art activities available there, as well as a sweet art gallery to look through, and links to her blog and favorite websites.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Science sunday – oct. 3, 2011

2011-10-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Light and Colors and How Our Eyes See Them

Last winter we made a very cool pinhole camera that helped us understand how light enters our eyes and helps us see. This week we did some more activities in relation to this idea. This time we added colors into the mix.

Lesson: Light bounces off of objects and into our eyes, while absorbing some colors and reflecting others. White light is made up of all the colors of the rainbow, hence we see the colors of light that are reflected from objects, and the other colors of light are absorbed by those objects.

Got that?

Really this is a pretty complicated concept to grasp (at least for me!), so these activities were mostly just for fun, and to give M’s 5 year old mind something new to grapple with. {He is a mind-grappling sort of boy, and never happier than when he is trying to understand how something works. ;) }

We began by talking about the cones we have in our eyes. These are little cone-shaped cells; some of them respond to red light (and tell our brain we see red), some respond to blue light, and some to green light. M had to get a magnifying glass at this point to see if he could find the cones in my eyes. He couldn’t and he is feeling a bit skeptical about the whole thing still. ;)

First experiment:

I drew a red circle on a piece of white paper and we stared at it for about a minute, trying hard to focus only on it. After a while we looked away and stared at just the white paper. We could see a “spot” on the white paper that looked greenish-blue. Why does this happen? Well, the red cones get tired of looking at all that red for so long and take a break when we look away; the green and blue cones are still working and so instead of seeing white, we see white minus the red, and end up with a greenish-blue spot. M thought this was a bit like magic. :) That’s a much easier explanation, isn’t it?

Second experiment:

After looking at a blue circle, looking away made us see yellow. Yellow is what red and green light mixed together make. M was pretty amazed that they didn’t make brown, because (he knows from experience) that red and green paint would make brown. We talked about how we would eventually get black if we mixed all the colors of paint together, but if you have all the colors of light (a rainbow) mixed together you would not get black, you would get white. How could it be pitch black with all that light shining? Black is the absence of any light.

We used our color paddles (pictured at the top of this post) and two flashlights. I think we should have been in a darkened room for this to work correctly… and we will have to do it again some time. We tried mixing red and green light by holding the red paddle over one flashlight and the green paddle over the other flashlight and then shining them both onto the refrigerator. We saw this:

Maybe there is a tiny spot of yellow in the middle there?

Then we tried mixing red, green, and blue together (should have given us white) and got this:

Ah, well. Interest was waning at this point so we moved on… (really, I think this was supposed to have been done in a dark room; if you try it and it really works, let me know!).

Third experiment:

For fun, we decided to color some circles and see how they looked while spinning. We have a handy-dandy little set of Snap Circuits that includes a motor and a plastic fan. We simply taped our colored circles onto the fan and flipped the switch to watch them spin. You can do the same thing by following these directions at kids-science-experiments.com to spin your circles with string.

Here are the designs we went with, and how they looked while spinning…

Red, blue, and yellow:

Red, blue, yellow, purple, green, orange:

Silly pictures:

Actually, the first two did not look quite so “stripey” as they look in these photos. They were more like the bottom one, but more solid.

I am linking this up to Science Sunday, check out the other science activities there!

Have a beautiful day! :)