Drawing and Art as an end to the school year

Cyan only has two more stories in her primer. Explode the Code and Singapore Math books are finished. We have been focusing more on our backyard and less on animals from far away places... we have been pulling in, getting ready for the summer vacation. We started the year with art, and ended the year with art.

For the last two days, we have been reading and drawing, then reading and drawing some more. We found this wonderful archive of Jan Brett videos that include a whole bunch of "How to Draw a..." videos. Cyan has been watching them every spare minute she can. She has been sitting at the table, enraptured with the author/illistrators every move and asking me to pause the show when she falls behind. Here are some of her works from these fun little draw-a-longs:

Jan Brett has three hedgehogs. Two mamas and a little one. They are the CUTEST things! OMGoodness! At the beginning of her 'How to Draw a Hedgehog' video, she shows her baby hedgehog, which is pretty much the sweetest thing ever. She also tells the story about when one of her hedgehogs got loose and got stuck in one of her socks, which was the inspiration for our favorite Jan Brett book "The Hat".

I love this sweet little chick!

This is my favorite of the day. Cyan did such an amazing job!

As you can tell, I really love Jan Bretts work, and she has a generous spirit to have all of these activities for kids to follow along with on her web site. I am sure part of the goal is to get people to better know her work, but her love of her art shows through every thing she puts on there, and it is just so neat to be able to share some of my favorite fine art authors with my kids on such a personal level. I mean really? How many 6 year olds know what some of their favorite authors look like? Much less get to draw along with them on video and watch them take trips to Africa!

I remember what Dr Suess looks like from my youth from his pictures on the backs of his books... and a wonderful local illistrator and author, Jasper Tompkins, I got to meet when I was young at a Young Authors confrence (which I am fully ready to have my kids go to!). I remember these moments fondly. My dad is an English Prof and my mom ran Young Authors in this county for years... the fondness for good books was one of the few things they shared, and well, it is just really neat to be able to share that same love with my children.

You see the difference in hair color? The red/gold is my color... just a bit lighter. The blonde blonde is more toe-head and I believe that Cyan's hair will go brown before she is a teen. Maybe light brown, but brown, more like daddy. I think that Logan will have hair like mine. I love this picture. :)

Math in the Garden Class #2

There wasn't much math in this part of the class... mostly it was games. Which were super fun. First we played "Back Yard Bingo" which they had to go and find each one of the things on this list and call out "BINGO!" (On this card, you can see the pink heart stampers and 'bingo' across the top of this one) The game went on for quite a while longer than we thought though. The kids really were into the 'hunt and find' part of the game, so they kept going... every one of them... until their cards were full.

Then we did a 'sniff and search' game. I had taken a egg carton apart and put (in two cup segments) 6 different herbs in them. The first side of the cup was an peice of the herb so they could see what it looked like... and the second part of the cup was a bunch of cut up peices of the same herb, so they could really smell it. Each kid picked one and they ran off to find the herb that they had chosen. That was SO much fun! I hope that Sarah got pictures of it... I sure did not... I was having fun running around and comparing the kids guesses with them. :)

Then we did leaf rubbings. I had picked a bunch of huge Broad Leaf Maple leaves on my walk that morning, and the kids did big rubbings of them on a roll of paper. Then they each got their leaf and made a creature out of it. After a while, imaginations were kicking in....

Then, their imaginations went wild. They started asking if they could do the same with leaves from around my yard. All of them were amazing!

It was just amazing to watch... Every one of these came out of beautiful 1st grade minds. :)

The last bit of the class was comparing our garden boxes. Each family had taken care of theirs a bit different. One had put hers in a sunny window for a week, and then put it outside. Another had it outside the whole time, and another had it in a shaded, but bright back room. Drastically different just from the amount of direct sun they were allowed to get and the warmth of their first growing weeks. That was incredible to me, but I have to admit, the kids were not as thrilled with that part as with the rest of the class. lol...

During the first class, we planted some seeds in my big garden of swiss chard and spinach. The kids from the second class helped me pick all of that, and then make a salad out of it.

We pulled up our carrots, chard, and radishes from our garden boxes, and added the chard to the salad from the big garden. We talked a bit about what plants need to grow, and read part of the Seeds, Seeds, Seeds book. We ate the salad and drank lemonade and had our salad with raspberry vinagrette dressing for a lunch starter.

All in all, even without much math, it was a great and fun class.

More science inspiration

Take a Cloud Walk

What a cool little e book! I am putting this one away for a nicer day this summer. :)

New science inspiration

This book on Amazon

What a neat series! I would have never thought of using this if I didn't have an older child, but it really is about 3rd grade and up... a few of the concepts can even be modified for Cyan's level. And most of them can go along with really fun outings/unit studies/cooking. I am adding it to my list for next year as well as others in her series.

And the morning comes...

It's 7:20am and the boys are outside with me watering the garden.

Where is Cyan do you ask? Along with being the night owl, it means she isn't the morning person. That's ok. I have two of those. (It does give me some time with just the boys in the morning... sometimes that is nice.)

I took a few more pictures outside. Cyan's Math in the Garden box (second class is Monday!)

A testiment that we make our own sunshine:

And look who is about to rise (it is now 8:04am)

New camera and pics of kids

My husband talked me into buying myself a gift yesterday. A Nikon D60. I got the package from Costco with the double lenses, carry case, and extra SD card. I only just got it all charged etc last night, so all of these are with the flash, but they look pretty good. Can not WAIT to get outside with the thing. I think we may have to stop at the Nisqually Valley today after grocery shopping.

It is nearly 10pm... can you tell who my night owl is and who isn't?

Love my guitar. :)

My mantel... I just can't seem to change it. I love my pictures. :) Perhaps I can take some new ones to put up there or something... it has been just about the same for about 4 years.

Can we say "I love my library!":

That's it for last night... today there will be more. Garenteed. *glee*

Tangrams

Cyan and I have been working on geometry this week. Her Singapore math book is nearly done... we should be done by the time we fully give up on school this year. For now, we are still going, but only about half time for book work, and then twice as much for science, measuring, nature walks, art, and other fun outdoorsy type stuff. Today, we were told to try a simple tangram, we decided to go online and find the more traditional one.

Here is a kite she made up herself.

She tried to make one, but doesn't cut quite well enough for hers to work out. So we gave that one to Logan, and she folded another one, and I cut it out.

Here she is trying to make a cat like mine. :)

Here is a candle she made looking at the model on this page. The first thing she said was "I know that the bottom is thicker than the picture, but I liked it better this way."

'Let me out! Playing with paper is boring.' (Just for fun, check out this picture... this is Cyan, age 3)

'Finding bugs under things is much more fun!'

Shine

Ok, this one is totally wonderful. Brought tears to my eyes and made me laugh all at the same time.

I could see our girls singing this!

Medieval Garb

We had a party yesterday with a Knights and Miadens theme for a 4 year old friend. The mama had set up a jousting line, a fencing square, and an archery area too. They had a friend juggle for them (and she was really good) and a cake made to look like a castle and sheild. It was amazing! The kids had a blast although most of the kids got really hot in their long sleeved midevil outfits. Here is Cyan in hers (I missed Alex in his, he took it off the second we got there):

I made this dress to go over another I made for a winter fairy costume. A couple small adjustments and it was perfect as "Lady Cyan from house Rose" yesterday.

Alex juggling... that was totally awsome! The kids want a juggler at their carnival party now. They stood by her 50% of the party at least, just in awe and trying to do what she was doing. Cyan talked about her all the way home. (It helps that she was in the shade on this super hot May day.)

The archery area... another huge hit. Esp for the older kiddos. They had a lot of fun shooting the arrows together.

And last but not least, this was the backdrop for the party just on the other side of the fence (I don't think she could have planned it more perfectly!):

Butterflies (Stage 3)

Birds

We have tons of different kinds of birds that visit our yard this year. I am thinking there were not as many last year as there are this year. But it may just be that I wasn't paying as close attention.

Here are some pictures:

A Stellar Jay

The back of a American Robin

A blue Western Scrub Jay

A Chestnut-Backed Chicadee

Another tiny bird we never identified

A flock of Grey Bushtits with one token chickadee for good measure.

Black Capped Chickadees,

And these are only the ones I have been able to capture on film. We have also had Warblers, Humming birds, and a couple Swallows.

My neighbor friend, who is 12 years old, knows easily as much (if not more) about local birds than I do. Apparently, she has studied them all year with her class and knows all of them. Her favorite being the Black Capped Chickadee which she told me all about through the fence the other day. I am finding them more fascinating watching this girl enjoy them than I ever did on my own. It is wonderful, looking through the eyes of children. :)