Open Ended Art-Egg shell mosaic

We have been saving our egg shells in anticipation of this week's Open Ended Art: Eggshell Mosaic.

Half the fun was coloring the egg shells!

We used the traditional food coloring, vinegar and boiling water technique.
We were all well stained after this portion of the project, but did you know, baking soda will get all the food coloring off your counter and off everyone's hands.

The colors were great, especially the inside of the shells. Every egg shell had two distinct shades of color.

We got our shells ready after they were very dry-AKA-the next day.

These are a very neat medium to work with.

I printed some leaves of card stock for Kim and Luke to work on.

A paint brush and slightly water downed white glue helped get "a little" glue where it was needed.

Luke at work.

Laura at work.

Mark, deep in thought, planning his mosaic.

Gracie at work.

Laura's mosaic--a fill in the spaces doodle

Kim and Luke's leaves

Gracie's flower

Mark's "shades of blue" flower

Check out all of this weeks Open Ended Art at Growing and Learning by Leaps and Bounds.

Giggling, game playing goofs

Sorry-you can turn your computer or your head--or you can let me know how to turn it before posting--I can't figure it out!

We Made it! - Yarn Jack-O-Lantern Windsock

This weeks Unplugged Project theme was: "J"

We choose to have our "J" stand for jack-0-lantern--just perfect for the autumn season.

First, I kept the little kids busy gluing together these cute jack-o-lanterns which I printed and cut out for them.

I wish I had the exact link for these, but I didn't save the link and when I tried to search for it, I came up with many, many different printables.

Don't worry, Kimmy's jack-o-lantern isn't scared, she says that it is a mustashe on the pumpkin's face!
I asked Luke to look like his jack-o-lantern and this is the face he showed me!
Our "big" jack-o-lantern project was a yarn, windsock type jack-o-lantern.
You need:
orange yarn
scissors
a syrofoam ball --ours was 6 inches--I wish is had been quite a bit smaller than this
black fun foam (or black felt)
Cut about 100 pieces of yarn 42 inches long.
If kids are doing this, there will be a knot problem!
Gather them up neatly and fold these in half, placing the syrofoam ball in this midway point of yarn.

Try to spread the yarn all around the "head"--this was tricky--use another piece of orange yarn to tie the yarn together tightly at the base of the ball---this is the "neck"

Make facial features out of black fun foam or black felt. Mark really wanted a scary jack-o-lantern, that is the reason for the downturned mouth--I wish he was smiling!

Use a big yarn needle to thread a piece of yarn through the top gathers of yarn. Tie together to make a big loop for hanging.

Hang up and enjoy!!

I plan on making a bunch of small jack-o-lantern windsocks to decorate outside the house this October.

Stop over at the Unplugged Project site to see everyone's great activities.

Next week's Unplugged Project is: WEATHER

Check out all the We Made It Friday Showcase at Ramblings of a Crazy woman.

Wordless Wednesday-A Boy and his dog

Share your Wordless Wednesday pictures with us here!

stART--Ten Apples Up on Top--and yarn apples

stART

A Story + Art= A Great stART

I found this new weekly theme at A Mommy's Adventure and thought that "this is something we are already doing"!

What you do, is to share a story with your little ones and then do an art project inspired by the book.

This week we have been enjoying apples, and the especially the book:

Ten Apples Up on Top

For our art activity to go along with this book we made yarn apples.

I saw this at one of my favorite craft sites: Make and Takes. At this site you will find very clear and easily understood directions for these cute apples---much better than I could produce.

All you need for these are:

yarn

pipe cleaners

heavy cardboard

We cut a piece of cardboard about 2 1/2 inches thick. We then wrapped yarn around the cardboard. About 100 times around made a nice sized apple. Cut the yarn off leaving a little tail.
Bend the cardboard slightly to get the pipe cleaner under the top half of the yarn. Wrap the pipe cleaner tightly around the yarn. Make sure to check out Make and Takes because their direction are much clearer than mine.
Repeat this process on the bottom of the apple. Make the top into a stem and add a little green pipecleaner leaf.
On the bottom, tightly twist the pipecleaner and then trim and bend the pipecleaner into the bottom on the apple making a little "apple blossom" spot.

I think we made ten apples in about 15 minutes.

Perfect for the book, Ten Apples Up on Top.

The kids also enjoyed making apples with peanut butter this afternoon for a snack while I read the story for the, uuummmm, 100th time.

We tried to see how many apples we could get "up on top". For most of us, it was only one, and the child that did manage to get 2 to stay on his head, wasn't fast enough to get his picture taken.

It takes a lot of concentration to keep an apple on your head and read a book at the same time, as Luke found out.

They were actually happy to try and keep real apples on their heads, even though this picture makes most of them look like it was agony, or maybe that is just concentration!

Gracie then took over reading and had some of her "friends" help out in the "apples on their heads" role.

Who's is stuffed and who is real?

Seven apples on top seemed to be the record. I think we might need a bigger couch to achieve "Ten Apples Up on Top"

Makes my Monday--Late September

What makes my Monday?
Learning about Johnny Appleseed!

red maple leaves

boys that love autumn crafts

homemade apples!

What "Makes your Monday"?

Share with us over at Twinfatuation

Tot School

Kimberly is currently 40 months old

Another week, another week of Tot-School learning here in "the little house".

Everyone has been enjoying puzzles recently, included Kimberly who seems to like to concentrate on one puzzle for a week or so until she has master it completely.

Dora the Explorer was the favorite of this week.

Our Pre-K Weekly Reader was all about the 5 senses this week.

We colored these fun letter N's for nose.

After coloring these, we glued tissues to the letter N nose to help remind us to blow our noses!

(We all have had colds)

Of course, this also fits in with the 5 senses theme.

I found these sequencing apples at the link.

We also aquired a new little family member, Lady! This is an education in itself!

We talked a lot about our 5 senses: what they are and how we use them. We also read a few picture books on the subject (they are at the end of this post)

One way we practiced using our 5 senses was to investigate a little pile of popcorn---using our senses.

First we used our eyes to "see" the popcorn--it was white and yellow and bumpy.

We used our nose to "smell" the popcorn---"very yummy"

Our hands "touched" the popcorn. It was "soft and hard (?) pokey(?) and slippery. (It did have butter on it!)

Our tongues "tasted" the popcorn---again the response to taste was "yummy"!

Finally we used our ears to "hear" the crunch of the popcorn. I asked how it sounded and they said "crunchy and smooshy".
This was a fun way to get the kids to understand about the 5 senses.

Kimmy helped me make Sunny Peanut Butter Chews.

We also learned about Johnny Appleseed (more about this to come) and I made these cute yarn apples. Stay tuned for books and activities to be used with these apples.

We also had fun this week with our friends at the annual church picnic.

Our favorite books of the week.

Make sure to check out all the Tot-School posts at 1+1+1=1