A Week In Review:January 18-January 24

The week started out with a holiday..but not for our little school. 

 We did read about Martin Luther King Jr. and then made some artwork to honor the day.

My printer was broken so we made some old fashioned copies.  We used pencil to darkly scribble on the back side of the picture.  Since I am no artist...I held the paper up to the computer screen to make the first copy.  We then turned our pattern over and traced the lines...transferring the image onto the watercolor paper.

Using watercolors, we fingerprinted many different colors on the dove of peace.

Our final artwork.

Gracie made the beautiful "stained glass" heart.  You can see the other kid's stained glass pictures over here. 

Our art wall is getting pretty full!

Learning about the Middle Ages has led us to stained glass.  There are some fun projects in the back of this book which we will be doing this next week.

While big brother Mark was gone for a few days, Luke built this ship all on his own.  He even put it in the middle of the floor for Mark to see when he came home late at night. 

Playing Monkey Math.  We are working on the times tables and Kim is on the 8 facts and Luke is on the 7 facts.  This game makes review a little more enjoyable. 

I found it on this site which has many other fun math games.

Mark's 15th birthday fell during this week...Kimberly made him an oreo cake all by herself.

 

Worksheet completed with a branch pencil

We have been using many picture books for the study of the middle ages.  These are some of our favorite books.



Two of our favorite short chapter books of the week.

Kim's read aloud is The Knight at Dawn.  A Magic Treehouse book.

She read 2 chapters for me a day.

Luke found this book set in the middle ages.  He also reads 2 chapters a day to me.

Reading comprehension 

Flash Forward Reading

I have jumped on the bandwagon and am using a spiral notebook as a planner for each child.  It is working great.  You can find out more about this system at Amongst Lovely Things. 

An impromptu science experiment.

Kimmy ran out and scooped up some snow and came in a made measurement.  It's funny because both Kim and Luke thought that the water melted it would measure higher than the snow. 

They were surprised by just how mistaken they were. 



This week Kim began....

and finished her own tied quilt.

Everyone had fun with this book.

Ed Emberley's Complete Funprint Drawing Book.



Luke made a catapult to join his trebuchet....weapons of the middle ages.

 

Grace's stained glass project..

 

Kimberly still has it.  She is on the cover of the Earth's Birthday Project spring catalog.  This picture was from our painted lady butterfly release in 2012.

This week we finished Toys Come Home.  It was very well received, especially by Luke and Kim.  In some parts we laughed out loud and at other parts we were very sad.  But it encouraged some great discussion.

The read aloud with the Mark and Grace (and Kim and Luke because they can't stand to be left out) is The Thief Lord .
We are all enthralled with this exciting book.  

Mark is 15! How did that happen??

 What a wonderful young man Mark has become.

 The singing of the song....

 He is a wonderful young man but also a total goof!

 Some serious building is going to be going on around here. 

(That Gyrobot thing....it can walk on a string strung across the living room...totally cool)

 You CAN give the gift of underwear to certain people.

Busily building.

Fun, Fun, Funprint..Fingerprints

 We found the most fun art book from the library this past week.

Ed Emberley's Complete Funprint Drawing Book.

 

 We discovered the best way to make fingerprints was to use slightly wet watercolor paint.

Whatever you do, DON'T use something like these pigment inks we had. 

They never, ever wash off hands, (or towels, or clothes)---BIG mistake!

 Simply make fingerprints onto heavy (I use 24 pound) printer paper.

Next you decorate with a black sharpie thin marker.

 You can see the difference between a regular sharpie and a thin sharpie....the character on the far right was made with a regular sharpie.  (Kimberly wrote "iH" and then was quite embarrassed when she saw her mistake...so cute!_

Gracie's completed folks.  This was a lot of fun.

Stained Glass Art

 We have been studying the Middle Ages and yesterday we learned about the importance of stained glass windows.  The windows didn't just present the most beautiful artwork most people would ever see, but they were used to tell the stories of the church with pictures of bible stories and saints for the illiterate. (Which was the great majority of people during this time period.)

We started by finding a picture we liked in a coloring book.  

Next, we covered the back of the picture with a thick layer of pencil.

 Tape the picture onto watercolor paper with easily removable tape.

Trace the image onto the water color paper.

 Luke's shark

 Next, we took regular Elmer's white glue, emptied 1/4 of the glue into another bottle and then added black tempera paint.....shake well. (It took a lot of shaking to get the black paint mixed into the glue).

Trace over the picture with black glue.

 Luke's shark outlined with glue. It took several hours for the glue to dry.

 Kim chose a monkey.

 We then added straight glue lines, freehand, to the paper around the main image. 

 Using watercolors, fill in the spaces...we used bright colors for the border.  The black glue is a barrier between colors. 

 These came out so awesome!! The kids were able to make them all on their own.  

Here you can see the raised glue....This was a fun project which we will definitely make again.  

I'm thinking a heart in the center with warm colors in the heart and cool colors for the border.