Art lessons

For Art this year we have been working on ARTisitc Pursuits. We do not do it all the time and if I have another book to go along with it I will add that. For example in that program they often will show work from a famous artist and if I had more info on that Artist we will add that. 

they are working with Oil pastels here fall of 2013

Here we read the book Sky Color, and also another book that showed good examples of the art of blending colors and using bright colors when painting. We are not in a rush to do this program, we do it once a week or so. I have enjoyed it, and we will continue with is next year as it fits in. 

 here they are using water color crayons - spring of 2014

Random Fun things...

These are just some random picture from some of the stuff we did. I would like to be super organized with regular experiments, art project and activities, but I am not. In a perfect world I would like art once a week, and science with a hands on project once a week, and then a history or whatever other subject hands on activity, or even math once a week. But it never goes that way. And I am now ok with it. We do the projects and things when we get to it.

Here are the boys are doing a project from one of the science books we have about light, and color they had a lot of fun with this section.

I love these books we have a few of them. They are fun and colorful. I love that they really are pretty advanced. For my younger kids I do not read it all, just skim it, and look at the pictures and talk about it but for my older kids there really is a lot for them to take in. They are for ages 5-10 the author is Kimberly Brubarker. We read this book, and then made balloon rockets an idea I found on pintrest. The LOVED it! and want to do it again!

I am really enjoying our Art Program (ARTistic Pursuits) Here the kids are using water color crayons to make a picture. I also want to mixing this up with other things too... I will share whenever we get around to actually doing it... if we do... ha ha

Ethan is really into reading and writing, and enjoying learning vocab. The way we do Vocabulary is when he is reading, he underlines words that he does not know. I trust him to be honest and do this. I am sure he does not always, but many times he does add words to his list. We also add words to the list as he reads to me, or as I am reading and he will ask what a work means. He keeps this running list and then once a week he picks 2 words from this list, and he uses this page that I made up in word. Where he writes the word, then the definition, which he looks up on the ipad, then we talk about to to make sure he understands it. Then he comes up with a way to use that word in a sentence. Then he draws a picture of the sentence he created. This works for us I feel like it is efficient and you can do it as often as you like. I do not know how to share word documents on a blog so if you want it them ask me.

Aaron is doing one of the boys favorite games, making up silly sentences. We have a game that we bought from a used home school book sale but often times we like to make up our own. And we cover a little grammar along the way. The pics "things" or "people" and I write them on note cards that I cut into strips. Then they think of "adjectives" and I write those. I think in this lesson Aaron was learning how state of being and linking verbs work. We also will reads some fun grammar books too.

Here Ryan built out of Legos When we learned about the Erie Canal- I think I may have already posted about this so sorry if it is a repeat, but often times the kids like to act out or build things we have learned about and I love it when they do that.

Here is when we did a Volcano science lesson- this was back in the fall of 2012

this was  a few months ago, it was our Balloon Rockets- we are for sure doing this again, and I bet that wont me the last time either. I will for sure make the strings longer next time. 

Ethan is doing a math activity with a book that we got at a yard sale, basicly it is copy work, but it is good way for him to pratice those math facts. Aaron is going a game with a dart gun he hits a number then a nother number then he add or subtracts them. He has a +/- dice I made that he rolls. I got plain dice at a teacher store and put the symbles on them.

Art foundry Field Trip fall of 2012

While we were in Utah, (almost a year ago) we got to Tour Beare Bronze Sculpture 

This is where my Dad works, and just recently my mom as well. My dad has been doing this kind of work, Bronze sculpture all his life, and I remember as a child going to the foundry, so it was pretty amazing to watch my kids learn about this kind of Art from my dad just as I did.

When you want to have a bronze sculpture made you start with your original piece, then they make a mold of it. Then from that mold they make a Wax version of the sculpture.

Once you have a wax version of the piece from that they made a casting. This is what will hold the liquid bronze. Your max piece is dipped over half a dozen times into the slurry, then into a white sand like power until the casting is finished. Then it is heated up, and the wax comes dripped out.

After that they heat up the bronze and heat up the casting and once it is just right temp they pour the bronze into that casting.

When bronze is heating up it has a green flam- pretty cool!

This is my Dad and his boss doing a bronze pour it was pretty cool that my kids could watch him do this.

After the bronze cools about 12 hours or so. Then break off that outer casting and then sand blast it to get all the finishing touches done on the piece. After that a patina is done, which is a process of heat (from a torch) and different chemicals to create different colors and patters on the bronze. Here my dad is teaching them that - the frog picture is a piece after it has gotten the patina.

After the patina, the piece is rubbed out with a protective wax then boxed and shipped. When I was in High school, I had a job at the foundry where I would help in the office, and I would also rub out piece, once that patina is finished. 

Now you all know where I get my creative genes :) 

HERE is a link to a cool video of the process

M is for....

MOOSE!!!!

we learned about moose, and read if you give a moose a muffin and make orange muffins.

we did other things to but I really can't remember them.... this is what happens when I wait sooo long to post about school.

the boys LOVE LOVE LOVED this activity, we took shirts we had, I did have to buy a couple at Walmart, then we used their foot for the head, there hands for the antlers and then finger for eyes, the end of a paint brush for the inside of the eye and mouth.

the kids LOVE these- I love art that they wear and use, instead of just going on the wall and then into a book or the trash.

Berry Paint

One of the main books in our science curriculum this year is this book called More fun with Nature. One the activities in it is to use smashed berries to paint with. We found these berries when we were on a nature walk, but they were not in our book, sooo thank you to the wonderful Internet we found out they are called "poke berries" and are poisonous to humans. Sooo they did not eat them, just painted with them. They really liked it.

we did this on Ryan's week of learning about letter P - we painted, and it just happen to be with Poke berries-

Fun with Finger PAINT!

Today after doing work sheets and flash cards the boys had fun with finger paint.

I drew some of their spelling words out with pencil on paper and then they were to trace them with finger pant.

After doing that activity, they got more paper to "free paint" want ever they wanted I love watching the creative juices flow!

(note: when ever we work with paint I always put down paper on the table, I got this from when we moved. I just saved some packing paper for this, and it works great)