Things That Are Too Wonderful to be Owned

So we read this amazing book called "Who Owns the Sun?" that was written and illustrated by a 14 year old girl in 1988. We decided to try and copy her watercolour paintings. The boys each chose their favourite painting in the book. We used our homemade liquid watercolours to paint the backgrounds... waited for them to dry and then used traditional watercolours to paint the foregrounds. They turned out wonderful.

Original "Who owns the wind?" by Stacy Chbosky

"Who owns the wind?" by Daniel

Original "Who owns the sun?" by Stacy Chbosky

"Who owns the sun?" by Jacob

Dinosaur Fossils

Well obviously we made dinosaur fossils. Here's the recipe I used:

1 cup cheap table salt

2 cups flour

1 cup warm water tinted brown (I used the instructions on the back of the food colouring box)

I also mixed this in my stand mixer since it called for 5 minutes of kneading and I thought the kids would lose interest. Also, the brown food colouring didn't work so good, it looked pinkish when it mixed up, and you can't add food colouring after the fact, it just blobs up. I'd like to try coffee grounds, but I'd have to steal them. 

Roll out, make Dino imprints, and bake at 300 for at least 2 hours. Warning: it smells kind of weird while baking. 

Cool completely then paint them! The more colourful, the less realistic, but whatever, I tried to let go. Can you guess which one I painted?

I think we will bury them in the sandbox and then dig them up! It just needs to warm up a little bit more.

Constellations

We have been learning all about SPACE so the boys made their very own constellations with glow in the dark stars. Aren't these fun? We got an AWESOME book from the library called "Constellations:A Glow in the Dark Guide to the Night Sky" ... I love this book but you can't buy it anymore... We read it in the dark with a flashlight because first we'd see the lovely picture of the constellation with the flashlight on (like the tough looking bear called Ursa Major) and read the history of the image in the stars, then we'd turn off the flashlight and all he stars would glow! It was so much fun. So then we did this.... 

I hung them above their beds. Now I kind of wish I had made myself one! 

Choo-choo!

Another book project! "Freight Train" by Donald Crews is a favourite in our house. If you love trains and rainbow colours and fantastically simple artwork then get this book. 

In the summer I was given two huge old rolls of newsprint paper. Huge. And I thought this book would make a perfect collaborative art project with the boys. We had a snowy, no school holiday, so I finally pulled a roll out of the shed. The inside of the tube is full of spider webs and dead bugs, but the boys thought that was cool, so whatever. Anyways, I let them pick a page from the book to copy (thankfully they both wanted the same page, so there was no fight) and off we went. The boys painted the background on their own (I traced a trestle bridge for Jacob to paint over) and then I cut out each train car, in the correct colour, and the boys each picked three to complete. They carefully copied the cars in the book. Then we did the tender and engine together because they did fight over who was going to do the best part. After it was hung on the wall it was noticed that we forgot the steam so I let them sponge it on with strict instructions to NOT paint the wall. Surprisingly they didn't paint the wall. 

Here it is:

Afterwards Jacob insisted on making a smaller pencil drawing all on his own. Here's a cute picture where he is working on it. It turned out fabulous, by the way.

I told you it was cute! What a little sweetie!!

Learn to Draw...

... the Ed Emberley way. There is a whole series of books by Ed Emberley and I finally got one from the library. Jacob loved it! And so did I, since my artistic skills are always being requested, and I am, quite frankly, not good at drawing trains, construction vehicles, farm equipment, or trucks.

Here is the book we got: 

Here is a fire truck I drew and Daniel added onto.

Here is Jacob's fire truck, complete with burning building. I didn't help at all.

Then he drew a fire breathing dragon.

Awesome. 

There are hundreds of pictures in this book, each one with step by step instructions. Basically, he says, if you can draw a few basic shapes you can draw anything. I can't wait to try more of this book and some of his other ones!

Blown Away

So when I heard of this great kids' book called "Windblown"  I knew I just had to request it from my library. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly).

Jacob copied every page in the book. The snail and chicken were my favourites. 

Then he got creative.

A cement truck. 

Then Daniel decided he wanted to get involved.

A baby lamb.

So much fun. I saved the pieces to play again another day. 

Note: We are drawing using dry erase markers on clear page protectors. 

Before and After... Knight Helmets

Here's the pre and post painted shots of the kids' knight helmets for Halloween. As you can imagine I have spent a lot of time threatening them that if they wreck them before the big day they don't get to go trick or treating.

I am so amazingly thrilled with how these turned out.

Here is the amazing tutorial! 

There Be Dragons!

Another book inspired project that the big boys have been wanting me to do with them is dragons from "Jillian Jiggs." We've been waiting to get a cardboard box that would work and we finally got one that when I cut it in half worked perfect.

ROAR!!

Let Them Be

So I have been doing a lot of research and learning lately about early childhood education. I'm not really going to get into my insights or opinions here, however, TODAY I learned something pretty profound all on my own.

I found THIS activity and thought it looked like fun. Painting fall trees using egg cartons to stamp leaves. This appealed to me because neither of my big boys like any arts and crafts that require getting their hands messy, so finger painting or hand/foot prints are always out. Plus I love the colours of fall.

So I painted two trees so Daniel could stamp one and Jacob could copy the other. I put the appropriate colours out on a tray for them, cut up an egg carton, and had everything all set to go before I called them to the table. NOTE: they have been asking to do a craft for awhile, it has just been hard for me to get organized. Anyways...

This took Daniel about 4 seconds.

Jacob painted his tree, not listening to me at all, and then spent 2 seconds stamping the leaves.

I was annoyed. 

Then Jacob wanted my other pre-painted tree and gave it some "pokey" branches and a face before adding the leaves. 

Notice the addition of green paint that he asked for.

Meanwhile, Daniel wanted to paint his own tree and I ended up with this masterpiece entitled "Daniel (who has a beard) Hugging A Tree" ... I love it. 

I begin to realize that I should just back off and let them be.

And then when I back off completely I get this beautiful piece of artwork. 

"For Mommy" he says. I want to cry.

And this. When Daniel saw Jacob's dragon fly he asked for another paper and he painted "The Dragonfly Gets a Bandaid at the Hospital" ... And that is his signature at the top.

Stupid fall tree with stamped leaves. My kids' original, no mommy help or direction, paintings are way more awesome and totally worth hanging on the wall.

Taking the Kitchen Outside Part II

Now painting is always something fun in our house (okay, maybe not always) but I thought THIS was something we could do outside for sure! I have these old crummy baking pans that we use for paint and a whole container of random paintbrushes, two disgusting old t-shirts and a roll of paper. I grabbed some painter's tape and we were all set. Now turns out Daniel wasn't so into this, but maybe the paper was too high for him. Jacob would paint for a bit, then "wash" his brushes and take off his t-shirt and go play for a bit. Then he would come back to work some more on his masterpiece. He did paint the fence a bit, but it is metal so I figure it will come off in the rain.

Hard at work

Somehow I didn't get a picture of the finished painting! :(

Daniel's Painting

Colourful Rabbits

We have borrowed this great book from the library several times: "White Rabbit's Color Book" by Alan Baker. Today we decided to CRAFT the book. Only glitch... Turns out I returned the book to the library yesterday. Thank goodness for YouTube because we found it on there (it was a dumb video, just a lady turning pages and I had to read it, but whatever). 

Here's the story: White Rabbit finds three pots of pain - red, yellow, and blue. First she climbs in the yellow. Then, all yellow now, she climbs in the red. She is surprised to turn orange! She has a shower, turns white again, and climbs back in the red. Now red, she climbs in the blue... Tada! Princess Purple Rabbit. She showers and starts all over again with the blue, then decides to return to the yellow but, oh no, she turns green. The story has a twist ending which we did not recreate with our craft... Mostly because I didn't print off enough rabbits. The shower runs out of water, she doesn't like being green, and all that is left is a little red paint. She jumps in, turns brown, and lives happily ever after. 

Here is what the boys made... Every time she had a shower we paused the movie and got a new white rabbit. The colours weren't perfect but I think it was still fun. 

Frederick

Hurray! Another storybook craft! These are my favourite. I just love reading a book and then creating the character in the book with the boys. Jacob and I read the book "Frederick" by Leo Lioni together and then he asked to make Frederick. And I think they turned out so cute. In the story four mice are storing up food for the winter, but the fifth mouse, Frederick, isn't helping. Instead he gathers sunlight and colour and words. The other mice don't understand him but when the winter runs long and the food runs out, Frederick warms them with memories of their beautiful meadow, and ends the book with a poem. Daniel wanted his Frederick to one carrying corn (there is a picture of the mice storing up corn in the book) and Jacob wanted his Fredrick to be eating a chocolate chip cookie (this comes from a picture where Frederick is eating a nut with black spots).

"ROAR"igami

So my brother in Japan sent us another Japanese craft to do. This time it was origami. It was way easier than the last craft!
"Firetruck" & "Digger"

Beanbag Monster

Sorry the pictures are all sideways... I can't seem to make them flip! 

Anyways... Awhile back I made beanbags for the boys out of a bunch of scrap fabrics. These are great beanbags... kind of pyramid shaped, good for throwing. We kept waiting to get a big enough box to make a monster to throw our beanbags at. I had found a few on pinterest I liked (Can you tell I use that site a lot?) and the boys both loved the open mouthed monster. The boys helped design and paint this guy.

After about 2 days of using it for its proper purpose they discovered it was also good for climbing...

 For the record, the monster was also used as a chair by Jacob to watch an entire movie. And then they had a BLAST destroying it. Monster is now in the recycling.

I was going to be annoyed and then I thought- painting, throwing, climbing, resting, and breaking... all before recycling. That's alot of activities for one box that before I had kids would have just been recycled. Good times.

Wishing For Spring

I often let the boys pick a craft off of the internet to do. Jacob found this particular one. And guess what? I had an ice cream tub full of lids because I have issues with throwing something out that might be useful someday.
I had the boys create their colourful caterpillar without any glue first, then I gave them the go ahead to touch the glue once they were satisfied. Googly eyes and legs added and they were done. (Daniel's is the one on the left, I did the first four legs and then he took over. Tallest caterpillar ever.)
And the best part about this craft? The next day they had a blast ripping all the caps off the leaves and destroying their caterpillars. Good thing I took a picture!

J is for Jellyfish

Another craft! Another kids' pick! You see, if I picked, it would probably have been something winter themed, or lent themed, or even ABC themed, or maybe even Valentines Day themed. Jellyfish just seemed so random. But, it was actually really fun.

So ours are basically a tinfoil individual pie crust pan with a bunch of random ribbons and yarn glued on the inside. Googly eyes are a must. Daniel wanted his to have a happy face which was really cute. Jacob said jellyfish don't really have mouths but that his was sad.

We took the jellyfish for a walk/bounce/jump around the house. 

Then hung them up by their spots at the kitchen table. What a weird lenten decoration.

The best part of the morning. I decided to ignore the mess the boys were making and let them have fun running around each with a ball of yarn. They got themselves and everything else all tangled up.

The Boys Got Pet Turtles...

... Sorta. We read a book about Blue getting a pet turtle named Turquoise. And then we made our own pet Turquoise. We even made her a tank just like the books. And then of course we had to have a water dish and carrots and celery and lettuce. It was fun.

A closeup of Jacob's Turquoise. He drew the happy face himself!

Daniel's Turquoise. She's cute. And apparently she doesn't like lettuce.