You know what happens when I look at this book Art Play by Marion Deuchars?   I see FUN with 6-8 year olds.  Doing art, exploring different ideas, seeing what others are doing, learning and growing and experimenting.   This is indeed a neat book to review.

So not only did I learn new terminology (like what in the world is gouache paint), but I had fun looking at different way to blend colours, ways to make the same piece of art work different, how much fun ink blots could be and SO MUCH MORE.

This is seriously, a really neat book.  :)

Divided into seven different areas:

Within the 224 pages of this book, you will find numerous ways to explore art with your child.  Using your fingerprint, paper people, drawing, repeating patterns, engaging your mind and body as you explore new ways to do art, or even rediscover old ways.

Don't you think it would be fun to get a group of children of different ages working together, letting an 11 year old inspire a 6 year old to think broader, to see more possibilities?   To let the uninhibited 7 year old show a 12 year a new way to mix colours?  Seriously... it would be GREAT!!!

So many things to think about with lots of opportunities to not only learn about doing art but different ways you can do it yourself.

Oh...the possibilities are endless.  

Take the time today.. Do some art with your children. 
It can be fun!  It is DEFINITELY play

The way this book is written it is meant to be used, to set yourself or your child loose it in.  That is the intention of the book.

But I see this book and I just see the possibilities of having fun with a group of children.  Learning and growing.  It would be so easy to replicate the pages to create a classroom experience for your class. To use the pages as a springboard for discovery.

Won't you add it to your library today?

Affiliate Links are used in this post as a way to help you find your own copy should you be inspired to get one.  :)   Doesn't hurt your bottom line, and helps support this blog. 
I thank you.

Have an international student?   Want to see him smile?   Take him to a Butterfly conservatory and stand back and watch. 

Then watch an 11 year introduce that student to a walking stick...and be happy.   It's a rather cool thing to let a love of bugs cross a language barrier.

We had a great time wandering around and noticing the different butterflies and finches they had flying around.  There was this one VERY determined finch that I watched for quite some time trying to get a picture of him, but just couldn't manage.  He'd fly down, rustle in the bushes, come out pulling on a vine/twig/or something like that and try to fly up to his nest and everytime was pulled short as it just wouldn't pull free.  He did this over and over again.  Very determined little beastie.

My son asked about why they have all the finches and learned that they are given to them.  They eat seeds and eggs and help keep the place tidy.   They add a touch of colour and flash and they are fun to watch. 

Isn't this Emerald Butterfly gorgeous?   The brillancy of the colours is an indicator it hatched on the day.   We saw three of them?   It's hard to know for sure since they are very good at flying around.   We did have a chance to see a variety of butterflies.

I must not forget to talk about the bugs and butterflies with the boys.  :)

The waterfall was lovely even though this picture is rather meh.   The staff were wandering about and the lad asked if he could see the stick bug pulling our student along with him.

They transferred Ms. Stick Bug from one hand to the next, I even held it for a bit.  Very gentle but with slightly sticky feet.  

Want to know what my lad is watching so intently?

This pair of quail.  About six of them wander around, usually in groups of two.  They are fairly tame, but aren't keen on being caught.    The conservatory hosts butterflies, finches, two sizes of quail, turtles and koi.   Just fun to set and watch them and hope that one will land on you.  :)

The Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory is a great place to visit.  Located nearish the airport outside of Cambridge, Ontario.   I hope you have enjoyed this brief look .... you really must go and see it for yourselves though, its a great place to spend a good hour and a bit. 

Please welcome Kym to my blog today.   A displaced Canadian, lending a hand on my blog, helping to share one of her favourite art books.  :)   Pretty cool eh?

Natural Disasters... they happen all the time.   Wild weather, wild water, wild temperature extremes and more.   Do you want to help your children understand them?
Here's a book that will help: The Ultimate Interactive Guide to Natural Disasters.

What do I think?
This book would be excellent to let children read alone, or use as a spine for a larger study of natural disasters around the world.   Little tidbits just begged to be studied more, for instance, I want to teach my lad more about the Cenotes in Mexico.  This book is a great introduction to how the world works in regards to natural disasters.

The Ultimate Interactive Guide to Natural Disasters

Author: Ian Graham
Illustrations: Simon Morse and Simon Taylor

Pages: 48
Publisher: SilverDolphin

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

Affiliate links may be used throughout this post, they are not an additional burden to you and only help support my efforts with this blog.  Thanks!  :)

My son said "This is a book made for girls mom!"

And I have to admit that Lizzie Lees' Create Your Own Collage book hits me that way too.  This is a use it up, have fun making different items with it, you go girl type of book.

And that my friends, is the point of the book, creative projects with all the paper and stickers and encouragement you need to do them. 

There are two, two page spreads like this one:

Sticker pages

Tons of colourful pages, with idea pages of what you can do with those pages.

Projects to complete like this neat pineapple

Off and on throughout the book you will find quotes to encourage you along the way.

So what do I think of this book?   It's a cute book and I plan to find some daring youngster to give it to, and simply say.. HAVE FUN!   Create, enjoy, be an artist in your own way.   Make collages if you want, but here's a book with lots of paper, just go and create!   (unless of course my lad changes his mind and thinks we should add it our stash of creative supplies).  :)   He does that you know.  :)

I have to admit, she comes up with so many different ideas on what you can do with collages, it surprised me.   I really liked some of her projects, like the boat and pineapple, with the right pages and the patience, those projects could come out really really well....but maybe that's the slightly girlie part of me.  (big grin)

The question posed to my son was this:
Do you think the sun could be used to make cookies?

With that question sitting in his brain, and as he talked through his ideas...
"no bake cookies", "sugar cookies on a plate", "that oven you made this summer for the bread?".... I managed to find the post I saved on making a solar oven.

Grab up a pizza box, size doesn't really matter, these are mediums from the hot-n-ready from Little Caesar's.   Cut a flap in the box.  Have an extra, just saying, it might be helpful.  :)   Seeing how my son was cutting, gave me a chance to teach him proper cutting technique along with the WHY his way was incorrect, and the benefits of doing it correctly.   It made the job go more quickly without injury.

The lad didn't like his first attempt, so we used another box.

Put aluminum soil over the flap, shiny side facing down into the box.   Then cover the opening with a see through material (we used sarah wrap, you could also use a ziploc bag).  This helps keep bugs out of the box.  Helps, doesn't completely prevent.  :)

Cover the bottom of the box with black paper to help hold in the heat.  We found this worked best as a two man job.

Find a way to insulate the box.  We had styrofoam so made use of it, you could also used rolled up newspapers, socks, material etc.  Something that will fill up the space not used, and help concentrate the heat.

Put the assembled product out in the sun, propping the lid open so it catches the rays (the lad thought a straw would work nicely).  We didn't have plates small enough to put in so we used some excess foil to make a plate.  It was a coolish day so it took ALL DAY to make the cookies.  You may find you need to move the box, depending on what happens with sun and shade. 

I had thought of messing with my boy's brain and popping an egg in a small bowl for him to cook, but decided against it.  :)   But it's something to try eh?

Have you ever cooked outdoors?   If So, what did you make?
If you made a solar oven before, did you do it differently then we did?

The question is this: How is sand art STEM?

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Science: Chromotography - figuring out how when some colours meet and mix, they combine to make a new colour.

Technology: The funnel this kit came with was a bit small...This required some problem solving.  I used a homemade funnel made of paper, and my son used a skewer to help push the sand through the funnel.   Also the sand art wand was next to useless so we needed to create a work around for that.   Straws, toothpicks, careful shaking, and moving the funnel  to direct the flow were our options.

Engineering: Each sand art jar was shaped differently, my son chose the bottle he did because it seemed to him the best bottle from which to learn how to layer sand.

Math: The sand particles shift and settle.   This meant we needed to add more sand than we originally thought.  It took careful shaking to get the sand to settle without messing up the design we so carefully created. 

This is the kit we used.   I don't know where I picked it up, but it came with four bottles, six colours of sand, a shaping wand, and four stoppers.

We learned quickly that putting the bags down on the table would result in leakage, so we found some cups to store them upright in.   Here my son is demonstrating the use of the skewer to help the sand through the funnel.

Settling was an issue, how much more would it need?  Far more than we thought it would.   It seemed to always take just a wee bit more.  The funnel seemed useless here.

Now.. the sand art wand was next to useless and it  never glowed in the dark which was a tremendous disappointment to the lad, but we have a fun creating and thinking, and that's kinda the end point of it all.  :)

Have you tried Sand Art as a STEM activity?   Though I do suppose, that it includes the A as well eh?     The "A" being for art... aren't they interesting once they are complete?  Sand art also shows off our individual expression!  :)

We have a shelf in our main schooling area called a discover shelf.   Once a week we grab something off it and we discover.  :)

Two weeks ago my son grabbed this item off the shelf:

I have to admit, we made one of these a LONG time ago, but it was defective, but I got this one a really good deal and figured it would be worth a shot trying it again.  :)  The first one my lad was too young to make himself, so dad and I put it together, this one the lad did all on his own, except for the odd "mom, can you help file this down, mom, can you see if I am doing this right?"

The kit comes with two plastic piece sections, along with three bags with different pieces.   Some of the pieces will require careful manipulation to remove and others require some filing to remove burrs.  All pieces fit together just so, but we found it quite forgiving overall.

For the most part the lad found the instructions very clear, but occasionally he'd say "they could make this section better mom".  That was usually the result if he put something in backwards, or not quite in the right places.   In those places, better pictures would have help.  Pictures later in the process showed where he had gone wrong, and the fix was easy to make.  You'll notice the knife and scissors that were helpful in the removing of burrs.

The lad was ecstatic when we reached this stage, it was quite fiddly up until this point.

"Look mom, I have her all together!   Isn't she nice?"

When I asked him if he wanted to mix the salt water together to let her run, he said no.  The plates that make it run degrade over time, and he wants to keep everything nice until he decides he has time to play with her for a really long time.   So for now, we have a spider who sits with him as he does his school work, and nicely doesn't run away on him.  :)   And I have a happy boy.  :)

Admittedly I have a few posts to get caught up on yet (namely our STEM Friday Projects) but I thought I'd let you know that we are being intentional this year.  Taking time on Fridays to work through our books and boxes that we have lining these two shelves.

Kits to make soap, weather stations, wood burning, smithsonian projects and so much more.  Books to make electric items using paper, using squares of paper and wood to build creations and more.    It's fun learning!  We have games to play and things to do.  

But you know what happens?   Sometimes this stuff gets forgotten, and this year, we don't want to forget to do them, or my .. oh my goodness... now 11 year old will outgrow them and who wants that?  Not me, and definitely not him.

Last week we made this fellow:

She's a salt water spider (so you if put salt water in her, she'll move around).   My lad has yet to put the salt water in as the plates only last four hours and he doesn't want to waste them.   We learned though about how salt water is a conductor, and magnesium plates will degrade if in contact with salt.   We had a chance to see what happens if you don't fit gears together properly, and the importance of not only READING the instructions, but looking at the accompanying pictures.   She wasn't the easy build, but boy... is my lad happy with her.  He did it on his own with the odd... mom... can you trim this down for me, it's not working for me.

Oh.. this sand art was more of a challenge than we anticipated.   The funnel it came with was a bit on the small side, so I made a funnel of paper and my lad learned the fine use of a skewer to help the sand go through the funnel.   My son laughed at my sand man, and I thought his design with layering quite interesting.    We have two more to and now that we've worked out the kinks making these two my lad thinking he might try a slightly harder one next time.  

Since we had it written in the planner to make a solar oven today my son and I tossed the math and English practice for the day and read instructions FOUND HERE for making the ovens.    We used styrofoam as our insulator instead of paper.   Last check the lad said they were cooking.  :)

Fridays we do our learning a bit differently, as much as we can.  

Do you have days of the week that you do things differently as well?   If so what?

Five minute Friday is upon us again!  WOOT WOOT.  :)
Today's word is heal.   Note: I suffered a burn on holidays so will be including pictures of that.  :)

Go
This summer my family and I went camping.
We went up to Grundy Lake Provincial Park and we had a lot of fun.
We fished, kayaked, attended programs and made meals, some of which were bread based.
I hadn't made sun-bread before and thought it would be fun to try.
The first time I did it... It worked!!!   No mishaps, just lovely bread for us to try.

I'm thinking that my initial success made me somewhat less than cautious.
I ended up with a rather bad burn with this second loaf because I wasn't careful about what I was doing.

It is still healing and it's been more than a month since it happened.

You know what... healing takes time.
When it happened it was sore and difficult to work with physically but I was also mentally beating myself up because my injury didn't only affect me, it also affected my family.

It took time for me to get past that, I actually had a BAD day while camping, feeling horrid and sore and sad...and my fellows were kind and patient with me.

As I think about this word heal that memory comes back to me and helps me to realize and important fact.  God is kind and patient with us you know.  We have a major wound, called SIN in our lives.   And God patiently and kindly heals our wound.  He occasionally will give us a whack and tell us to move forward, but generally speaking he just helps us along our journey to healing.   It's not a would that will heal quickly, like I imagine my burn will be fully healed in another month.   In fact, our wound of sin won't be completely fully healed until we reach heaven (or Christ returns).  

But we had an advocate on our side (Jesus) if we call ourselves God's children.   We have a kind and patient God on our side who continually calls us to perfection.  AND we have the Holy Spirit residing within, easing the pain, peeling away the scabs of our injury, helping us to heal and be what we are supposed to be.

Good is not?

STOP