Discovering Great Artists - Book Review

Have you ever spent hours hours pouring through a website trying to decide which product would be the best bet?  No, then consider yourself lucky.   If you're like me, then I'm pretty sure I've spent a cumulative of months looking at products only to do the cart dance - in the cart, out of the cart, in the cart, and back out.  My most recent cart dance involved picking an art book.  I needed one that gave background, covered many styles, and had activities. 

Enter

 

Discovering Great Artists

The book is easy to use and comprehensive.  There are icons to help you plan your time and materials.

 

 

The activities are fun and my kiddos have loved every thing we've done.

The only downfall and it's a big one for an art book is that it's not in color.  My husband said, "An art book not in color? "  I knew the book wasn't in color, but I thought it wouldn't bother me.  It does.  I get it that it's an instruction book, but Ladybug reads it and wants to do every activity she sees. She would get more out of the book if it was in color or better yet a set of postcards of some of the art. 

This is not a pass, but rather makes a good part of a collection of art books for kids.

Artist Study - Pablo Picasso

What art study would be complete without a week of Pablo Picasso?  This was an easy and quick introduction to colors, moods, and The Blue Period.

We discussed how colors make us feel.  Blue can make us feel sad or calm while yellow feels like summer.  We made a chart of colors and what they remind us of and the feelings they evoke.  I followed up with a few Pablo Picasso videos on YouTube. Thank you Interwebz for these awesome resources.

To end our day, each child chose a color and made a picture using just that color.  I would have liked if they chose colors for their moods, but true to kid form they picked their favorite colors.

Ladybug made some angry birds (purple makes her feel angry and wild) with a James Rizzi sun. 

Mister chose green and made things that grow.

The Wee One chose blue and her picture ended up with a water theme. 

 

 One of my favorite parts about these kind of things is when the kiddos take it to real life.  Halle was without her siblings for a few hours and she spent the entire time using the driveway as her canvas.  Each section of the driveway had a color period.  She was so excited and said, "Here is my green period. Here is my red period....and my pink period." 

Artists Sensory Bin

Artist Study Sensory Bin

• Pony beads
• Chenille stems
• Miniature paint pallet (Michaels)
• Miniature still life bowl (Michaels)
• Miniature chair
• Sunflower
• Paint bucket (Michaels)
• Chalkboard
• Chalk
• Sample artist paintings with names
• Artist names
• Paintbrushes
• Mirror for self portrait
• Spoons
• Small cup
• Pom poms
• Letters spelling artists names

Arts and Crafts - Treasure Basket

We are an artsy crapsy kinda family.  I have a Honey Do List that keeps growing, a little gal who saves every scrap just in case she needs to craft, and another gal who asks every day what kind of art project we are going to do.  The boy, well, he's a little more like the only other male in this house, but he puts up a good face just as long as we play football or dinosaurs or space travel every so often.

This month June's basket if full of things we use to craft:

• Fabric - Varying textures and colors
• Ribbon - Varying lengths, textures, and colors
• Pony beads in a bottle
• Jewelry beads in a bottle
• Broken crayons in a bottle
• Styrofoam balls - We will see how long these last with a oral baby
• Watercolors
• Washi Tape
• Glitter glue
• Crepe paper
• Popsicle stick

Funny Birds

Ladybug loves art.  She could paint, draw, color, collage, cut, glue, glitter (no, no, no) all day long.  When I stumbled across a James Rizzi birds art lesson from Deep Space Sparkle, it checked off all her artsy crapsy criteria.

We started by watching YouTube videos of James Rizzi art.  During the videos, we would pause and talk about his style of art, his use of bold colors, and the use of a black outline. 

Then, I walked the kids through how to draw a James Rizzi inspired bird.  Since the Wee One is three, I used some really kid friendly language.

First draw an ice cream cone.
Make your ice cream overflow on the sides.
Draw two circles that are kissing (eyes).
Give two dots on the ice cream cone.
Draw a big oval for a body.
Add a straight line down and two sticks for feet.
Add some scallops or zig-zags on the body.
If you want you can add some hair.

The Wee One's bird.  She was so proud!

 We outlined our work in some oil pastels.  This was our first time working with oil pastels and there was a big learning curve. 

 

Next we added some watercolors.  This was our second attempt after they got a little crazy with their painting.  It was just short of a disaster.

Why yes, those are Santa pajamas in April.  It 14 with the wind chill right now.   

 

 

Ladybug's finished bird.  

I loved these birds so much that I put them in frames.  They are whimsical and colorful and really, really awesome. 

Art Tackle Box - A Review

This year my husband and I decided to have a small Christmas with more focus on family and less focus on stuff.  That stuff seemed to pile up in the corner, spill out of the basement playroom (an entire basement dedicated to toys), and eventually spend more time in Toy Time-Out than being enjoyed. 

The kids were asked what they wanted and Ladybug, who loves artys crappsy kinds of activities, asked for a blue art tackle box or better known as the Lakeshore Arts & Crafts Supply Center.  Over the next few weeks I kept asking nagging because I wanted her to be really sure and she kept saying the same thing.  Really though this thing looked like my worst nightmare. 



Lakeshore Arts & Crafts Supply Center

Now, I was skeptical because:

A.  It had a lot of awesome supplies and those supplies would end up everywhere.  Remember that stuff that was in Toy Time-Out?  I was mentally adding the blue tackle box to the list. 

B.  I had a coupon for half-off. Was it too good to be true?

C.  I could only find reviews where the product had been supplied by Lakeshore and reviewed.  Now, I know that these reviews are suppose to be unbiased, but I wanted a review not associated with a coupon or Lakeshore.

I gave Santa the green light and now we are the proud owners of a blue art tackle box. 

 

We've had the blue tackle box for almost two months and it is used every single day.  My concern was the awesome supplies would be everywhere, but it seems the novelty of the small clear boxes helps keep her supplies organized. There is enough variety in supplies that it keeps all of them interested and creative. 

 

 

I would recommend to blue tackle box to any budding Martha Stewart.

 



Rrrr, I'm Gonna Eat You - March Work

This month we have been talking about food chains and dinosaurs.  Honestly, I am not too interested in dinosaurs as a stand alone topic and neither is Ladybug, so to appeal to more than one person in this family I have attempted to combine the two.  

We started the month talking about herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores and the dinosaurs that fit into each category.  The dinosaur toob has been a great resource for this month.

Each time I have introduced a dinosaur I have given a fact sheet and a coloring sheet from Enchanted Learning.

Match the carnivores with the picture and name.  Each dino has their name on the underside.  We also discussed features that made the carnivores alike.

We have also talked about the animals that are not extinct.

After Mister and Ladybug had a good grasp of what eats what we moved on to who eats who with food chains.

Simple Food Chains 

Apparently a cactus grows in the savanna.  Mister and Ladybug pick a producer and two consumers to make a food chain.

More Complex (Complete) Food Chains

Chose the pictures to make a food chain and label the omnivore, carnivore, or herbivore.  

Art

How to draw a dinosaur!

Math

Number writing practice because who doesn't love a white board?

Fill in the missing numbers on the dinosaur eggs.  This was defiantly a challenge activity for Mister and Ladybug.

Game for two

Literacy

Dinosaur egg sight words (Mister's word) .  Ladybug is reading Biscuit books (her choice) and Mister is reading sigh word readers.  

Sight Word Soup - This game is played like Scrabble Soup, but with sight words.  Each sight word is written on a card and a chip.  One person picks the top card and shows the sight word.  The players put in their spoon and scoop out sight words written on wooden circles and blank circles.  When they find the the sight word they call it out and put it on their board.  When the cards are all gone the person with the most wooden sight words wins.

Practical Life - Name Writing

The Wee One

Two of the things on her shelf

Sensory

Dino feet prints

Dinosaur eggs

March?  Not so much in the tundra, which is why we are still in our pajamas in some of these photos.  I mean it's hard to get out of them when the windchill is still hovering around 0.

C is for...

I have been feeling a little bit guilty because I haven't been as focused on letter sounds as I was with the twins.  She knows more than I thought, but it's no where near what the twins knew at her age.  Granted she knows more about numbers, one-to-one correspondence, and science than her siblings and her interest in letters and phonics has only recently emerged but that mommy guilt is an awful feeling.

We attempted letters in the fall when she first showed interest, but her enthusiasm was short lived so I backed off.  Now that we have started again we have covered CMAT with a focus on the sounds of the letters rather than the letter name.

Letter C

Powder Puff  Clouds

and a Cupcake

There are no more sprinkles left on her cupcake. Smelling leads to eating and eating leads to a bare cupcake.

Cloud Writing

I must remember to tape the handles in the future.  

Writing Practice

We have work to do on that grip!

Car Painting

Cookie Monster Counting

Cookie Eating for my my own Cookie Monster

These were 20 minute oatmeal and raisin cookies and if I could remember where I found them I would give you a link.  

Making Reading Relevant and Fun

One of my favorite parts about doing preschool with  my kiddos is being able to really customize their work. In a classroom of 20-28 it's terribly time consuming and takes a lot of dedication.  To those teachers that do teach to their students, I admire your work and thank you.

Anyway, Mister has had some setbacks in reading and we were both frusterated.  He wasn't enjoying his work and I truthfully I wasn't enjoying working with him.  There was something wrong with that picture because he is suppose to love school. The last thing I want to do is to turn his love for learning into a chore.

After some trial and error I found he loves to be an illustrator or author and illustrator.  In the three weeks we have been working on books, his reading has soared.  Ladybug has taken a renewed interest in learning new words and reading harder books.  The best part is these books are totally customizable.  Sometimes I have Mister and Ladybug add their own ideas, sometimes I have them practice writing a word, and sometimes I just have them illustrate their book.  Each time they create a book, they read it to my husband right before bed.

Working on sight words

Ladybug's book was about making cupcakes.

Mister's book is about his favorite things to do.  

There's More

I was looking over my blog and realized that in February I had a bad case of "Mommy Brain" because I didn't post some of the activities on our shelves.  The pictures were taken and uploaded, but they have sat unused.  So in an effort to play catch-up here are a few more left-overs.

Math

One-to-one correspondence - The Wee One put one heart on each of the stickers.

Mister and Ladybug covered their board with hearts and subtracted the number rolled.  The first person to clear his or her board was the winner.

Make a stamp pattern.

Art/Literacy

Mister and Ladybug folded their paper make a heart, traced the pattern, and cut it out.  They designed a valentine for a friend.  We also took dobbers and made designs on our paper using the doilies.

Word list created by the kiddos for their valentine cards

Practical Life

Cutting out hearts

After reading "It's Raining Hearts" they punched and glued their own hearts.

Valentine pony beads and pipe cleaner bracelets.

The Wee One Shelves

Another goodie from last year - It's Raining Hearts tree

Strawberry hauler for one-to-one correspondence

Okay, I think that's it...really.