Hand Print Lilies

We are bringing a lot of Spring arts and crafts to decorate our wonderful learning wall... as well as every other surface of our dining and kitchen areas. These projects go perfectly with our Spring reading, studies and science plans that are coming up next week. Plus doing some beautiful Spring art helps to muddle out the rain looming just outside our doors!

Today Holly enjoyed creating Hand Print Lilies. I found this project at Family Fun, here is a link: http://familyfun.go.com/spring/spring-crafts/spring-flower-crafts/handprint-lilies-675224/ This was a very easy project, we had all the supplies on hand and it had pretty quick results that she really enjoyed!

Butterfly Beauties

This is a classic project for us, we enjoy making these year round. They are super simple too! You take coffee filters and eye dropper liquid water colors on them. Let them dry and then gather them up into a butterfly shape that you twist up with pipe cleaners. Very easy and so very pretty. Today we diluted the water colors to make more pastel colored butterflies. Holly is very excited because we are about to order up some caterpillars to observe very soon... so fun!

Addition & Dice

Today Holly practiced writing number sentences using dice. We discussed all the parts of an addition number sentence and then she rolled dice to create various sentences. The reason we did this exercise and will again to is reinforce it from memory, basic addition through practice and then how to write a numeric sentence. Most math books for her age it is all written out for her, this way she is practicing math without the work done. She enjoyed this a lot as it was more like a game then a practice sheet.

Cherry Blossom Tree

Spring is here and with it comes some really fun projects, gardening, science fun and more! This week we enjoyed some great books on Spring, poetry on spring, various art projects, garden exploration, garden planning, outdoor time, car hunts for cherry blossom trees, a movie on seasons and a movie on weather and changes in spring. A fun week for sure!

A favorite project Holly enjoyed is her Cherry Blossom Tree art project she created at home. We have done a few variations of this however this particular art project was her favorite one... mine too (I think because she slowed down and did a complete project versus a rushed one). She painted the trunk and branches of the tree with brown paint and then dotted paint all over the tree in which she places crumpled bits of pink tissue paper. The final look is a sweet tree, perfect for Spring!

Rainbow Patterns

Holly did some beading work for fine motor skills and practiced creating patterns within the rainbow color scheme. As simple as this project appears to me, it took her a long time to bead - she grew tired of beading and her fingers got sore she said. This was a good little project for her as she practiced some patience skills, thoughtfulness, reinforced our rainbow theme and incorporated a bit of pattern skills for math.

The goal was to create a unique pattern for each color. It is hard to tell from these photos however she did accomplish that. Whenever she started a new color she had to stop and look at the other and determine a new pattern. The beads were solid, shimmery, glittery and opaque - making it hard to really see the full differences in the photos.

Rainbow Xylophone

Continuing with a bit of rainbow fun this week, we created a rainbow xylophone. Holly helped to fill and color the glasses, we found a little drum stick and then she played for a while. After a bit of exploring with the sounds of each glass we then created some music cards. We took strips of paper and water colors to create the music sheets for her xylophone. She tapped out some tunes and then transferred that song onto the paper. After she created some I tried them out, some pretty sounds for sure! This was a really fun project that will sit out all day for play.

Beach Relief

Today we met up with some other home schoolers at Owen Beach for some beach play in the rain... which only lasts so long before a little one is cold and wet. Hollly had a good time on the beach, we'll have to do a lot more of this in upcoming good weather. The kids also made a beach relief art project.

Holly collected some rocks and shells from the beach. Then she filled a container with a bit of sand and created a design in the sand with her finds. After she was happy with her design she then mixed up some Plaster of Paris and covered her little design. Once dry you pop it out and rinse off to expose her design. A wonderful little art project. I think we will be doing a lot more with Plaster of Paris very soon it is really cool and I have a lot left over!

St. Patricks Day Fun

On St. Patrick's Day we infused a little holiday fun into our lessons for the day. We own a couple of fun little books that I read and Holly read to me. We listed to Irish music and enjoyed a story telling CD of Irish folk tales. One folk tale is of Fin M'Coul - we own the book and it is on the CD. It was fun to compare the two, Holly really enjoyed that.

In the afternoon Holly made rainbow cupcakes, a nice little cooking project. She did this last year and really enjoyed it - from what I can tell this might become a little family tradition.

As well, we had Lucky Charms for breakfast and green eggs for dinner. Just some small touches to our day to make it festive!