Summer Nature Looms

July 2013: Earlier in the school year we made simple looms that the girls used with ribbons to do a little weaving practice. (We made these using only Dollar Tree materials, btw. $3.00 total) When we finally got some lovely things growing outside in abundance we went out with our bags and did a little nature collecting. Bringing back our flowers, grasses, weeds, seeds etc. we sat outside and gently wove all of these things into a really beautiful nature display. Both girls needed a bit of help doing this without destroying the more delicate specimens but we all enjoyed doing this activity together. We hung these outside and watched them change as they dried in the sun.

Summer Nature Collecting and Collages

 May 2013: We ventured outside one sunny morning to do a little nature collecting. We returned with our findings and used them to make a nature collage on bright yellow paper. I originally wanted the girls to think a bit more "outside the box" and use the flowers, leaves etc. to create a different image such as a face or an animal, but they wanted to use them to create a nature scene--pretty much a replica of right where we collected them. But in the end I think they turned out really well and they had fun imagining all of these separate plants growing together as one new plant. So, not exactly what I had in mind but they really loved collecting and creating with the natural materials which was the goal anyways.

Father's Day Cards

June 2013: For Father's Day this year I printed off one of those questionnaires that were all over Pinterest. The girls had to answer basic questions about their dad that of course produced hilarious results that both entertained and embarrassed said Dad. Fun was had by all :) And then we made handprint accordions into cards that the girls REALLY enjoyed making. I think these are a not-so-typical way to use your child's handprint but equally cute as some more traditional handprint crafts. Dad loved them--almost as much as his girls loved giving them :)

Spring Blossom Tree

April 2013: When there aren't yet REAL blossoms on the trees outside, we made our own from a bare branch and some tissue paper. The girls enjoyed making the pretty flowers from petal shapes that I pre-cut from pink & white tissue. They needed a little help affixing them to the actual branch but with some patience we made it happen. It was a nice, Spring-y addition to the schoolroom and a hopeful sign that one day Winter would indeed end.

Lion & Lamb of Springtime!

March 2013: We made mobiles to illustrate the phrase, "In like a lion, out like a lamb" that is so often used to describe the season of Spring. For some reason I only have a pic of the lamb which we made using cotton balls but the opposite side had a lion's face that we made using yellow yarn. The materials we used were also useful in a discussion about textures. The girls were very happy with these and liked to see them hanging in the window. We also used them as part of our weather each morning--deciding if the day's weather was like a lion (wintry) or like a lamb (mild and Spring-like).

St. Patrick's Shamrocks

March 2013: We love St. Patrick's Day at our house and my girls really enjoyed hearing the story/legend of the real man, St. Patrick this year. We created some shamrocks to decorate our dreary March windows that were also visual lessons on the nature of the Trinity: Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

Easter Artwork and Poems

March 2013: We decided to try our hands at writing acrostic poems for Easter this year. I helped out some with coming up with words that would fit, but really they did most of this on their own and I was so pleased with their finished poems. We will definitely be trying this for other holidays and themes.

March 2013: These were 2 of the activities we did for Easter this past Spring. the girls LOVE coloring and especially coloring in something I draw for them--their own custom coloring book pages--so we did some rather ornate eggs and they enjoyed coloring them (some got further than others...) and adding some Easter stickers. They were very proud of these :)

MORE Spring collages

We were really on a collage spree in the Spring, the girls wanted to keep working in this media so we did! Here are our rainbow collages that we created using photos from magazines. The girls had WAY too much fun being distracted by the magazines themselves so I began helping them by cutting out large blocks of colors and letting them cut them down to the size they needed for their rainbows. They did really enjoy making the actual rainbows once all of the cutting was done :)

Spring Collages

 

April 2013: We traced the girls' hands to make a tree throughout the 4 seasons of the year. We chose tissue paper to create a collage to show the different stages of foliage the tree would display during the changing seasons. They really enjoyed this project and especially thinking about/remembering what trees look like in Fall and Winter.

Winter Indoor Activities

February 2013: These are craft stick "ice skaters" that we made in the freezer and then the girls had fun skating them in the "ice-rink" (bathtub) until they melted.