Week 2 : it's a plan! Exploring great artists

I have to give a LOT of credit to Red Ted Art, for this week's inspiration! Her projects are nothing short of fantastic!

Colours: Red, Blue, Yellow
Shapes: Circle, rectangle, triangle
Letter: A
Sensory: Free painting / window painting (Recipe here)
Science: melting ice cubes/ colour mixing (Make red, yellow and blue ice cubes, melt together in water with different temperatures)

We will look for works by the artists and discuss their techniques and use of colour before we do our crafts this week)
Monday: Anothy Gormley sculptures with play dough (seriously the best play dough recipe ever!)
Tuesday: Kandinsky finger painting  (This doubles as the sensory activitity!)
Wednesday: Jackson Pollack marble painting
Thursday: Picasso sandwiches (Cut slices of bread into circles, give children a variety of food to create their own self portraits)
Friday: Matisse cut outs

Bonus: Obliteration room  This was so cool, it needed a special mention!

Shopping list:
Red, blue and yellow paint
baby oil
flour
cream of tartar
food colouring
salt
bright coloured card stock
dish soap
glue sticks
scissors
circle stickers
large sheets of white paper
ingredients for sandwiches
marbles
shallow pan

Have fun everyone!

 

Tiana

Round up! 

Play dough, ready for the week! 

Cleaning the windows for window painting! 

There was a thunder shower outside, so we decided to paint on the inside! 

Isn't it lovely? 

Matisse cut outs 

Supplies for self portraits 

 We had an event this weekend called the "Art walk". Local artists line the side walks for several blocks. Here is Kermit appreciating his grandma's work! 

I hope everyone had fun this week! I am having a hard time getting anything done, the weather has been so gorgeous here, we just want to be outside! 

Tiana

The round up: St Patrick's day!

Our weekend turned out to be crazy busy! We ended up not getting around to all of the crafts that we had planned. Kermit did not have school on Friday morning, so we quickly whipped up a batch of the Mint chocolate chip cookies. We used the cookie mix from Glutino, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised! Kermit was lucky enough to take one of the cookies to school, along with other green snacks!

Mint choc chip cookie, ready to be baked
Tadpole kept asking if it was Ice-cream!

Green lunch for Kermit!

 

When Kermit came home from school, we did a little science, we divided the carnations between the mason jars, and added the food colouring. Kermit had a great time telling Tadpole which colours to mix! We kept an eye on the flowers all through the weekend, within a few hours we saw colour creeping into the petals, especially the green ones. The results were not as dramatic as we anticipated, but there was definitely a change.

 

Before

After

I surprised the boys with a Shamrock bath on Saturday morning. I added green food colouring to the water(Apparently it doesn't affect the colour of your tub or your children!)  I found a big pack of the craft foam shamrocks on sale a few weeks ago. When they are wet, they stick to the side of the bath. The boys had a great time playing with those, it turned into a little math activity as they made patterns all around the sides of the bath.

 

For snack we combined Bananas, frozen mango and Spinach, Vanilla drinking yoghurt and milk to make our Shamrock smoothies. Tadpole had it behind his ears and in his eyebrows. They loved it!

 

We made the play dough after snack time, Kermit really enjoyed reading the recipe and measuring the ingredients. They used the cookie cutters, pom poms and tools to make many wonderful creations! I loved the recipe too. It was quick and easy. I totally cheated and used my big mixer with the dough hook attachment to knead it.

We enjoyed a Leprechaun's lunch. Shamrock omelettes with Spinach, rainbow peppers and "gold coins" at the end of the rainbow!

 

I wish we had more time to get around to all the other fun we had planned! We'll try again next year! What did you get up to?

 

Happy playing!

Tiana

 

 

 

It's a plan! St Patrick's day

I love holidays!
I love making special food, doing crafts and just having fun with my boys.
Seeing as St Patrick's day is just around the corner, I think it is the perfect time to explore colours!
I've put together a little plan for the St Patrick's weekend. I will post pictures of our adventures after we've done them! Chances are we will not be able to do everything, however,  if we have a plan, there is hope!

Colours: Green, red, blue, yellow
Sensory: green playdough
Science: Ice cube melting, use food colouring to make red, blue and yellow ice cubes, explore colour mixing as they melt. Ask your children to make predictions
Another science activity I've been meaning to try is coloured flowers, I think St Patrick's day lends itself perfectly towards this activity!

Friday afternoon: Shamrock collage, Large shamrock shaped paper. Children tear pieces of magazine and stick on. (each child makes 2, turn into a garland) find inspiration and plenty of great ideas here

Saturday: Mint chocolate chip cookies, find the recipe on this lovely blog. While these are baking, we might make some hats! There are several great ideas out there, these hats are easy and cute!!
    
Sunday: I think we'll celebrate with lots of green food, and perhaps have a Shamrock and Chocolate coin hunt

Because my boys love baths, I'm sure we'll have to try a themed bath time at some point in the weekend, I love this idea by In lieu of preschool!

A friend gave me this very easy recipe for playdough, I will try it out this week.

No cook Kool-Aid playdough
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 drink mix packs of kool-aid (1Tbsp)
2 Tbsp oil
1 cup boiling water

Mix  the dry ingredients and oil
Add the water and mix with a wooden spoon until it's too thick to stir
Kneed the mixture until it forms a soft ball.


Enjoy your playtime!
Tiana

Shopping list:
Food colouring
carnations/daisies
sugar cookie mix
paper plates
green kool-aid
flour
oil
salt
chocolate coins