The random number generator liked Jodie McGill this morning, so she wins the eeBoo butterfly sketching pad and colored pencils. Congratulations!
Body painting with the art group
Generous amounts of washable, nontoxic tempera paint + bare torsos + encouragement to paint their bodies =
I had set out special face crayons (the kind used on halloween or for face painting) as well but they were completely ignored. Paint was clearly the art material of choice yesterday.
We used a bar of soap, the hose, and the kiddie pool for washing up afterwards.
By the way, I wanted to let you know that Teaching My Little Bookworm has started an Open-Ended Art Wednesday. Each week she’ll post an open-ended art project which you are encouraged to do with your kiddos and post about then add a link on her blog so others can see your work. This week it’s puffy paint, something we’ve had lots of fun with in the past!
eeBoo’s Great Illustrators and a giveaway
When I posted about the writing table I set up for Maia a while back, I got many comments about the Melissa Sweet bird cards on the wall. Which was about the same time that I found out that they were put out by eeBoo AND that several of our other favorite things were made by them as well, including Maia’s growth chart and some of her games. The more I learned about eeBoo, the more I liked them. Their products are all made using children’s book illustrators! Good ones. How cool is that? You know how much I like art and books and beautiful things. So it was natural that I’d fall in love with eeBoo.
Now, here’s where I tell you that after the writing table post they contacted me and offered to send me a couple of products to review on my blog. I know that lots of bloggers do this, but I haven’t, and wasn’t sure I wanted to start. But I DO really love their stuff, so I said they could send me something to review if they’d also send something to use as a giveaway for you all. This was a while ago. Out of everything they make, they sent me probably the one item that I really didn’t like. I’m not even going to tell you what it was, but I thought the illustrations on the game were more like the dumbed-down pictures used on so many children’s products today than like the rest of their gorgeous products. So I set the box high up on a shelf and tried not to think about it for a while.
But eventually I decided that one item I don’t like doesn’t mean I can’t post about all the items I DO love. So I’m just going to post about a couple of our own games rather than the one they sent. And I can still give away the 2nd (very beautiful) product they sent.
Maia has their Life on Earth Dominoes and their Go Fish cards.
This Go Fish game was a gift to Maia from her aunt and uncle. She LOVES it! The cards are fun and funky and perfect for a three-year-old going on four. They make lots of other neat looking cards too. I’d love to get Maia the flower alphabet rummy sometime.
And this is our eeBoo domino set, which, as it turns out, is also illustrated by Melissa Sweet! It beats the pants off any other domino set I’ve seen. I love the chameleons and hermit crabs and friendly bears shown on the dominoes. And, like all our other eeBoo stuff, the pieces are very sturdy and well made. They also make a Life on Earth matching game with many of the same illustrations.
Here’s the giveaway: a beautiful butterfly sketchbook with 60 blank pages and a set of 24 colored pencils in a matching metal butterfly case. Post a comment to this post by this Friday, July 10th, 12 Midnight Eastern Standard Time and you’ll be entered in a random drawing to win both. Good luck!
Books, books, and more books
Today I’m posting about some books we’ve been reading and enjoying. I would also love get some recommendations from you as our appetite for new stories is pretty voracious right now.
Some of our current favorites are pictured above. Most are either beginner chapter books and/or part of a series, such as the Oliver Pig books, Little Bear, Frances, Magic School Bus, Mouse and Mole, and the Magic Tree House books. Maia likes the familiarity of reading multiple books about the same characters and is very big on chapter books right now. I’m not sure if it’s the novelty of separate chapters or if she just likes longer stories, but she’ll usually comment on or ask if it’s a chapter book before reading it.
Granted, the chapters are mostly short and illustrated, as in Little Bear, above, and Mouse and Mole, below. Although the Magic Tree House books are longer and only sporadically illustrated yet still keep her attention, which surprised me. I wouldn’t have started reading them except that a friend of Maia’s loves them so much. We’ve only read a few so far and I’m been careful to choose ones that seem more age appropriate.
We still love non-chapter picture books, too, including this beautifully illustrated one above: The Umbrella Queen. A little girl with original ideas grows up in a village known for its traditional umbrella making.
And Birds by Kevin Henkes was recommended by one of you and is short but absolutely wonderful. This page reads, “If birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew, think what the sky would look like.”
Inch by Inch is another beautifully illustrated short story. An inchworm measures birds then outwits one who threatens to eat him. We like just about everything by Leo Lionni!
And now I’m going to ask for your recommendations. I used to be able to read Maia the same book many, many times but these days she wants something new almost every time. We get stacks and stacks from the library each week, but I would love to go armed with a list of winners. So, what books do you or your children love?
Watercolor painting over tissue paper collage
I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July weekend. We enjoyed fun cookouts with friends, good food, and sparklers. I also did some sewing for the baby. No pics yet, but I might post later in the week. Today I wanted to post about a fun art project.
When Julie Liddle of Art in Hand mentioned a tissue paper and watercolor painting project she did recently with her classes, I asked if she could send photos and tell me a little more about it.
Here’s what she said, “I gave each of the kids a few sheets of tissue paper to tear up into pieces. They put them all in several bowls for sharing. Then I gave them the glue mixture and chubby paintbrushes and explained that what they would be doing would be kind of like gluing and kind of like painting, and I “warned” the moms that many of them might just want to “paint” with the glue mixture for a while because, as we know, just the act of painting with gooey stuff is satisfying in its own right. Eventually, they all start placing tissue pieces on their papers. Some sparingly, some generously, some smoothly, and others all bunched up and in thick layers.
I’ve done this millions of times before, but for some reason, this was the first year it occurred to me to have them add watercolor painting to the process. Like I mentioned before, it worked best with cotton swabs, but in the photos you have, they used small paintbrushes for adding the paint. In another group, they used foam tipped bottles (bingo bottles) and those worked really well too. Wish I had pictures from all the groups, because so many were GORGEOUS!
Oh, and I guess it’s worth mentioning that this works best on good quality paper…we used white sulfite (40 lb) and of course watercolor paper would be ideal, but it’s expensive. The sulfite paper holds up quite well though, really.”
Aren’t these great?! I can’t wait to try this with Maia and with the art group…
Blueberry pie and turnovers
We picked blueberries this week at a local u-pick farm. 5 gallons of them! Most went into the freezer, but a significant amount was eaten fresh, and a couple of yummy baked goods were made as well — blueberry pie and turnovers. The pie recipe I use is from The Best Recipe but I used a mix of about three different recipes to make the turnovers. I’ll tell you how I made them since they were excellent (in my not-so-humble opinion) and easy.
Blueberry Turnovers
Mix:
1 1/2 cups blueberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch nutmeg
Roll out 2 sheets of thawed puff pastry (I know some people make this but I bought the frozen stuff) so they are thinner and about 16 x 16 inches each. Cut into 4 inch squares. Brush edges with beaten egg. Add a dollop of the filling to each puff pastry square, fold over the pastry to form a triangle, and press with a fork to seal edges. Brush top with more of the egg and sprinkle with sugar. Place on parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F for about 25 minutes.
Yum! Makes a bunch so have friends over. This also defrays the guilt of eating as many as you’re going to eat.
Flower printing with liquid watercolors
Here’s yet another way to use the amazing liquid watercolors… Flower and leaf printing. We did this yesterday for art group and it was a big hit with everyone from the 1 1/2 year old to the 10 year old — probably would be for the adults too if they were ever given a turn at the art table.
We used blank stamp pads from Discount School Supply (thanks Julie Liddle for the suggestion!) with liquid watercolor “ink” added. They worked perfectly! We didn’t get quite the level of detail that we got leaf printing with the regular black ink stamp pads, but they sure are beautiful and a lot easier for little kids to work with.
Another nice thing about these stamp pads is that they are reusable. As the ink dries out, you just squirt on more liquid watercolor.
I also think you could make your own blank stamp pad fairly easily and quickly with a piece of felt (white will show off the color best) set in a dish or recycled styrofoam tray. A few paper towel sheets might work okay as well. Just add the liquid watercolor of your choice (or even try with other paint).
Our beach-themed summer nature table
This will be my last beach post, I promise. I set up this nature table in Maia’s room while she was out with Harry last night and used the cardboard house, a couple of very wrinkled playsilks, the sand sculpture, some seashells, an overdressed little doll, and the sculpey nature prints we made a few days ago from shells and seaside plants.
This is easily my favorite photo of the whole trip — one Bobbi took of Maia looking at a starfish.
Sandcasting with plaster of paris
When we were at the beach last week we did some sandcasting with plaster of paris. It’s not exactly a new idea. I had heard of it before then came across the idea again in my library copy of EcoArt and thought it would be a fun activity to have up my sleeve for when the kids got tired of the ocean. They never did (tire of the water), but they were willing to be lured away for a few minutes…
First we dug holes in the sand and the kids lined the bottom with seashells.
Then we mixed the plaster of paris according to the package directions (2 parts plaster to 1 part water) into a throwaway plastic container. A milk jug would work well. Here Henry is measuring out the water while Maia watches.
Then we poured the plaster over the shells in the holes and smoothed the top a bit.
The kids disappeared back to their water play while the plaster casts hardened — it takes about half an hour. Henry’s sister Lucie is trying to make off with the (heavy) bucket of plaster above.
A brief foray back to lift up the hardened plaster shapes and inspect their handiwork…
And the finished pieces after some of the excess sand has been brushed away. We haven’t made a summer nature table yet, and I’m thinking of a beach-themed one with a couple of these and some sculpey nature prints we made from shells and seaside vegetation, etc.
By the way, you could also do this in your backyard sandbox or in a shoebox full of sand. And you can put just about anything in — I’ve heard of using beads, marbles, nature items, and handprints to name just a few.
