Mixing Colors ~An Art Experiment

 Usually when Rowan says he wants to "paint", what he really means is he wants to mix paint and water in yogurt cups. So on this particular day we skipped all the fussing and misunderstanding and dedicated the entire morning to "mixing colors". Fynn joined us as well.

We just got out a bunch of yogurt cups, filled them halfway with water, and began mixing together different colors of tempera paint.

 What happens when we mix pink and purple?

 What happens when we mix yellow and orange?

 It's art! It's science! It's both!

 And the possibilities are endless...

 A lot of our school time is spent doing this kind of play. It's so good for the kids, because, not only are they inspired by the vibrant colors, but they are making their own discoveries and soaking them up like a sponge. I'm just there to help them along; to help them accomplish what they want to accomplish.

 It's not like I put on my low teacher voice and say, Okay, kids. Today we are going to learn about The Scientific Method.  Instead, they say, "What happens if I mix this color and that color?"  and I say, "What color do you think it will make?" and they guess what they think it will be. And then we find out what it really is. We have so much fun learning and discovering together!

Happy learning,
~Beth

Making Cars! (Impromptu STEM Lesson)

 Rowan and I spent an afternoon building marble slides with the Marble Mania set that Fynn got a few Christmases ago.

 He was getting really good at arranging & building slides on his own, except for needing my help sticking them together. (There are tiny pieces and they are tricky to take apart & put together.)

 After building a few different playgrounds I suggested maybe we could build some cars.  Rowan loved that idea. He quickly got busy picking out cogs for wheels, and other parts.

 Soon after, we had built this carriage-looking car, and a 6 wheeled bus!

 Fynn came along and made himself a bicycle.

 We sure had a lot of fun!

Happy learning!
~Beth

Sunflower and Apple Crafts for September!

 Rowan can't wait for pumpkins this fall, so I had to tell him that September is all about sunflowers and apples. After that, October will be all about the pumpkins; and November too, so we're almost there, buddy!

 I made him a September calendar so he can count down the days. He loves it! 

 As you can see, I made a collage at the top of sunflowers, apples, golden wheat, and some other things you might find this late-summer-early-fall season. I used apple cutouts that were leftover from a name game we did last year. Rowan (and sometimes Fynn) gets to put up an apple each day.

 I had Rowan help me make hanging golden sunflowers from cardboard and paper bags. He helped wrap strings around them and painted some of them.

 We cut circles out of cardboard, then glued them to slightly larger paper bag circles. We cut the larger circles into petals. We made little cuts all around the cardboard circles, in between the petals, to wrap the string around. The string gives it a texture that looks like the seeds.We then painted the small circles with brown and gold paint, then the petals with yellow and gold paint. We cut a smaller flower shape out of brown paper and painted it gold/ green, then glued it to the back of the flower with green yarn in between. It was more tedious than I would have liked; next time I think it would be more worth while if they were larger. But they are pretty all the same.

Painted by Rowan

 Rowan and I then made some Sunflower Play-dough.

Rowan's & My Sunflower

Fynn's Cheetah

 ...And also... some Apple Play-dough! Red and green.

 

Rowan's "Uranus Cookie"

 

 Oh yeah, one more thing. We've just started Lighthouse Family Schoolin' videos on YouTube! For recipes to our sunflower and apple play-dough, check it out!

Happy learning!

~Beth

Field Trip to The Zoo!

 We had been talking about taking a trip to the Denver Zoo as soon as school was in.

 "Good," said Fynn. "I'm about ready for a cheetah race."

 "And I'm about ready for a hippo race," said Rowan.

  So we made it a field trip.

 Right away we saw one of Rowan's favorite animals: Bunny. He chased him.

 We also saw Cheetah right away. He didn't want to race, but he was very friendly and paid attention to conversations.

plaque

plaque

 And we saw our friend Beezus, the gazelle (actually a Gerenuk) with a black crane.

 Fynn spotted a wild red fox who darted under a drain tunnel.
 And we saw Lord Shen, the peacock.

 The zoo had an amazing display of Lego animals and plants while we were there.

Lego lily pads

Acorn sprout

 The zoo also had a beautiful garden trail with these streamers lining it. The kids ran around for a while.

Rowan is "taking a shower like Spiderman".

 Then we found this:

How far can you jump?

 While Fynn rode the train, Rowan made friends with the ride on horsey.

 I wish I would have gotten a picture of the merry-go-round because it was just so beautiful. There were so many exotic animals ~ okapi, black rhino, peacock, dolphin, zebra, elephant, cheetah ~it was a work of art! I didn't want to take pics of other people's kids and my kids didn't ride on it. :(

 We got to see the majestic giraffes close-up...

Komodo Dragon!

Green Anaconda!

 

 What were our favorite animals? All of them!

Happy learning!

~Beth