Springtime Rainbows!

 With the coming of spring we have turned our attention to the science and beauty of... rainbows!

    Our first rainbow craft was a watercolor wind catcher. I prepared rainbow outlines for Rosie and me to fill in with watercolors, then cut out and attach raindrops with strings.

    Only instead of regular watercolors we made our own by adding a few drops of food coloring to little dishes of water! That made creating AND cleanup super easy!

    (Besides, Rosie is pretty much the food coloring Queen!)

Of course, craft time is not quite complete without tea and a snack, so while our tea was brewing (compliments of Rosie) we made an edible rainbow snack!

To make this fun rainbow-y treat, mix a couple drops food coloring in separate dishes of milk. Stir in a pinch of sugar, and paint onto a piece of bread! (We used clean Q-tips instead of paintbrushes)

Once your edible painting is finished, you can toast it lightly or enjoy as is!

Here is Rosie's beautiful Flower Garden with a Blue Sky!

And my Rainbow...

See how toasting brings out the colors?

Now... back to tea & craft time! After our paintings dry we can cut them out and assemble them.

    And here they are! The food-coloring watercolors have a really beautiful effect. I especially love water-based art for things like rainbows because they are made from water in real life.

Next, we tried another project Rosie had had her eye on... 

Edible finger paints!

These are literally just cool whip with food coloring added.

As you can see, we used a muffin tin for a pallet. 

What a fun, sunny day to make crafts outside!

    Painting our fingernails makes it "edible fingernail polish"!

Happy Learning!

<3 ~ Mama & Rosie

Summer Throwback~ Rosie's Bubble Art~ And More!

 

Rosie had an idea to do some bubble art- something she saw on one of her favorite shows- probably Ryan's World or Peppa Pig :)

Luckily, it was a beautiful day and we had all the supplies already~ so we headed outside to do our project.

Rosie knew what she wanted to do. She had me help her fill cups with a little paint, some soap, and she filled them with water and gave them a stir.

Then she put a straw in and blew bubbles!

Careful not to drink it!

(Rosie is four-and-a half, so she's good at not drinking paint) :)

Next, pour the bubbles out onto the paper and see what happens!

(I guess this is what they call Process Art?)

Spread out the papers, and now we have a rainbow of bubble art!

Add a little glitter to make it sparkly :)

(This was a good project to do outside)

We really enjoyed this project.

Do you want to try it too?

Since we had the paints out already, we decided to do another project.

(The boys were busy and this was our "Fun Day" together)

Here Rosie is making "green apples"

Here is Rosie's finished painting:

Mama and Rosie are inside the house and the sun is shining on us and the apples are outside. <3

What will you create next??

Happy Learning!

~Beth

Buffalo Berries

"Fynn, what do you want to do today?" 

This is how most of our days start. But he'd been planning this one for a while now. 

"I want to make a planet model all the way to Sedna."

So we said OK and geared up to go with him to Sedna, the furthest known dwarf planet, at the edge of the Kuiper belt. He'd only recently started riding a bike, and he's still using training wheels, but we've been riding farther and farther, and i had a hunch he could make this trip, though it would take us most of a day. He's seven and rarely runs out of energy. So we packed some snacks and Rowan helped air up the tires and off we went. 

Sedna is far away. Like, really far. If you made a scale model where one foot equals a million miles in space, Sedna would be about sixteen miles from the sun, which would be only the size of a bowling ball. We didn't go that far, but we did go a long way, about ten miles in all- Fynn's longest bike ride yet. 

We all had a great time riding and then stopping at every planet so Fynn could get off his bike and draw them on the ground. Here's Neptune (Full of Tunes!)  

A Praying Mantis caught Beth, and didn't want to let her go. Which was really cool because we've been watching Kung Fu Panda a lot lately. Fynn started eating soup, his most detested food, because of Kung Fu Panda. Never underestimate the power of television. We Stopped at a park for snacks, and basically just rode and rode and rode. Fynn did really well at staying on the right side of the bike trail, which took some effort and focus for him. He can concentrate when he's moving, and we can have conversations. Most of our conversations are him asking me questions he already knows the answer to, or him telling me to watch what he's doing. But when we're riding, or running, or bouncing or swinging, we talk about all kinds of things. I'll ride to Sedna and back for that.

After riding for a while we found a Silver Buffalo Berry Bush. (Sheperdia Canadensis) We were all hot and tired and this was a welcome treat. A wild berry that can't be bought in stores, you only have two weeks a year to harvest and eat them, so we take every chance we get to enjoy this delicacy. We filled up on berries and then continued on our way.

After crossing a few streets and riding through vast open spaces we made it to Sedna. We all felt a sense of accomplishment at having come this far. And since the river was right there we went for a swim to cool off and relax a bit. We played in the sand. Skipped rocks. Looked at fish and crawfish.  

On the way home we saw a beautiful bull snake. We shooed it off the trail so it wouldn't get run over. We stopped for lunch at Wendy's, and rode home through down town. Down town is not exactly a kid friendly place to ride, and we're really proud of how well Fynn did getting through there. We all got sunburnt and exhausted. We drank a lot of tea. We did a lot of math. We talked about bugs and snakes and floods and buffalo. The kids ate buffalo berries for the rest of the day and then Fynn got on his computer and typed in "how fast can buffalo run".  Apparently they can run forty miles an hour. We watched a few videos of buffalo running and then the kids turned into buffalo and ran around the yard until it was dark. It was a good day.

We've always been interested in Native America. My dad, Fynn's grandpa, is Native American, though Fynn's never met him and I haven't seen him since I was two. Fynn and Rowan have not yet shown much interest though. But now, because of these berries, they've become fascinated with the buffalo, and that can only lead to Native America.The next morning we watched videos of buffalo on youtube and talked about how the buffalo used to cover this area. About how a lady who lived here a hundred years ago said it took a herd eight hours to pass her house, and how some of the settlers killed almost all of them to starve out the indians. About how the indians that lived around here lived with and loved the buffalo, and how they took care of each other. We talked about all this while eating buffalo berries.

We make planet models everyday, who'da thunk we'd learn so much on this trip. What's that old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results? We must be crazy.