Basket Weaving With Rowan

 

Both Rowan and Fynn have been very curious about ancient times and primitive crafts lately ~ everything from the mid to early 1900's, back to medieval times, all the way back to what they call "BCers" times.

Rowan especially has always loved domestic arts such as weaving, so basket making was next on his list. He has already woven several wool rugs and tapestries!

Here is a wool rug he is working on now, with yarn he hand spun! I will write another post on his wool weavings sometime in the future, hopefully ;)

We used day lily and iris leaves for our baskets because we already had them in the yard, and they need to be cut down soon for winter anyway. Here is a pic of Rosie's basket of leaves after she pulled them all out and ripped them up. Her way of getting in on the fun :)

The first time Rowan made his basket, he pinned it together with thumbtacks. But then a little person came along and pulled it apart :( so he made it again using staples!

I thought to try making a basket like the one I made in fourth grade, from strips of palm fronds, when we were studying the California Indians. I haven't made any baskets since.

I also thought it would be fun to make a little bracelet!

We hope to take a wagon ride out to the "Gazelle Field" soon to get some cattails, willows, and grasses to make more fun baskets!

Happy Learning!

~Beth

It's Already Fall?? Pumpkin Art!

 Fall just sort of hit us this year.

Bam! Where did summer go?

The boys wasted no time getting into pumpkin season because they LOVE pumpkins!

Out came the paint to capture the colorful pumpkins.

I loved the expressionism in Fynn's pumpkin sitting by a tree.

Rosie pretended to paint :)

And she really painted too! :0

Rowan used a circle stamp for the yellow leaves.

Rowan made one to sell and one to keep. This one is to sell! If you like it its $25.00.

Happy Fall!

And Happy Learning!

What's New?

Well, the boys are into cars now... Here's a photo of a primitive car Rowan is building in the backyard. Also a papermodel of a Delorean, by Fynn!

Rosie has been having fun helping make and play with play dough!

See you later :)

 

October is for Pumpkins

Now that October is here, everything is PUMPKINS!
(I think October is all of our favorite month of the year :) )

Rowan and I have been browsing through Pinterest, looking for pumpkin crafts we could do together... we love doing our *projects* together...
He wanted to do this stuffed paper bag pumpkin (we've done this one MANY times before)... pretty easy~ just stuff the paper bag with torn crumpled paper bags, tie at the top with raffia or jute, and paint! You can add construction paper leaves / pumpkin vines after that.

Next we thought we'd try these toilet paper tube / strips of paper pumpkins~ they were a lot harder than I thought! For some reason there was no orange construction paper so we colored orange paper then cut the strips & I stapled them to the TP tubes. Then we added our stems & leaves. They turned out a little crunchy, but much like the shape of a realistic pumpkin :)

Here's a little "pumpkin patch" Rowan made by himself from scrunched up paper pumpkins:

(and Legos)
...
~Happy learning!
~Beth

A Lovely Drive & Hike up the River

We went for a lovely drive the other day, up through Poudre Canyon.
Summer had almost officially ended, and we thought we could catch a bit of Fall color in the higher altitude. It was a bright blue day, unusual, since we had so many fires this season. We didn't see any aspens turning, but there was color in the brush; bright red poison ivy and assorted tree shrubs.

We hadn't taken the kids on a drive in a while, because they had been *crazy* in the car lately, but we had just gotten a new (to us) van, and the kids loved it, so they were eager to go for a drive.

It was so beautiful up there~ the camera did not capture the color~ the hills were bright yellow.

Rowan was *so happy* to find this very nice rock, and they were both so happy to be there~ I could tell it was healing their bodies and minds to be there...

The boys started hopping rocks, upriver, trying to make it to a big rock they saw up ahead. They never did make it to that rock because it was too hard to get across, but they sure had a lot of fun.

On the way down the mountain, we crossed over and took Rist Canyon the rest of the way home. After a quick stop at Wendy's we came home & had lunch. That was an unusually special and happy day we had together.

~Beth

Hills & Angles... Making Old Toys New!

The kids are back to studying hills again...
This summer Fynn got rid of his training wheels AND got a bigger bike...
Rico has been taking the kids all over town and their favorite thing is to ride up & down "Taft Hill", which Fynn says is 13 degrees.
Another steep hill in town is Trilby Hill, about 16 degrees. Bingham Hill is probaby about 15 degrees, Fynn says. Overland hill is only 9 degrees, and West Vine Hill: 6 degrees.

Lombard Hill (in San Fransisco) is about 21 degrees. "That's pretty steep, right?" says Fynn. We drove down that one a couple years ago.
Baxter Hill (in Los Angeles) is about 35 degrees! We got excited about watching The Little Rascals again, because they roll their "fire truck" down it...
Baldwin Hill (in New Zealand) is the steepest residential street in the WORLD and it's about 45 degrees! Fynn's new goal is to ride his bike up Baldwin Hill, and to practice, he has been riding up Taft Hill on the highest gear!

The kids have been building all levels of hills with the train tracks, all over the yard and in the house.
*
I had been tackling the enormous project of trying to sort through the mountains of old toys in the closet~ they were all mixed up, dirty and buried...
I finally got some of them sorted into these nice lidded bins...
They slid nicely underneath their *new* bunk bed...

...And it was like Christmas!
To the kids, it was like having brand new toys around!
And that is why they went right ahead building hills with the train tracks...

Rowan was very excited about the Legos, also in their new box, and began building special and fun "places". He was so happy. It was very sweet.

It's hard to see in the picture, but this track is filled with a succession of hills in different sizes~ all modeled after the different hills we have been talking about.

There were cardboard hills too, and Fynn's chalk drawings.
All in all, I'm very glad I didn't throw away those old toys after all! You know, everyone says, if you don't use it in a year, throw it away, but our family tends to do things in cycles. When they're bored with one thing, we can always find something new, or even better than new! All it takes is a little organization.

Happy learning!
~Beth