Rainy Day Bubble Paintings!

   

     What better way to spend a rainy day but in the throes of carefree creativity?  While I was napping away in the next room, my husband and daughter were creating a lovely collection of bubble paintings! 

     To create these beautiful masterpieces, all you need is some paint (acrylic works well), bubble solution, bubble blowers, and lots of paper.  Simply mix a dab of paint in with your bubble solution, stir, and you are ready to go!  I do however, recommend wearing a smock.  Painted bubbles can land anywhere.  Although, these pretty bubble pictures were made inside, outside is really the best place to create your masterpieces.  

     Sometimes, we make our bubble pictures on good quality paper, and cut them into note cards or gift tags.  They are always a big hit!  

Give it a try! 

Each piece is a very unique piece of work.  No two are ever the same!

It's A New School Year!

Well, today kicked off our 2012-2013 school year!  Time to buckle down and get things done.  I tried to sweeten the fact that summer vacation is over by beginning their day with some yummy chocolate chip pancakes.... displaying their new school grade of course!!

Happy 2012 - 2013 school year everyone!

The Cutest Easter Eggs Ever!!

My daughter and I found these super cute printables to make excellent Easter eggs!!

Check out Mr. Printables website. Great stuff!!

Easter Crafts for Kids | Egg People | Mr Printables

Crazy, Sticky Condensed Milk Painting

So lately, I have become pretty addicted to Pinterest. I love that I can find loads of great ideas all in one place. Recently, I ran across this very creative idea for homemade paint. The recipe is quite simple - sweetened condensed milk and food coloring. I quickly picked up the ingredients from the grocery store and the experiment began. Now, I have a daughter who is up for anything creatively, so I knew this would be right up her alley.

Upon opening the condensed milk, I became somewhat skeptical. The milk was beige in color and extremely sticky. I wondered if I would be able to make pretty colors with this sticky, mess. I scooped out a bit of the condensed milk into a small bowl, added a bit of food coloring, and WOW! the color was bright and ready to go. We immediately mixed a variety of colors and prepared to create!

Painting with the milk paint proved to be a great time. My daughter & I loved the way the thick, sticky paint felt dragging across the paper. The colors were vibrant and very glossy.

I highly recommend giving this unusual paint recipe a try. It was a fun experiment that created some beautiful pictures! The only downside? The pictures are quite sticky and take a few days to dry.

Check out these fab Condensed Milk Paintings! I love the way they shine. Thanks for the great idea Pinterest!

Our World as Pizza!

Only in homeschooling would you make a pizza to help you learn about the different layers of the Earth! That's exactly where our science lesson led us today. We used our dough to represent the crust of the earth, shredded mozzarella to represent the mantle, shredded cheddar stood in for the outer core, and a small circle of ham was our hot inner core. It was so much fun and very yummy as well!
Thanks to R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Earth & Science Curriculum for this great idea.

A Touch of Impressionism

Recently, Youth Art Month, which is in March, inspired me to add art history to our homeschool daily schedule. Our most recent lesson was on Impressionism. Impressionism is one of my favorite art styles to teach to kids. The bright colors and blurry images that are attributed to this style are easy and fun for kids to create. Gone is the stress of getting all the details of a face perfect. Fuzzy, unfocused images are perfect for Impressionist style paintings!

Impressionism is a style that began in France in the 19th century. It is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. They paint the pictures with a lot of color and most of their pictures are outdoor scenes. Their pictures are very bright and vibrant. The artists like to capture their images without detail but with bold colors.

For my lesson, I chose to focus on the art of Monet. We looked at many of his images including the painting Jardin a Giverny.

Monet's - Jardin a Giverny

This particular Impressionism project for kids is a collage and painting combo. I found the idea at Edhelper.com. Edhelper is a subscription site, but as a homeschooling mom, I find myself using this site almost daily. If you are a subscriber, you can find the lesson under Major Art Movements (Art Styles) - Impressionism.

This lesson begins with 9" x 12" pieces of blue, purple, and green construction paper. Tear the top off the purple sheet in a jagged way as to look like the bumpy edge of mountains. Glue the purple sheet on top of the blue sheet, lining up the bottom straight edges. Next, tear the green sheet in half to create the edge of the ground. Glue the green sheet onto the purple, lining it up to the straight bottom edge.

Prepare a paint palatte (I use styrofoam plates) for the student with the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and white. Secondary colors (purple, orange, and green) can be mixed from their primary colors. White can be added to make tints, or lighter versions of their colors.

Once the colors have been prepared, the kids can paint clouds in the sky, ridges along the montains, flowers, and grass. Remind them that the details are fuzzy and unfocused, but bold and bright.

The results are colorful and fun Impressionism inspired mixed-media creations!

My kids enjoyed this project. Even my son, who is typically a non-painter, participated in this one.

Spring is a terrific time to give Impressionism a try. The nice weather provides a great opportunity to create art "en plein air" or "in the open air" as many of the Impressionists did so frequently. Grab your art supplies and head outdoors! That would be creating art in true Impressionistic style!

We Love Our Homeschool Cooking Class!

My daughter loves all things creative. She has been asking me to add cooking and sewing to her homeschool day for a while now, so we decided to give it a try!

Halloween sugar cookies were our first project.

Mixing the dough....

Using our Halloween cookie cutters.......then off to the oven the cookies go!

Decorating the cookies with icing......and tasting them.........

And voila! Finished Halloween sugar cookies. Surprisingly, they actually tasted great!

Not sure what we'll make next. Thinking possibly muffins......