Blow Paint and Painting with a Straw

In a recent issue of Family Fun magazine, we saw an activity for blow painting. They used the blow painting technique to make monsters, but my kids were uninterested in that, so we just made designs.  At first, I forgot to add the water to the paint to thin it and it was too thick for them to be able to blow it around the paper, but once the water was added, it was much more fun.  Arin did a great job with this activity and she liked that it was a different way to paint.  As I feared, Ella tried to suck the paint up the straw, but I caught it before it went in her mouth.  After that, I told her to use the straw as a paintbrush.  She liked this for a little bit, but once she got the paint on her hands and on her shirt, she decided she was done!

Painting

Arin loves to paint and she has been asking to do it often.  I have been a little less enthusiastic about her doing this activity lately because her little sister loves to do everything that she is doing.  When Arin was Ella's age, we had a regular high chair with a nice big tray on it and Arin would sit in there daily and paint.  The mess would all stay on the tray and not on the floor which is why Ella had not painted until now.  However, I think it is important to give Ella the same opportunities that Arin had at her age, so last week, we went outside and painted.  This was Ella's first time painting and it did not go over as well as I thought.  She did not have the instant passion for it like I assumed she would.  She did not like the mess it made and was eventually more happy to play with the neighbor's dog than to paint.

Arin, on the other hand, was thrilled to be outside painting, even though it was very bright out that day.  Together, we painted a baby chick.  I held her hand and made the outline of the head and body and the legs.  On her own, she painted in the lines to color the chick, added the eye and the beak.  Also on her own, she painted a cat and several abstracts.

I, too, have been painting.  We purchased our home several months ago.  Prior to us living here it was a rental with white, flat painted walls.  It is really hard to clean flat painted walls and even prior to us moving in, the walls were dingy, but add two little ones to the mix and well you get the point.  The walls are in serious need of new paint.  I have only painted a whole room one other time.  Normally, I call on the talents of my mother, who actually enjoys painting, but that was not possible this time, so I am having to be a big girl and do it myself.  I started in our bathroom, which turned out to be very frustrating to me.  So much so that I put the project on hold for a few weeks until it frustrated me more to have a partially painted bathroom.  So I finally finished painting it last week.  We still need to paint the trim (mom, please come help me!!!) and add a couple more touches to the decorating, but it looks so much better than it did!  I feel certain that my frustrations were due to lack of experience, but I have plenty of time to practice those skills as I paint the rest of the house!

These are the "before" pictures of the bathroom.  They were actually taken the week we moved into the house.

These are the "after" pictures that I took last night and today.  The lighting was poor so the pictures do not show the true color.  It is a light beige, but there is more contrast between it and the white trim than what is seen here. 

Rain Art!

We had grand plans to spend the day out, enjoying the awesome weather. We planned to go on walks, ride bikes, blow bubbles, make sidewalk chalk drawings, kick the ball around the yard and so forth.  When we woke up, the plans changed, as outside it was all rain, rain, rain!

So I sat the girls down and had them draw a picture on watercolor paper, using the watercolor pencils.  Once they were done with their drawings, I let them go outside and stand in the rain, which at that time had slowed down, so we didn't get quite the affect we were hoping for.

It was fun to watch the colors on the paper "melt" and mix with other colors.

Paint with Water

I often find it challenging to find activities to keep Ella entertained while doing school with Arin.  Today, I thought it would be fun for Ella to try painting with water.  Arin saw me get down the book, and she decided that activity seemed like much more fun than any school we would have planned.  So both of the girls had a great time painting together. 

Competition happens early between siblings.  Whenever Arin was finished with a picture and going on to the next, Ella thought she needed to get a new picture too, even if she wasn't finished with the one she was already working on.

Florida: Strawberries

Florida is famous for their Plant City Strawberries.  Plant City, FL is also known as the winter strawberry capital of the world.

Today, we read:

Sweet as a Strawberry by Sally Smallwood
Sweet Strawberries by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Saving Strawberry Farm by Deborah Hopkinson

We also read more of our chapter book, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski.

We made our favorite strawberry smoothies for breakfast. I usually measure the ingredients and then Arin does the rest.
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 banana
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. vanilla yogurt
drizzle of honey
Blend together.  This makes about 2 cups of smoothie, which is enough for the girls and I to share.

Next we made strawberry bread.  The recipe can be found here.  It was the first time any of us had strawberry bread.  It was a huge hit!

Lastly, Arin had a fun time with a strawberry craft, which was inspired by No Time for Flashcards.  Arin put the seeds, one by one, on a strawberry.

Along Came a Spider

While playing outside this morning, we found the coolest looking spider.  I've never seen a spider that looked like this before. It had bright orange spots on it and green legs.  We enjoyed looking at it and watching it run around its web.  I took several pictures of it.  Tonight, I tried to figure out what kind of a spider it is, but no luck so far. 

I set the computer up on the dining room table and gave Arin some crayons and paper.  She was able to look at the pictures of the spider and draw one for herself.  She is really enjoys this new activity of drawing what she is looking at.

Drawing a Still Life

Yesterday on our nature walk, we found a bottlebrush tree.  We picked a couple of its flowers and brought them home to set in a glass of water overnight.  Today, Arin and I looked a little closer at the plant, talking about its colors and parts.  We also observed that some of the leaves on the plant were larger than others, depending on their location.  Then, we got out our watercolor pencils and watercolor paper.  On a separate piece of paper, I showed Arin how to draw the flower that we were looking at.  Then, she took her turn at drawing.  This was our first time at attempting to draw a still life picture and I think she did a great job. 

 

Once she was done with her drawing, she painted water over top of it (afterall, that is the fun of using watercolor pencils).

Hot Rocks

I have seen this activity on several different blogs and have always wanted to try it with Arin, but haven't in the past because I didn't want Arin to burn herself on the rocks.  Uncle Todd was here yesterday, so Arin wanted to do some sort of a project with him. We had leftover rocks from when we had gatehered them for our tic-tac-toe game, so we decided to go ahead and try this activity.  I put four rocks on a baking sheet and put them in the oven.  I turned on the oven to 350 and let the rocks stay in there until the oven was preheated.  Then, I took the rocks out of the oven and gave a couple to Arin and a couple to Uncle Todd.  Then, they colored the rocks with crayons.  The heat of the rocks melted the crayons, creating a cool effect.  We were surprised though that the wax was so runny and I thought that the color would have been a bit more bold.

They also found out that it was cool to melt the crayon on the rock and then color with that crayon on paper, which created a different effect than coloring on paper with a cold crayon.