Art: Greek Style Tiles

About a month ago when we started our Ancient Greece unit (which we're finally finishing up now), we had a scheduled art project for making a Greek-type tile, and it sounded like fun so we went for it! The instructions were pretty simple and we got them from an Ancient Greek Art book at the library. All we needed was Air Drying Clay, something "sharp" to be able to cut a pattern in the clay (we used a butter knife), and paint. The Air Dry clay comes in a big block and I just cut a square off of each and and pounded it out into a rectangle with my fist until it was more-or-less a rectangle that was flat. They each decided on their own design to cut out, then we let the clay air dry (we let ours dry for a full day and a bit more and it was totally hard and dry). When it was dry we got out the paint and they colored their tiles how they wanted. Once the paint was dry they were done and beautiful! Here are the pictures of (most of) the process. :-)

March 2016

I realized that I hadn't updated for a month already (time flies!), so I figured I'd at least post up some pictures and show some of the fun we got to have (and learning we did of course)!

The first set of pictures are from playing in the snow at a friend of our's house and making snow angels and sledding down a small hill.

These are from a really fun place we go once a month called Xtreme Challenge. The boys love it because it's like an American Ninja Warrior course type of training... I like it because they learn about physics and fall asleep really easy that day! Win-win! ;-)

These are from a place called Jumpstreet that we go to with the same homeschool group as the Xtreme Challenge place, but it's much cheaper and weekly or bi-weekly. 

The last pictures are from our trip to the Denver Nature & Science Museum (YAY for free days!) when we went to look at the Mummies from Egypt, but also saw some other really cool stuff! 

Well, those are the most exciting points of the last month/month and a half or so. This month (April) is the boys' bithday month and it's CRAZY busy, so look forward to more updates soon! Well, as soon as I remember to do it again... lol!

Blueberry Dyed Shirts

A few weeks ago we were doing a history lesson and learning about the ancient civilization of the Phoenicians (who also provided the base for our modern day alphabet apparently... Phoenicians... phonics... *lightbulb*... lol). Anyway, when ancient civilizations wanted to dye their clothes they had to use natural things to do it; in their case a type of slug that they boiled for a particular purple color that was so strong it even dyed the workers so that they became known as the "purple people". Now, as much fun as finding and boiling slugs sounds... *gag*... we decided to go with an easier (and less disgusting) approach and use blueberries! Of course blueberries aren't the only things you can use, blackberries are another good option, but Wade wanted to eat a few when we were done so blueberries it was. We made a special trip to the store (which of course included a jaunt by the park...), got our blueberries and got started.

I forgot to look at the label before I threw it away, but I'm pretty sure we used about 8 oz of blueberries in a pot of water. All we did was put water in the pot, added the blueberries (at the rate of two 6 year olds...) to the pot and let it boil about half an hour. Once time was up, I (in the name of preserving my kitchen from being dyed blue) strained the blueberries out of the pot (keep the water of course) and the boys put their plain white t-shirts in. We let the shirts soak for at least 5 minutes, probably closer to 10 honestly, and then pulled them out and let them drip dry over the sink until they stopped dripping and then finished drying in front of some fans. Once they were dry I washed them once in cold water, hoping the dye wouldn't disappear, and they turned out pretty great! They fade a little bit after washing them over and over, but they're still purple and the blueberries did a great job!

Blueberries in the pot

Shirts soaking in water

After dyeing shirts

After washing them. :-)

So far in 2016...

Apparently I have some sort of mental block about remember to update this... but here are some pics to catch up with things that have happened so far this year! :-)

We made some delicious sugar cookies that they iced all by themselves. :-)

We read a ton more books and earned more Book It coupons! 

We spent as much time as possible playing and snuggling with our buddy Ringo!

And after our biggest snowstorm of the winter (so far anyway...) we went sledding and they had a blast and went by themselves over and over for the first time. :-)

More updates to come! (Hopefully soon!) :-)

Cutting Firewood

     This year, instead of trying to find someone nearby that has wood that doesn't cost a fortune to burn in our little woodstove/fireplace, we got ourselves a permit and went and did the work ourselves. We've already gone once this fall before it snowed, but we wanted to get another load of firewood since it was a nice day on our day off. So, we drove up the the forest, and got to work. The boys love doing it, and have a blast lugging logs out of the woods! I remebered to take pictures this time, so I figured it was worth a short post so people could see them. :-)

Leaf Glitter and Handprint Turkeys

     We've done a few craft projects lately, and since we were sending them to people as surprises I didn't want to post anything until they got them! Now that everything has arrived, I figured I'd share these, at least for next year since they're really cute ideas.

Leaf Glitter:

One day while we were at the park, (of course this was while it was still really "fall" and there were leaves on the ground instead of snow...), and there were a bunch of really pretty red leaves. I had seen the idea on Facebook of doing leaf glitter, so we collected a bunch of them to take home and use. I put them in a container and we let them finish drying out before we crunched them all up and made leaf glitter. So, when we started the activity I told them they should pick out different shapes, like leaves, a pumpkin, you know...something "fall", and I will draw the shape in glue and they sprinkle the "leaf glitter" on the glue, knock off the extra leaves, and then let it dry. Well... instead of wanting to do fall shapes, they wanted things like circles, triangles, a W, Pacman, and even a smiley face... so we went with it...lol! They had fun, and did a good job, so I figure that's what matters anyway.

Handprint Turkeys:

     I wanted to do something fun for Thanksgiving, so I went with an art project that we'd never done before; Handprint Turkeys! They're cute, the boys get to paint, and they make fun little gifts/surprises. So, I found a template on Pinterest and got to it! Here is the link to where I got the template if you want it: http://littlegiraffes.com/teaching-ideas/385/thanksgiving-turkey-art-activities-and-crafts/. I painted their hands the first time to show them what we were going for, and then they took over. Some turned out better than others, but they did great and didn't turn my kitchen into the Paintpocalypse so no complaints here. Now, the really fun part is that when they were done I took a picture of two of them to see the completed product... and somehow the picture magically disappeared from my phone. Ugh. But I have a picture of them before we put the beaks and eyes on and wrote their names. I think you'll get the point anyway, and the link above shows you the finished product a bit bettter...haha...oy. Anyway, here you go!