Self-portraits, kid-style

Latest big art project: Self-portraits. Honestly, I had very little hope for these. I figured that either the kids would get bored, that MM would self-destruct in tears when she couldn't draw perfect eyes, or that both kids would draw whatever the heck they wanted in the ovals I printed off as templates for their heads (because God knows I can't even draw ovals).
So, best case scenario, I'd have one oval-with-ears covered in hearts and princesses and another in architectural renderings of houses.

To start, I made little cards of famous self-portraits. Rembrandt, da Vinci, van Gogh, Frida Kahlo. Then I gave them the templates, set them in front of a mirror and they got to work. The result shows for itself. Needless to say, I was surprised -- pleasantly!


My favorite part of the activity was when V-Man proudly showed me his upon completion. I puzzled for a moment over the inclusion of a straw hat and sideburns, but then he pointed out the same features on van Gogh's self-portrait and cheerfully explained, "I'm Vincie van Gogh!"

Leaf rubbings

These are my new obsession. Ostensibly I collect leaves for the kids and let them do the rubbings, but they've done, like, two. Meanwhile, there are close to 30 in my Nature Notebook, and I think I blew my cover when my husband caught me doing leaf rubbings at 10 o'clock one night. So yes, I'm addicted. At every park I find new trees, and I can't wait to get home, do a rubbing, identify the tree and add the rubbing to my collection. Plus, they're so pretty! 

They're also simple. Just find a leaf, fold a piece of paper in half around it (or, if it's too big, place it between two sheets), hold it steady with a finger, and rub over it with a wrapper-less crayon.

What's that? A Dwarf Chinkapin

Silly me. I saw these acorn caps on the ground and loudly proclaimed for all to hear, "A burr oak!" I was so pleased with myself! Then I get home and discover, wrong! It was a Dwarf Chinkapin (also spelled Chinquapin).

Dwarf Chinkapins are a type of white oak (meaning they have rounded lobes) and their official name is Quercus prinoides. They can withstand a wider variety of habitats than their larger Chinkapin counterparts, but like Chinkapins, their acorns are some of the sweetest nuts.

The Great Yeast Experiment

Last week we took a field trip to a local bakery, in order to get free samples learn about the science behind baking bread. And boy did we! We bake bread a lot around here, and the kids already loved watching the yeast bubble up, but now they understand just what yeast does -- which is burp, of course. They used to be able to tell me that the yeast is alive and that it eats the sugar when the water is heated to the right temperature, but now they just say, "It burps."

Besides that important tidbit, they also learned the process of growing wheat and why we can't grow it down south (because it will never dry out in our humid air), and just how the wheat in the fields is turned into flour. As the baker explained the milling process V-Man piped up and called out, "Just like at the mill we saw!" And indeed, the weekend before we had visited an old mill and the kids had played around on the millstones. If education is about making connections, then my boy had done just that.

They came home with wheat to plant, which we did, and the very next day it had sprouted. That stuff grows fast! And every morning there are water droplets on the tip of the blades. I'd love to know why.

We re-enacted one of the yeast experiments to prove that yeast expels carbon dioxide as it eats the sugar, which is what causes bread to rise. You need a packet of yeast (or about 2.25 teaspoons), an empty water bottle, a stretched-out balloon, and two tbsp of sugar. Heat one cup of water to 110 degrees, pour it into the bottle, add the yeast and sugar, slip the balloon over the top, and watch it inflate. 

Word smoothies

I totally stole the blender idea from pinterest (LOVE pinterest!) but added the "glass" myself. Each consonant blend is laminated and velcroed to the blender, and every day when we review sounds I choose a different blend and make "smoothie" words. The kids get a kick out of making their own smoothies (for now, at least!).

What's that? A tussock moth caterpillar

This one was a doozy! I actually found it crawling into the bug jar (maybe it had heard how well you're fed there!) and was totally stymied. I figured it was a caterpillar of some sort but since there were so many strange.. err, distinctive characteristics I couldn't use my normal search methodology (ie, Google). So I did the next best thing: I snapped pictures and took them to a nature program we were signed up for. And thanks to the knowledgeable instructor and three books on moths and butterflies, I finally had an ID: the larval stage of a moth in the family Lymantriidae, otherwise known as a Tussock moth, so-called because their tufts of hair are called tussocks.



Interesting facts: Lymantria means "defiler" because the moths are known to defoliate forest trees. The Gypsy moth alone causes millions of dollars in damage every year. Also, many of these caterpillars have sharp hairs that can sting, so don't pick them up!

Week 3: Forest Habitats

We'll be taking a closer look at all the habitats, just not week after week. For last week we focused on forest because, well, it was easiest! We live near a lot of forests, but not too many rainforests or deserts.

This unit was the impetus to get out and explore. Sure, we're generally outside a lot, but we took the extra effort to visit local nature preserves and really LOOK at the different layers of the forest. For instance, we'd stop at a fallen-down tree and talk about what lives under it. We counted and photographed all the different mushrooms we saw and looked at the variations in spiderwebs. The kids collected nuts and then researched the different kinds. We made leaf rubbings and created a little book identifying common local trees. Oh, and we collected bugs, lots and lots of bugs. Our bug jar was like a rent-by-the-hour motel for a while.

Normally I would try to do more of a project-based approach to a unit, but this fit in so well with the weather and our area that I scrapped the planned projects for a larger, more nebulous but more important one -- Get Outside! 

What we're reading:
One Small Place in a Tree, by Barbara Brenner
A Forest Habitat, by Bobbie Kalman