To go along with our study of Mexico, we spent January 6th learning about Three Kings Day. It is 12 days after Christmas & celebrates the three wise men bringing their gifts to baby Jesus. We don’t typically celebrate this day in our family, but many Latin Americans do so we explored it.

Kings Bread

We started the morning with our version of Rosca de Reyes, or Kings’ Bread.

Making bread is easy, but I needed something even easier that day. So, I used cinnamon rolls from a tube. I placed them in a crown shape & hid an almond in one of the rolls. The almond represented baby Jesus.

Traditionally the person who finds baby Jesus in the bread is supposed to host a party on February 2nd. Instead, I gave the kid who found the almond a 3 Kings Day Bar.

Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh

Representing the gifts of frankincense & myrrh I used a scented warmer in the school room. I don’t typically use a warmer and the kids enjoyed the new smell that day.

Representing gold were chocolate coins.

Spanish Word Bingo

Just for fun we played Spanish Bingo. The template is from the Scholastic Monthly Idea books.

Silhouette Craft

The kids made a craft I found at Crayola. It is very similar to a silhouette craft we made a couple years ago.

They began by painting their background with watered down paint, then adding salt to the wet paint. The salt soaks up the color and leaves “stars” in the sky.

While the paint was drying they cut out wise men & camel shapes out of black construction paper.

Next, they painted a simple foreground. And finally, they glued their silhouette shapes to the painted paper.

This was a fun day expanding our knowledge about both Christmas & Mexico. These hands-on days are my favorite way to school my children.

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I love That Artist Woman. She has fabulous crafts that are made in such a way that young kids can make them & look amazing. When I saw her Steller’s Jay portrait I knew it was something we would try.

Well, we did try them & they are one of my favorite things the kids have made.

Supplies

• 12″ x 12″ Chipboard (cardboard or canvas would also work)
• Cardboard or Cardstock for the stencils
• Magazines
• Paint in various colors
• Paint Brushes
• Glue Stick

The Background

We subscribe to a couple nature magazines, so we cut pages from them & glued the pieces to the chipboard. This was the base of their artwork.

Using slightly watered down blue paint, they colored right over the magazine pieces.

Making Stencils

The kids began by picking a bird they wanted to paint. Then, we found an outline of the bird & a branch we liked online. Next, we traced them separately onto thin cardboard & cut them out.

Painting the Bird & Adding Text

The kids first used shades of brown paint to paint the branch.

After the branch dried, they moved on to paint their bird. I stressed that when they use the stencils they need to dab the paint on, not stroke back & forth. This prevents the paint (mostly) from sneaking under the stencil.

Painting the birds took several steps. They’d paint a bit, let it dry & paint again.

Lastly, they cut letters from magazines and glued those letters on their artwork to identify their bird type.

This artwork looks complicated, but even our 5 year old Farm Girl could do it with a little guidance from me. I usually held the stencil for her while she dabbed the paint.

Completed Masterpieces

This was a multi-step process & took a while to complete. But, it was worth it! They are beautiful.

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BIRD SPECIES SEEN IN 2013:

SEEN SO FAR = 62 of 100

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Thanks to pinterest I saw a mixed media piece of art that I loved. It looked like something my kids would enjoy creating & is different than the art we typically make. Here’s how to make the kid version of this super cool masterpiece.

Supplies

• Tissue Paper (tiny scraps are fine)
• Art Paper
• Oil Pastels
• Glue Stick
• Fine Tip Sharpie, black
• Scissors

The Background

Trim art paper to 5″ x 5″.

Blend pastels to color the background.

Decorate 4 Squares Using Lines

Cut 4 squares out of art paper, each 2″ x 2″.

Use a fine-tip sharpie to create line designs. Before the kids did this part of the project we talked about how lines are one of the elements of design.

Make line designs on each of the 4 squares.

Cut Hearts

Cut out 4 hearts that are each smaller than 2″. Cutting tissue paper is a bit tricky, but we got it done.

Assemble Collage

Using the glue stick, assemble the collage. The oil pastel background is the bottom layer. The 4 line design squares are glued onto the background & the hearts are glued on top of those squares. We also matted the artwork to give it a finished appearance.

Other Valentine’s Day Projects

Here are two other projects we did this year. Farm Girl & Farm Kid2 used an empty toilet paper roll and paint to create a tree with heart shaped leaves. All three kids made a heart shaped mosaic using dyed egg shells.

I hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day.

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I was kind of stumped on what art project to do for the Sahara Desert/Africa mini unit. I really wanted it to include a camel. When I think of the Sahara Desert, the camel is the first thing that comes to mind. I also love the ancient Egyptian art. So, I came up with this project that includes both those things. We searched the web for examples of ancient Egyptian art.

I wanted this project to have a worn feel to it so I tore the edges of the paper. Then, I gave him some ink from my scrapbook bins. He used a makeup sponge to smear brown ink around the edges.

Some of the examples we saw had a top & bottom border, so I asked Farm Kid1 to draw those on his paper.

Next, I asked him to draw the horizon line about a third of the way up from the bottom. I showed him how to add dimension to his pyramids and a quick way to draw the trees.

When it came time to draw the camel, I didn’t have any hints or tips. I just got out a book so he could look at a photograph of a camel. I really have no idea how to draw a camel. I think he did a pretty good job.

He used colored pencils to color in his pencil drawings.

As I talked him through the project, I drew a quickie sketch on the white board. His camel is definitely better than mine.

Now for the fun part: writing Date Palms, Camels and Pyramids in Ancient Egypt using the old Egyptian alphabet. He improvised on a few letters since the Egyptians didn’t have our same 26 letters in their alphabet. When he first started making these hieroglyphics, Farm Kid1 thought it was awesome. But, he soon got fed up making the darn bird over and over. He thought it was hard to draw.

The finished work of art. I love it!

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I was having a difficult time finding a quick project based on Antarctica. After my searching, I came up with this easy-to-make painting.

We taped 9″x12″ watercolor paper to my art board.

Next, I told Farm Kid1 to lightly draw the horizon line about a third of the way up from the bottom. Then pencil in icebergs/glaciers. I also asked him to add one in the water. He drew two.

My bright idea was to have Farm Kid1 use oil pastels as a resist. Well, the first problem with that was I couldn’t find a white oil pastel. So he used a gray oil pastel & white crayon over the top. FYI: this part didn’t work well.

Then we mixed purple & white poster paint with a bit of water & Farm Kid1 spread that on the paper. I reminded him to go from one edge of the paper all the way to the other in one even stroke.

Then he sprinkled kosher salt in the wet paint.

We mixed the blue paint the same way. I wasn’t as concerned about the even strokes on this. While the paint was still wet he pressed a small piece of plastic wrap in the water section.

The next morning the paint was dry so we brushed off the salt & pulled off the plastic wrap.

Unfortunately the resist technique didn’t work well.

And the salt didn’t make a huge impact on the light color. It still added a bit of texture to the sky, though.

I love how the water turned out using the plastic wrap.

Since the resist didn’t work well, Farm Kid1 painted over his glaciers/icebergs.

Then he dipped his thumb and fingers in the white paint to make little penguin bodies.

Oh ya, and I mixed up a little blue paint so he could put a thin line in front of the icebergs in the water to give them a little more depth

Using black, orange & blue sharpies, Farm Kid1 added details to the penguins. I love it!

The last step is to pull off the tape & display the piece of art proudly.

There are many steps to this painting. But, they are all easy steps. The best part is that Farm Kid1 is very proud of his painting.

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When spring break was over, I was conflicted about whether to teach a unit studying the 7 continents or study the biomes of the world. When I saw this post on their virtual voyage, I decided I could do both. So, we are going to travel the world, stopping once on each continent. The main focus during our visit will be to study a biome on each continent that we haven’t studied before. Our travel itinerary is:

The first thing we had to do for our trip was make a map. All three kids helped me with this. I changed things just a tad from the map on se7en’s site.

Making the Background/Ocean

• poster board cut to roughly 26″x16″
• cut little, square-ish shaped pieces from colored tissue paper
• water-down glue & spread a thin layer over entire poster board
• let the kids stick tissue paper pieces all over the poster board

Coloring, Cutting, & Gluing the Map

• Printed a world map, scaled to fit our poster board
• I really liked the randomness of se7en’s map, so I told the kids to color the continents anyway they wanted, just be sure to color the entire continent.
• After the kids colored the map, I cut it out – which was tedious.
• Then we glued all the land pieces to the ocean.

Our Finished Map

The Map on Display

I’m excited to start this unit. It should be fun.

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Oh, the holiday of love. I love, love, love this craft idea from That Artist Woman.

We didn’t get quite the detail she accomplished. But, the kids had fun creating the clouds and using cardboard to make a seemingly impossible Eiffel Tower.

Here are the finished creations by Farm Kid2 & Farm Kid1.

Anytime we can pull out the paints makes for a fun project. And, they get even more excited when the project includes a photo of themselves.

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We recently checked out a bunch of Eric Carle books from the library. We did a variety of activities based on the books, but by far our favorite was making a tissue paper collage Eric Carle style.

The Books

Maybe I grew up under a rock, but I sure don’t remember Eric Carle books as a kid. But yet, when we looked at the copyright many were dated even before I was born. I only became aware of him once I had kids.

One of my favorite things about his books are that they’ve got that extra something. The firefly lights up, the click beetle clicks & the rubber ducky squeaks. My favorite extras are the simple black dots in the book Hello, Red Fox. The whole book is tricking your eyes. You stare at the green fox for x amount of time, then stare at the black dot on the next page & you will see a faint red fox. Amazing. Fun. Exciting. There are multiple animals & colors to try throughout the story. The kids love it.

Our Collage

The beginning of our fancy cereal box paint palette looked like this…

.. When we were done, it looked like this. We definitely had fun with this project.

We read that Eric Carle makes most of his collages out of tissue paper & paint. So, that’s what we did. Layer by layer the kids & I added paint to the tissue paper, using different stroke techniques. It was a bit difficult at first since the tissue paper rips so easily. But, we soon got the hang of it & enjoyed the craziness of this type of painting.

We decided to make a group collage. The base is a piece of white poster board. Farm Kid1 made the Santa and sleigh, Farm Kid2 made Rudolph & I was in charge of the background.

Farm Kid2, a kinder, had some trouble cutting the tissue paper. Farm Kid1, 8 years old, had an easier time.

Farm Kid2 also made this snail.

Farm Kid1 made these creatures.

This was such a fun project. And, we have left over painted tissue paper so we will get to do it again soon.

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