Jonah Lisa Land

Fabulous Skeleton or Dino Activity

I ran across this wonderful activity from Kinderpendent while surfing around Pinterest--yes, I'm hooked.  I knew Huck would love it.  He enjoys anything to do with Dinosaurs and it went right along with a recent library DVD we picked up:  Eye Witness Skeletons.  Eye Witness is a fantatic series by Doring Kinderling and our library carries almost the entire collection.

It's got all the pieces of a perfect project: research, gathering, painting, drawing, design & thought.  Plus, it's super simple and engages a wide range of ages.  

Simply gather a bunch of small teigs and sticks, put out some white tempra paint and provide some drawings of printouts of things with skeltons. 

We started with dinosaurs as the project originally called for and used our Big Book of Dinosaurs (also by DK Publishing--they reallydo wonderful research books for kids) for refernce. 

But since Huck has a huge interest in the human body too, once we were finished we moved on to parts of the body.

I told Huck that maybe next time we'll paint really big sticks, trace his body on some butcher paper and lay out his whole skelton!  He was stoked.  

Wouldn't that be a cool classroom project around Halloween? 

Cheap & Easy :: Homemade Knitting Tower

Knitting towers, knitting mushrooms, knitting Nancys and knitting Neds.  Corking, or French knitting as it's sometimes called, is a very old-fashioned craft for kids.  Kids can start doing it as early as about 4 or 5. Basically, as soon as they have some patience for sitting and good fine motor skills.  

It's a great quiet activity for a sick day, when younger siblings are napping, or Mom is having a Calgon moment.  It would probably work nicely in church, a waiting room, or on a long car trip, too.  Give it a shot and see if it's something that speaks to your little people. 

You can buy some pretty neat knitting towers--like this double-sided tower and this mushroom tower.  And check out Spoolknitter, a very cool Flickr group of people who collect old fashioned knitting Nancies.  We didn't want to spend any money or have to wait, so we made ours with 4 popsicle sticks, a TP roll and some masking tape.  Very simple. 

I wanted to get a shot of Huck working on this but never seemed to have my camera handy. I also wanted to do my own video tutorial for it but, honestly, I have other things I need to be doing right now besides figuring out how the heck to do that.  So, here's the knitting tower video we learned it from and a photo tutorial that also good.  

Finger Knitting (how-to here) is also very fun. In fact, I prefer finger knitting but Huck likes working on the tower better. 

Knitting is one of the only activities that uses the left and right sides of the brain simulanteously.  In Waldorf education, all children are taught to knit in first grade.  It's believed that knitting is good for the development of finger and hand muscles needed for writing and also for math skills.  I have no idea about all that, but I do know this much...when Huck is working on his knitting tower, he's not talking.  

And those are some priceless minutes in my day.

Child's Sewing Basket

I've been doing so much more hand sewing and knitting this winter that the kids have become very interested. Huck asks for bits of yarn and my knitting needles all the time.  Okay, most of the time it's to tie up a bad guy or use as a sword, but I could just tell he was ripe for this.  

I set him up with his very own little sewing basket and showed him how to do a basic straight stitch.  He likes it.  If left on his own he makes rather long stitches so he runs out of thread (embroidery floss) pretty quickly.  But I plan to let him draw on some fabric (you tape it to a drawing surface and just use regular pencil) and see if he can follow the lines with his stitches, which may solve that issue.  He also doesn't know how to thread the needle yet but that's next up.

 

Obviously, due to pins and scissors and such, the activity requires some ground rules and supervision at first.  We also have a dedicated spot for Huck's basket when he's not using it to keep it out of Jemima's reach.

Along the lines of my Collage Kits and Upcycled Field Bags, I think this will make a really wonderful birthday gift for kids in the 4-10 range.  

I picked up the basket and wooden hoop at the local thrift shop for $1.50.  From my own sewing stash I included a few different colors of embroidery floss, some pins, 1 tapestry needle, small balls of leftover yarn for finger-knitting, and a bottlecap pincushion (pictorial tutorial here).

The only thing purchased new was a $3 pair of small thread scissors.  The whole thing cost me less than five bucks.  Might be a bit more if you bought embroidery floss.  I just cut out small "spools" from recycling bin cardboard (1" x 2" with a notch on each end) and wound lengths of floss from my stash around them.

If you wanted to make this a more substantial gift, you could also include a small bundle of fat quarters or a Knitting Mushroom or Knitting Tower.  

We made our own Knitting Tower out of recycled materials.  Works like a charm and is a great way to remind kids to hit the recycling bin for creative inspiration!

Potato Printing

It is Idaho after all.  And since the weather was so dreary most of last week, I decided to break out a timeless classic.  I'll have you know Huck did potato printing completely pantsless.  Thank god he didn't get any crazy ideas.  He's definitely the kind of kid who will be sitting on a Xerox machine one day.

The concept is very simple and there are plenty of detailed how-to's online.  I was reminded of the idea by this post on the ever-inspirational Crafty Crow.  Here are very basic instructions for the intrepid artiste who wants to just jump in and figure it out on the fly.

Materials:

1 big ole bag a taters (I bought Idaho Russets and we had loaded baked potatoes for dinner, too)
A couple of knives
Some paints (we used these washable tempra paints)
A pie tin or similar for a palette
paper

Cut a 2 inch end off the spud.  Boom!--You got a circle.  Cut that in half.  Shazam!--A half moon. Cut a french fry shaped piece and there's a square on one end a long rectangle on the other.  You get the idea. You can get as detailed with shapes as your skills with a pairing knife will allow.  Mine allowed for a star and leaf shape and that was about it.

It was loads of fun and I think our next round of greeting cards (we made these for Christmas once and have been using these for birthdays all year) will be made using this potato printing technique.

Stockmar Plug

I wish I was getting some Duetchmarks for saying this but I'm not...  Stockmar Beeswax Block Crayons are worth the ridiculous price. 

A set of 8 is about $14 and a set of 16 is about $24.  Pretty pricey for crayons but these suckers are sturdy, fun, non-toxic and I hear tell they last for years and years--which would make them more cost effective in the end.

Because of their size and shape, they also help kids with the tripod grip.

Given the choice between Crayon Rocks, regular crayons, colored pencils and the Stockmar Blocks, they both choose these every time.

Emergency Art Projects

Despite how a blog can make things seem, we are not constantly doing super neato art projects over here. Sure, we do a fair amount but I sometimes think if there's anything I collect as a hobby, its ideas for neato art projects.  I do love pointing Huck in a certain direction and then stepping back and letting him really get creative with some new material, or making art based on something we're learning about.  And I love having a variety of materials--pencils, crayons, markers, papers, little books--available to him for whenever he wants to make something completely self-inspired. 

But sometimes...sometimes...there's just too much going on.  

Sometimes he wants to paint right as Jemima needs to be put down for a nap.  Sometimes he decides he must have an art project while I've got 3 pots going on the stove and a baby underfoot.  Sure, I could tell him to wait, but occasionally I take a different tack. 

Busy work.  I keep a nice supply of little workbook type projects handy.  Minimal skill is required and there's very little room for creativity but I use these when my intention is not to challenge him creatively, but to keep him busy without direct supervision ort much chance of disaster.  When there's no time to set up a whole area, no time to wash him up afterwards, no time to sit with him and talk about it or participate. 

Kumon coloring, folding, cutting and maze books are great and really do help build certain skills and teach following directions, but Paint With Water and Crayola Color Wonder Books are perfect for this intention, too.

Just because these types of projects don't fit into your art or education philosophy doesn't mean they don't have their place in a busy household.  Using them judiciously means when you do bring them out they feel exciting and fun, instead of boring and limiting. 

Watercolor Wall Art

We really did a lot of fun things during the blogcation.  And it's not that we don't do lots of fun things while I'm blogging too but I did have a serious backlog of to do's and fun projects to try.  I needed to focus power.  Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be sharing lots of fun stuff from the break.  Like this...

I bookmarked this fabulous idea from The Crafty Crow many, many weeks ago--I have more Crafty Crow posts "kept new" than any other blog in my feedreader, by a factor of at least 5 (Thank you a million times, Cassi).  I thought it would be prefect for some new artwork for the kids' room and some birthday cards for family and friends this year. 

I did a little prep work the night before cutting letters and shapes out of white contact paper and then sticking them to watercolor paper.  Then Huck did the watercoloring, card folding and, best of all, the peeeeeeeling. 

It was a really fun project.  I'm usually more about the fun of doing than the end product but I also think there's plenty of room for results oriented projects, too.  And the results here were amazing!  Even Huck was excited with how great they looked. 

He's very proud to have replaced a couple of Curious George posters with his own artwork in the room he shares with his sister. 

   

Those new curtains were another little blogcation project that finally got done.  The list is getting shorter...

More Quick Handmade (and Upcycled!) Blank Books

Over the weekend I made more little blank books to have around like the one Huck used for his I Love You book.  But I got pretty bored with my card stock choices--I've been using these 5 bright colors for EVERYTHING for the past couple of years.  But rather than wait until I could get to a store and then have to pony up and buy something new, I hit the recycling bin.  Once again, a "make do" item turned out to be WAY cooler than what I would have made if I'd bought the new supplies I thought I needed.

Cute, no?

Obviously, I just cut out cardboard food boxes for the cover and back, folded in half, folded blank paper inside and stapled.  Huck thought it was pretty neat. 

For a nicer version, check out these cool upcycled journals and notebooks from the Etsy shop Ivy Lane Designs.  What a great handmade gift along with some art supplies.  My project was a marriage between the Ivy Lane books (though not nearly as nicely done) and the handmade blank books I first saw on SouleMama.

Huck tested.  Huck approved.

I Love You Book

Yesterday Huck was talking about things he loves--blueberries, lollipops, books--and I came up with the idea of making a book full of drawings of all the things he loves right now.  He was game. 

It was a fun and easy way to quietly kill an hour while the baby napped.  And it will be a wonderful memento to have.

 

Why yes, I did recently get a mohawk.  It was going to be a surprise.

In the past I've pulled his pictures together and created a book with them after he's drawn them.  But this idea was different.  I wanted him to have the feeling that he was creating parts of a whole.  He was making a book.  I remembered these simple handmade books SouleMama made a while back and went with it.  We stacked 5 sheets of blank white paper on top of 1 sheet of card stock, folded it all in half, then stapled the spine.  You can also sew the spine and/or cover for a great look.  Then we just sat down with the art supplies and talked about things he loves. .  

Besides being a fun art project, it was also a really fun talk.  I may have to do these yearly.  At least.  And I will definitely keep a supply of these simple books on hand for when the mood strikes him.

Nest Cam :: Drawing Project

This is simple but it's a good first robin related art project for us.  Just grab your favorite art supplies--crayons, colored pencils, markers--and draw a picture of the robins or the eggs.

Here's Huck's drawing. 

He really wanted there to be 5 eggs so he drew the nest with little Yellow in there, too.  That's Clementine and Abner perched there on the side of the nest.  The rest of the drawing is the porch and the stairs.

Now, it's your turn!  But here's the catch:  We want to be able to see your drawing, too.  So, I've start a Nest Cam Flickr Group for all the art projects.  I hope you'll join the group and share your photos with us.  And be sure to describe your picture in the comments section.  We've added the photos of the robins so far and this drawing to start it all off. 

We can't wait to see everyone's drawings!