Still Life 101 ~ Apples

We haven’t done any painting activities for quite a while now.  So I was inspired when I came across this blog of an art teacher.   This site is full of wonderful art projects for little ones and are so easy to emulate. And I said to myself that we have to try her works!

We started with Still Life.  As inspired by one of her art projects for kindergartens, I salvaged some of the apples from the fridge and use it as our subject. Please excuse some of the stains in the mat and plate, prior to this, my son has been playing with them LOL.  So by the time I took the photo, one apple has a bite mark, the paper plate has Nutella on the side and the mat has some orange watercolor stains.

To start with, I created the outlines using a drafting compass.  Using a plastic spoon, we swirled (circular motion) the red tempera paint on each smaller circles.  Then we let it dry for about 3-4 hrs.

               

When it was ready, I let him trace the outline of the apples and plate using a black permanent pen.  Then he added details for the apples as well.

We completed the work by applying green watercolors on the background and yellow on the plate. 

 

And here’s the finish product. Tada! He loved his work so much that he placed this in our hallway (his gallery LOL).  I am amazed on how he can finally follow instructions with regards to painting and enjoy the activity as well.  He told me we should paint the muffins next :)

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
Preschool Corner
TGIF Linky Party
Hip Homeschool Hop
Teach Beside Me

Planets and the Solar System

Saw this book from the library and I thought my son would like it.

 

And he did!  The book got lots of interesting images of the planets and is loaded of information which are very easy for an almost 4 yr old to understand.  I also love that each planet were discussed and has trivia on each one.

                        

Later we made planets using paints.   As we paint each planet, we first refer to the book, discuss the color and try mixing the paints so we can come up with the exact color as presented in the book. And this is how they look like as we wait for them to dry up.

Once they’re cooked, I cut them up so we can glue them on a black cardstock.  They look absolutely perfect!

My son started cutting the orange paper for his Sun.

Then we glue them on the cardstock.  We talk about the order  of the planets in the solar system as we glue them.  Here it seen that he is adding glitters on our space. 

 

Then we waited again for them to dry so we can start playing with it using our Safari Space Toob.

Linking this to: 

The Colorful World of Fruits

This was inspired by this post from How We Montessori.

The printed materials were downloaded from At Home with Montessori.

 

This was one activity my son totally loved! What’s not in the picture was when we ate the other half of each fruit LOL.

Linking to:

Pine Cone Painting

My son is fond of collection pine cones.  Because I got tired of seeing them around the house, here’s what we did with them...

 

 

Now we got  lots of these colorful pine cones and I just have to look for some baskets in the thrift shop where I can pile them and display it in our kitchen window.

Flowers in Spring (Part One)

Flowers are blooming everywhere! My loves smelling daffodils, picking up dandelions and admiring cherry blossoms.  With his current interest, I pulled out a flower theme so I can make use of these interests.

Here’s a craft which was inspired by No Time For Flashcards.  The number corresponds to the number of petals in the flower.  Then he insisted on adding stems and leaves and grasses.

 

Then on sunny day, we explore the estate to pick up some flowers and identify some wildflowers as well.

 

Once at home, we identified each flowers and matched them to the ones in the books. (Books were borrowed from our library)

We also used some of the flowers as paint brushes for his artwork.

He managed to use the leaves as well :)

We such had a great time working with flowers!  Reminds me of myself wayyy back a long time ago... enjoying picking up flowers during summer with my friends as well. 

Happy Monday everyone!

 

Linking this to:

Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day

I’ve been busy these days, my son will be starting Montessori preschool this coming September so I’ve been running around processing papers and requirements. So pardon me if I have no relevant updates at the moment.

Anyway we did some crafts today... one in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day this coming Saturday and the other one is dinosaur related, which my son still can’t get other (see our activities here and here).

Since last week, we’ve been reading books about Ireland, talk about it’s culture and the festivals they celebrated. And from here, we chose among some crafts I pinned on my Pinterest and made him choose what he wanted to do.

He wanted to make paper-plate shamrocks. Instead of using paper-plates, I decided to use an empty cardboard box.

Cut out three circles and paint them with green using sponges.

At first he wanted to use our paintbrush because he doesn’t want to stain his hands. Eventually, he realized that it was fun. (We’re using Crayola’s Washable paint)

We added glitters.

And glued them together. Sorry the the glitters weren’t visible enough.

This is what we ended up later on. We made several of these and placed them around the house.

This was just a simple craft, tomorrow we’ll do another one... hope it will be more interesting though LOL.

We’ll be heading out to the city center this weekend to enjoy the fun and celebration. Hope I can get some decent photos to share :) Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!