The Art Box MckLinky – Guidelines

Yes, you've already seen this post. :) I'm adding a little bit to it, so I'm re-posting it.

One of our favorite art authors is Mary Ann Kohl. In her book, Scribble Art, she writes the following:

"I like to say, 'Process not Product', which means: the doing, exploring, creating, and attempting of new ideas is more important than the result of your creativity. you may end up with a painting resembling a muddy smear, but if you tried something new, learned something interesting, or discovered how paint acts, then you had a successful art process. The product is not as important.

Think of your art as 'experiments'. Some things will look great and others won't, but what you learn and discover in the process is worth so much more than perfect looking results."

I just want to put out some basic guidelines and I’m open to hearing about anything you think I’m missing.

The MckLinky will be open beginning with the Monday morning post and will close the following Sunday at midnight. I will be posting about what M created the previous week, as this is just easier for me and gives me more time to create a post over the weekend. You may do what works best for you… you can do the same as me, or you can link up your post anytime throughout the week and have it be for what your child made that week, if that is easier for you!

Some basic guidelines for your post:

1. An “art box” is not necessary. If you have a corner that your child uses for art, post about what they made there!

2. Change some of the items you provide for your child on a regular basis, and in your post be sure to list what you gave them! We’ll all get great ideas from each other! I’ll be adding (and subtracting) items on a weekly basis, and I think this will most likely be the best way to keep them interested.

3. Have your art box out all week long, or just one day, or bring it out when your child needs “something to do”… whatever works for you!

4. Let the art be completely child-directed. Let them know that this is for them to do whatever they want to do. I encouraged M to look through his art box and see all the neat things that were in there. Be very positive and encouraging. I also tell M that if there’s anything he needs for a project that he doesn’t see in his box, to ask me and I will supply it for him if we have it.

5. Take pictures and let us ooh and aah over what they’ve done! M loves to see his artwork published on the blog!

6. Please link your post (not your main blog page) to the MckLinky, and link back to this site somewhere in your post. I made a new button and it is below if you would like to include it. :)

7. I'm OK with an occasional craft, if say, you found a cheap one somewhere and it's something your little artist can do independently and would be a nice little surprise in their art box. (And yes, I'm adding this because I did find some things like this that I think will really be fun for M to find once in a while). Let's say no more than one per week. And, again, it should be something they can do by themselves and add their own touch to.

<center><a href="http://tiredneedsleep.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Art%20Box"><img border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-U_B1j1OuRo/SwMNpJrCfvI/AAAAAAAABR8/Zc2bDwlkNzI/paint%20palette.png" /></a></center>

{A tip that has worked for us… praise the finished artwork (within reason). Make a big deal over it and say things like, “you must be so proud of that! It’s so unique!” Hee hee, they love hearing new, big words associated with something they’ve done. This really is encouragement for next time around, for those little ones that need it!}

It’s been suggested that maybe a name other than “The Art Box” could be used in order to highlight the idea that it’s child-directed art. Any suggestions? Honestly, The Art Box is what I hear in my head, simply because that’s what we call it, and I’m having trouble coming up with something else that’s kind of catchy too. So, help me out… let me know if you have any ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School

November 22, 2009

 M is 38 Months old

My camera battery died in the middle of tot school one day so some photos of just the activities were taken later in the week... like 5 minutes before I wrote this post. :)

ABCs and Pre-writing:

M is going through some anti-craft phase right now, and this includes the craft pages for our ABC book.  He loves cutting and pasting for the collage pages though: So, apparently we will now have an ABC collage book.  I’m hoping the craft pages will make an appearance again sometime soon, but I’m leaving this kind of thing totally up to M.  Here are his Ll and Oo pages: (This was when the no-crafts discovery was made.  M cut the letters out, but refused to do the rest, so yours truly did it in a futile attempt to get him interested.)

On a more positive note, he was totally into the tracing pages.  We “read” his book together and then he practiced holding the dry-erase marker correctly and traced the letters:

We also did our cardstock letters and glass pebbles activity (both from Dollar Tree!): He loves this.  It’s simply setting a letter out and then tracing it with the pebbles in the same way you would draw the letter (start at the top, go down, etc.).

For the very first time we had a sand tray to trace letters.  I was hesitant to do this because I thought at some point M would just want to play in the sand, most likely getting his little cars involved.  We had a little talk about how this is only for drawing letters, shapes, or numbers in, and he actually did pretty well.  He did experiment with just doodling in it too, which was fine with me.  We used this with our sand letter cards: He really did a great job.

We also matched up our Mama and Baby letters with these fun cards (Dollar Tree!):

 

He’s been playing quite often with a fishing game I made 2 years ago (he loved it then and still plays with it frequently) : The fish have letters on them and metal grommets for eyes.  The fishing pole has a magnet on the end of the string to catch them.  The chair, in case you were wondering, is M’s “fishing bridge” and the floor there?  “Floaty Pond”.  :)  As opposed to other side of the room, which is “Sinky Pond”.   Yep!

Pre-literacy Skills:

I have a subscription to an email full of free samples from Dover Publications.  The email comes weekly and I always save a ton of things.  One was these Opposites cards: M was very interested in this – of course he knew about opposites, but didn’t know the term for it.  He enjoyed matching these up and I plan to print more for him soon.  He would say “If it isn’t hot” (and grab the hot card), “then it’s cold!” (and match it to the cold one). 

Fine Motor Skills:

He played with another I Spy Sensory Bin – I found some great new things to put in it for him – a little hammer, screwdriver, pliers, and saw – such cute and tiny things!  We also used a variety of other things found around the house.  I didn’t have a theme at all… but he loved it!

And a Curious George puzzle:

 

Large Motor Skills:

After reading about how important a workout of large muscles can be in a boy’s learning, we did our movement cards before a lot of the other work.  M always enjoys this!

Leaping :)…

 

Math Skills:

I thought this would be a super-fun activity – connecting dots to make shapes: M was interested at first, but quickly moved on to something else.  The idea for this was here.

I found some wooden tan grams at Michael’s  ($1.00 – you should go now!)  and printed a couple of puzzles for him:

 

Size sorting with Bob the Builder trucks (loved this activity and the next one, of course):

 

And size sequencing with Scrambler, also from Bob the Builder:

 

History:

We have been reading some great Thanksgiving books and I told him the basics of the first Thanksgiving with this flannelboard set: He listened very well and then told Daddy the story later!

 

Life Skills:

This week we took the drawer locks off of M’s dresser drawers and he was given two new jobs – put his own clothes away after they are folded, and pick out his own clothes to wear each morning.  He is loving this new-found freedom, such a big boy!  And while the clothing choices are not ones I would’ve made, I’m very, very proud of him!  And now I know that the red shirt is way too small and needs to be packed away. :)

Nature and Science:

We also had a class at our local nature center all about apples this week.  M had so much fun taste testing and graphing his favorite apple, cutting an apple to see the star inside, and even squishing an apple to make cider!  The children were all given their own apple seed and we went to a beautiful sunny field where they planted them. So much fun!  I need to start including our nature center experiences in my tot school posts – we always learn so much there!

For more Tot School, go here!

Have a beautiful week! :)

Books of the Week

November 21, 2009

The Barn Owls, by Tony Johnston
This book is illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray, whom I’ve never heard of before reading this book.  The illustrations are what I love about The Barn Owls.  I was mesmerized on every page by the subtle shadings and beautiful autumn colors.  The pictures were done with transparent watercolors and watercolor pencils.  They are really very beautiful.  The story is very good too, and tells of 100 years of barn owls who have lived, hunted, and flown in the area of the barn which is their home.  Baby barn owls are shown hatching in the rafters of the barn, and an adult owl is shown hunting in a golden wheat field.  The story is very dream-like and poetic, I read it very slowly and softly to M, and he really seemed to enjoy it that way (me too!). :)


What Makes the Seasons?, by Megan Montague Cash
This book does a great job of explaining what happens in each season and how one seasons fades into another.  It also talks about how seasons *happen* because of the earth’s orbit around the sun.  This contributed to M’s first real understanding of the idea of outer space.  He’s seen pictures of the earth before, but this time we really talked about how the stars are in outer space and if we were up there with them this is what our world would look like – a green and blue ball because of the grass and water.  And we talked about how the earth moves in a circle around the sun and how that makes day and night.  There was a great illustration in the book that was a good aid to our discussion.   Another picture in the book was very interesting to M – a window with 4 panes and through each pane a different season is shown of the outdoor scene.  We looked and talked about this picture for quite a long time.  I LOVE books that interest him (both of us really) like this!
For more book reviews, go here!
Have a beautiful day! :)

Leafy Turkey Craft

It looks like this will be our one and only turkey craft this year.  M just isn’t into doing crafts with me lately (it’s that darn art box’s fault!).  I think this turkey turned out awfully cute though!
Supplies:
Craft leaves, half a paper plate, scrap red, orange, and brown paper, googley eyes, glue.  Also you’ll need something to stand him up later.  We used an old play-doh cup; you could use a cardboard tube cut in half, or something similar.
First, glue the leaves to the paper plate:
Cut a turkey head shape from brown paper, a waddle from red, and a beak from orange.  Glue on top of the leaves:
After he dried, I used hot glue to attach an old play-doh container to the back of the plate.  Gently form the plate around the container:   When he’s dry, set him up and admire!

Have a beautiful day!  GOBBLE, GOBBLE! :)

Our Thanksgiving Tree

I just wanted share what our little Thanksgiving Tree is beginning to look like.

I cut some leaves from pretty autumn-themed scrapbook paper:

We each wrote down something we are thankful for on a leaf (well, M dictated his - “balloons and the sky”) and tacked them to the felt tree:

We will do this every evening until next Wednesday.  I think it will look so pretty by Thanksgiving!  I hope we’ll continue to do this every year, what a nice tradition. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Minds of Boys

I want to share some more wisdom about boys in the book I’m currently reading, The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life, by Michael Gurian. I shared some of this in a previous post, which you can find here.

I’m just going to do this bullet point style so I don’t get too wordy. :) These are things I want to remember after I take this book back to the library. If you want to hear more about a particular point, just ask in the comments!

I should mention that the author tends to go out of his way to say quite often that these things work well for some girls too, and he is in no way advocating these things only for boys. His study, however, has taken a great amount of information about the differences between the average boy and girl brains into consideration. The key here is that he is speaking of the average boy, while allowing that there are some boys that this does not apply to, as well as some girls that it does apply to.

Here we go…

• Boys have greater blood flow in their cerebellum, which is the area of the brain that controls “doing” and physical activity. Boys are more likely to attach their learning to physical movement. Movement is in fact often crucial to “male-brain” learning. (p. 48)

• Boys in general pick up less of what is aurally going on around them, especially when it is said in words, and need more sensory-tactile experience in order to learn about something. (p.48)

• When having to memorize material, boys succeed well when greater amounts of information come in list organization and in listed substrata (point, sub point, etc). (p. 49)

• Boys don’t learn as much through sitting and talking, nor gravitate toward it as naturally as girls do. This is due to the differing levels of certain hormones in the brain. (p. 49)

• Boys are not able to switch quickly from task to task; doing so causes frustration and a change in the aggression area of the brain (amygdala) which can contribute to disciplinary issues in classrooms. (p. 50)

• Boys brains reorient themselves between tasks by moving to a “rest state”, and this is essential to male brain activity, but can cause problems in a classroom (boys zoning out, etc). When this happens some boys fidget, become restless and/or hyper in an attempt to stimulate their brains to a learning state again. (p. 51)

• Many boys are more likely to talk, read, and write better after they’ve gained the brain stimulation of gross motor movement. Their verbal centers “wake up” because their body movement has stimulated the whole brain. (p. 86)

• Boys tend toward spatial-mechanical play and learning and use more space than girls often will. When confined in smaller spaces, boys often get antsy and frustrated, and “bounce off the walls”. Discipline problems follow. It takes more real space to “engage the world through the spatial centers of the brain”, which is what the boy does.(p. 92)

• Discipline problems with boys have been shown to decrease when preschools expanded the physical floor plan. (p. 92)

• The author talks about “aggression nurturance” in male to male communication and how important the extremely physical play between boys (and grown men) is. “Boys who often lack the ‘use your words’ methodology for intimacy, nurture themselves and others through aggressive gestures and activities. … it’s often the case for boys (and men) that aggressive gestures are as nurturing as words, as bonding as hugs. … [they] build trust and loyalty by exploring weakness and strength in a playful, teasing way.” (p. 93)

Whew, ok that’s enough for one post. :) I could probably type this whole book out, it’s really opened my eyes to so much.

That last point really stuck out to me and it’s something I need to keep in mind as I try to understand my son.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Manger Tutorial

As we do the Jesse Tree during Advent, M will put one piece of yarn (hay) in the manger per night.  On Christmas Eve, baby Jesus will go in the manger on top of the hay. 

I have received a couple of emails with questions about how we made our manger.  It is so simple, I’m almost embarrassed to show you. :) 

First, start with a small cardboard tube:

Cut it in half lengthwise:

Cut one of the halves in half again, width-wise:

Trim both of the small pieces just a little bit.  Then staple one to each end of the large piece:

Look, a manger! :)  I cut a square of brown felt with pinking shears and glued it to ours:

It’s not the most elegant manger ever, but it works!  You could also use a square or rectangle box for the main manger part (think a box from a bar of soap), and cover it with paper or fabric, or paint.

For baby Jesus, I simply cut two flesh-colored pieces of felt in a peanut shape, sewed them together (you could use glue) and stuffed them with a bit of fiberfill.  I drew a face on him, then swaddled him in square piece of blue felt and glued everything in place:

It works for now.  When M is a bit older, we may do something a bit nicer. :)  You could use a baby Jesus from a Playmobile or Little People set if you have one!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Size Sorting and Sequencing – printables

Well, I’ve been keeping busy with the Bob the Builder activity packs.  As long as M is responding well to them (and is he ever!) I’ll keep trying to think up some new things.  Thanks to those of you who have given me some excellent ideas!

These were super easy and fast to make, please don’t think I spend all day on the computer working hard at these things.  It’s a lot of fun for me too, as well as for M.

First I made a size sorting activity with all the trucks: There are twelve different trucks, with a small, medium, and large size of each.   The child sorts them onto the mats.  I’ve only put them around the mats in the photo so you could actually see the mats.   I think there are other things we may do with these too – like sort by color onto a color wheel.   If you think your little one would enjoy this, you can download it here.

I also made a size sequencing activity of just one of the trucks – Scrambler, who is actually an “off-road” 4-wheeler.  He’s crazy and hyper and M loves him to death.  There are 8 images, each one a bit smaller than the next:
These can be downloaded here.

Enjoy!  If you print these and use them, I’d love to know about it!!

Have a beautiful day! :)

P.S. I know it looks like a lot of cutting, but I watched the clock and I had it all cut out and ready to go in 12 minutes!  No, I wasn’t even hurrying. ;)

Free Homeschool Printables Blog

I have recently come across a fantastic resource for homeschool moms (or those of us who just love learning with our little ones!). It’s Free Homeschool Printables and the author, Kylie, loads it up with all the great things she finds that moms are creating and sharing. I was so excited to see this kind of site, what a brilliant idea!

Head over there and check it out – I love it! There are a lot of great blogs featured, and if you create printables that you share with others online, let Kylie know!

She also has a personal homeschooling blog called Our Worldwide Classroom. It’s full of good information and ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – Nov. 16

  In the art box last week:  leftover gel paints, watercolors, feathers, glue, scraps of tissue paper, foam, and construction paper, stamps and ink pads, colored pasta, scrapbook pinking scissors, craft sticks, stickers, and glitter glue. :)
This time I left the art box out for M for most of the week.   He was excited to see it again and could hardly believe his good luck when I explained that he could come make something anytime he wanted to.  Seriously, he was very happy about this… I should’ve started this a long time ago!
He did spend a good chunk of time with it when I first put it out, but still came back to it several times during the week.  I replenished his paper supply as needed.
So, here’s what he did:
When he first saw the colored pasta he said, “And are there things buried in it, Mommy?!!”  Apparently the I spy sensory tub needs to come out again soon. :)  After I explained that he could glue the pasta onto paper and make a collage, or think of something else to make with it, he just said, “Can I have some little cars please?”  So I got a couple of cars for him, and this is what he spent the next 10 minutes doing: Not really what I had in mind, but ok.
Soon he moved onto the watercolors:I tried to show him how to get more paint on his brush and not use so much water, but he liked his painting the way it was.
Then he found the glitter glue (again!), and this time he took the tips off and globbed it onto the paper.  :) 
He painted some more with the leftover gel paints from the previous week: These are so pretty, and perfect for putting in his art box.  I’ll have to buy some more, or figure out how to put some of our regular tempera paints in his box without it being an out and out disaster.   Hmmm.
He stamped:

More glitter glue exploring, this time with the tips back on:

There’s not a lot of great art here, mainly because he spent almost all his time, every time, doing this: He was absolutely fascinated with the scrapbook “zig-zag” scissors.   Here’s how much he loved them: And that’s only part of the pile!  I should probably mention here that I tested these scissors on my own fingers before putting them in his art box.  They are pretty dull and he’s very experienced with scissors.  I was around to supervise too, never far away.  We always go over safety rules when scissors are going to be used, and I have never had a problem with him.
I really think he would’ve been happy just cutting paper for hours.  However, we needed to clear the table off and so he quickly made this:

This was all I captured with photos.   There was a very cute sticker collage he made and hung in the window “for the birdies to look at” but it got taken down before I could get a picture, as well as a few other things. 
I have some great ideas for his next art box and I’m excited to see what he does!
Hey, does anyone want to do a little McLinky dance with me on this? :)  It’s turning out to be such a hit with M, and several of you mentioned trying something similar with your little ones… so think about it and if anyone is interested, let me know! 
I’m planning on writing these posts every Monday and they will cover what M did during the previous week.  I’m thinking if others join in we could get a lot of art supplies ideas to provide for our kids, and just have fun admiring all their masterpieces!  Of course they wouldn’t  have to be boxes… if you mix things up for your child and change out their art supplies once in a while, regardless of where they are kept, I’d love to hear about it!
Have a beautiful day! :)