The Art Box – July 19, 2010

I bought a little tote to go along with M’s Art Box last week.  This way we can keep all his usual stuff in one spot and he can add more fun things to the actual box.  In the tote are paintbrushes, glue, pens (which I’ll switch out for colored pencils, pastels, or markers occasionally), scissors, his tiny paint palette, and a small container of collage items like macaroni, pom-poms, etc.

 

I let him pick 3 items from each drawer (there are two craft drawers that are his “art box drawers”.  He chose a bundle of old fabric, cotton balls, a wooden snake with paints, coffee filters, electrical tape, and some stickers.  I picked a variety of papers for him to use.

*Note how messy the box is now that I let M pick the items for it?  There’s no time to pretty it all up before snapping a quick photo. You’ll have to just take my word for what’s in there! :)

 

     

First he made… well, what are these?He was so very proud of them, and told me he had thought up something that no one else had ever made before.  I think he just might be right about that. ;)

 

He had a great time painting his little wooden snake from Michael’s:

 

 

And then he grabbed a piece of dark green velvet (it looks black in the photo), and glued cotton balls all over it.  He told me he had made a “collage of very soft things”:

 

So, yes – his art was interesting this past week, but he enjoyed himself, was excited about it, and probably even learned something – I call that a success.  And I don’t mind that it keeps him busy while I blog either. ;)

If you have a kid's art post, link it up below! Be sure to link back here somewhere in your post.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Books of the Week – July 17, 2010

If it were up to M this week, you’d be hearing about Thomas the Train and nothing else.  If you have a Thomas and Friends lover, check out the book in the carousel above (Thomas’ Big Storybook); it is definitely the favorite around here these days. 

However, I’m going to spare you Thomas.  :)  Or maybe I’m just sparing myself!

My favorite of the week was Raggedy Ann and Rags, adapted from the stories by Johnny Gruelle:

 

M picked this up at the library without my noticing, and I was excited to see it in the pile when we checked out.  I loved Raggedy Ann and Andy when I was a child, and had forgotten about these great, detailed stories.  This book probably took us a good 20 minutes to read, but M hung on every word.  The story tells of how Rags (the dog) was found and then has his first adventure – where he helps the other toys save Raggedy Ann and another doll from floating away to sea. It’s really such a great and engaging story, and captured M’s imagination with the idea of toys having a secret life of their own, and I can’t wait to find more of these!

We also liked Elliot’s Shipwreck, by Andrea Beck:

We like all the Elliot Moose stories, and this was no exception.  It’s a great story of friendship, adventure, imagination, and problem solving!  A great add on activity for this book would be making little boats from various materials and seeing which ones work and which ones get shipwrecked!

For more reviews of children’s books, check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns and Feed Me Books Friday. Have a beautiful day! :)