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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Summer ~Wk 1~ Nature Pt 3 Messy Archery

Kandice July 21, 2015 0 Comments

Just as it sounds from the title, we enjoyed a fun and super messy activity the day after Canada Day.

The kids LOVED this and had a blast making some really cool art. I should mention, I knew beforehand that my kids love messy art. Just at the end of May, for my daughters 7th birthday we went to a local art studio and had a splatter party. It's exactly as it sounds, splatter paint by flicking paintbrushes, using balloons, squirting using droppers, etc. So I knew they'd love this activity.

And they did!

I bought two canvases from the dollar store and taped them to the side of our shed at the trailer.

We used 4 different colours of craft paint (blue, yellow, green and black) and used a bow and arrow set that we also purchase at a dollar store and away we went. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed trying their best to hit the canvas.

And the end result was fantastic. We're planning on hanging them up at the trailer just have to bring up the nails to do it. I can't wait to show off how great they turned out.

My niece also enjoyed the activity as well. She's older (10) but seemed to like the idea, unfortunately I wasn't sure she was going to be there so I didn't have a canvas for her and she gave up early and didn't care for doing it when it was just a piece of paper.

Next time for sure, because I definitely see this being an activity we'll repeat, and probably a few times.

Here's Hannah's finished masterpeice, and a snapshot of her being super silly! :)

And Everetts! :)

If you aren't afraid of a mess, pick a few colours and let the kids shoot away, I guarantee they will love it and you'll have some new art work for your house! :)

-Kandice

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Summer ~Wk 1~ Nature Pt. 2 Sun catchers made with nature

Kandice July 07, 2015 0 Comments

We of course, incorporated nature into the crafts/activities we did this week as well.

I enjoyed looking around the web and finding so many fun things. It makes planning themed weeks so much easier when you can see things that have already be created, tested, loved and liked by other children.

I loved the idea I found and pinned here on a great idea for "Sun catchers made with Nature". I knew my kids would love the idea of finding the things to add to our sun catchers. So, while we were out on our nature walk, doing a scavenger hunt, looking for items to paint with, we also wanted to find things to add to our sun catchers. We were busy looking for a lot of items and it was fun to see the kids choose things for one activity over another and give their suggestions/ideas as to why one might work better over the other.

It really is simple and we didn't divert to far from the original post, other than I couldn't find contact paper (I didn't look super hard thought either), so we just used packaging tape. I laid the tape on the back side of the paper plate so the sticky side was up and they could stick everything to it.

We used leaves, moss, sticks, pieces of pinecones, flowers, stems, oh yeah and Ev thought an entire cat tail needed to be added to his. He loved doing this activity and he isn't one for structured activities and we've struggled to find things that he'd like to do that doesn't feel too much like school.

I just used the plates that we had at home from a previous birthday party so it was a super inexpensive activity and it was a lot of fun (as I mentioned) to go out and find the things we'd include in the sun catcher.

The kids were very proud of their finished products (of course) so we hung them up on the side of our hard top. A few times I would catch Ev taking a minute to look at his sun catcher and see the way the sun was shining through the leaves (you could see the veins of the leaves), we even notices a few bugs caught in between the tape when it was all said and done.

Hanging from the hardtop

I'm really happy they enjoyed doing this simple and easy craft and they've now come up with a few more ideas on how we can make sun catchers for at home.

You can find the original post for this craft at a fantastic site called Hands on: as we grow (link to the original post).

-Kandice

Sunday, July 05, 2015

Summer ~Wk 1~ Nature

Kandice July 05, 2015 0 Comments

We had a great week away at the trailer, we couldn't have asked for a better and easier way to be immersed into nature and explore our great planet than to spend a week there, swimming, playing, hiking, kite flying and more!

We had such a great time we actually didn't even do all of the fun things I had planned for us.

Unfortunately the first few days we were there it was cold, and rainy! Yeah! for Canada's unpredictable weather! That's alright though we went ahead and did all things we would do if the sun was shining anyway, fishing, a nature walk/scavenger hunt, sun catchers, we even went to the beach!

And then finally the last few days of our vacation warmed up, the sun was shining and we made some great art, soaked in the rays with some more fishing, swimming, made some bird feeders and we even played with a few chipmunks (sorta)! Haha

We really enjoyed the little scavenger hunt/nature walk we went on but then started to get badly bite by mosquitos in the forest so we turned around and explored a little more out in the open. I think because of all the rain we had on the weekend (pretty much 2 full days of rain) they were especially bad.

Looking for things on our nature walk, we were painting with the things we found when we got back to the trailer

We brought along a box with us for our walk/hunt so that we could grab a few things along the way to paint with when we got back to the trailer. That was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed looking for new ways to paint. It was great to see their little minds thinking of different textures (pinecones, moss, and flowers) and how they might paint.

By the time we got back to the trailer Ev didn't feel like doing the painting with us and just wanted to swing and play on the monkey bars, so H and I took to it and started out by writing Mother nature a note with a stick that we found.

I knew that I wanted to try sharpening a stick into a point and using it as a pen so during our walk I looked for one the same size as a pencil and used our regular pencil sharpener to sharpen it. It was cool and a neat way for H to write a special note to Mother Nature about creating everything so beautiful and perfect.

And of course minnow catching is a great way to see nature and understand life, and lifecycle. The kids were very excited to have caught 6 minnows, a few snails and lots of algae, lillypads and weeds.

Ev, of course loved fishing for the big fish. He didn't catch anything this time but that doesn't stop him. He's a real little fisherman and could spend many hours next to his Grandpa looking for the "big one".

My littlest just watching everyone enjoying the not so lovely weather!

We also plan to work on letters over the summer and are doing 3 letters per week. Everett is headed into SK and Hannah in grade 2 (so she doesn't need the help but still really enjoys the activities). They enjoyed our first A is for Alligator activity and talking about all the words that start with the letter A, it was fun to hear the different things they came up with.