O(5) studied Jackson Pollock at school during the month of October. For the end of the month art activity, the kids painted like "Action Jackson!"
We put 1 canvas on each piece of paper and gave each child an egg carton filled with paint. They flung the paint onto the canvases using popsicle sticks and paintbrushes. They loved this activity!
When O(5)and I got home from school, we showed E(2) how to paint like "Action Jackson." We started with a little lesson on color mixing. (I love this perfect paint pallette that I found at the thrift store).
E didn't really like flinging the paint onto her canvas. She preferred to rub it in with her hands! Fun times!
E(2) and I made a magnetic pipe cleaner discovery bottle during "P" week! To make this discovery bottle, I cut pipe cleaners into small pieces and put them in a clean and dry plastic bottle. It doesn't get much simpler than that!
The girls love moving the pipe cleaner pieces around using their magic magnetic wand!
This is another one of those activities that is all over Pinterest...so, I'm not going to link to a specific site for the idea.
I introduced this transferring activity to E(2) last week, and she was immediately successful when picking up the marbles with the spoon and then dropping them into the bottle. (I was very surprised that it was so easy for her). However, when I started videoing the activity, she had a VERY hard time picking up a marble with the spoon. It was almost painful to watch, and I wanted to jump in and do it for her. I had to bite my tongue, and I was just waiting for her to ask for help, so that I could jump in and help her...Here's the video.
After she spent so much time chasing the marbles around the bowl with the spoon, I realized that I needed to put something in the bowl to hold the marbles. I put a small square of tissue in the bowl, and it worked perfectly.
This is a great activity for developing persistence when presented with a difficult task (obviously!). She's also developing hand/eye coordination, fine motor control, concentration, the ability to transfer from left to right (which will eventually help with reading), and the ability to cross her midline. So many things are going on during this very simple task.
The idea for this activity came from this blog via Pinterest.
A few months ago when I was sorting our recycling, I noticed all words on the various boxes (cereal boxes, etc.). It seemed a shame to recycle all those words when we could be reading them. So, I started cutting out all the words and put them together in a box.
O(5) was VERY excited about the words. We've had fun making silly sentences with them, but we really need more verbs. I plan to keep adding to our word collection, and I think we're going to have lots of fun with this activity for a while!
After seeing glitter jars all over Pinterest for the past few weeks, I decided to make one of our own. (Most of the jars are called "time-out jars" or "calm down jars") I knew I didn't want ours to be a time-out jar because I didn't want any punitive connotations, so when O requested blue food coloring and blue glitter, I decided that we'd call it our "Starry Night Jar" (since we love Van Gogh's Starry Night painting).
To make the jar, we filled it with warm water. We added blue glitter and blue glitter glue. The glue creates a swirling effect when you shake the jar, and I added a little extra clear glue (school glue, but it's clear,not white) to make it swirl a little longer. I didn't measure anything...just eyeballed it.
Once when E(2) was extremely tired and fussy, I sat with her on the kitchen floor and grabbed the jar and shook it. We both stared at it and talked about how the glitter (stars) was slowly drifting to the bottom. I was happily amazed when she immediately calmed down and stared at the jar for a minute or so. I'm planning to put together a peace basket, and this will be an important component of it.
E(2) went on a treasure hunt for pennies and a marble in our therapy putty during "P" week! She had fun, but the putty is pretty firm, so it wasn't easy. O(5) was SO excited when she saw the putty because this has always been one of her favorite activities!
The girls had a great time taking a bath with water balloons this week!
First, I put a few drops of yellow food coloring in 2 yellow balloons and filled them with water. I put a few drops of blue food coloring into 2 blue balloons and filled them with water.
The girls had fun playing with the water balloons in the bath!
Then they popped the blue water balloons and loved their blue bath water!
Next, they popped the yellow balloons to make green water!
What a fun color mixing activity! Thanks to Amber B. for this great idea!
Sorry for the week of no posts! I had several posts saved in draft and set to post each day while we were out of town, but, obviously, that didn't work! We are back from a wonderful week in the Bahamas! It was great, but we are glad to be home!
The girls have had fun playing with the turkey felt board (that I made a couple of years ago). They look at the pictures and copy the designs, and they create their own designs.
