Halloween Spectacular

Every year Halloween comes around faster and faster it seems, but loaded with fun and yummy treats everytime. This week the kids got to put some of their cooking skills to use. On the docket are Mummy pizzas and Frankenstein marshmellows. We can't forget to throw in the some fun games, and then call it a day. First up are the Mummy pizzas. We saw this ideas when doing research for Halloween ideas, but I remember making these little pizzas as a birthday activity when I was little. There is definitely a lot you could do with this one, and it is easy for the kids to partake in, and many different age levels can do it and have fun doing it! All you need are a package of the biscuits in a tube, pizzas sauce, mozzarella cheese and whatever toppings you or the kids like. For our project we only needed an addition of sliced olives. You take one biscuit and with your fingers press out the dough until it is the shape and size you like. Then just put 1-2 tsp. of pizza sauce on top of the dough. I sliced up the mozzarella cheese into thin slices and laid them out criss-cross leaving some space across the top of the pressed out biscuit, and then added two sliced olives for the eyes of the mummy. You bake them by the instructions on the biscuit tube. We did 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, but the packages differ. They turned out like little mummy heads. We gave them the option of saving their pizza or eating it for their snack during class most kids couldn't refuse. They are super easy and pretty tasty kid treats. It's a great idea for at home parties because kids can make a few and it can be pretty cost effective.

We also made chocolate covered marshmallows to look like Frankensteins. All you need are green colored melts. Michaels usually carries a nice lime green color during Halloween, and they are made by Wilton. You could also color your own white chocolate melts to whatever color you would like. Wilton carries so many colors it is just easier unless you are trying to achieve a specific color. So back to the plan, green melts, chocolate (dark or bittersweet) chips, lollipop sticks, large marshmallows, and black frosting. Just melt both chocolates in bowls over simmering water. You could also melt them in the microwave in glass bowls or coffee mugs. First you dip or spread the green melted chocolate over the marshmallow and then let dry. You could place it on wax paper and put in refrigerator for a few minutes and it will harden very quickly. After the green chocolate is hard then dip just the top into the chocolate. You might need to use a knife or small spatula to smooth out the top, and let harden. Once the chocolate is hard take some black frosting (I bought mine, but you could make or color your own), and place a small tip on the end of the applicator. Squeeze out small dots for the eyes and side neck bolts on the marshmallows and draw a mouth on and your Frankenstein is ready to eat! The kids did a great job doing this. Since we didn't have a fridge in the classroom we took a cookie sheet and placed ice packs under it and then placed the cooling/hardening marshmallow treats on top to speed up the hardening process.

We also played a Monster Walk game with the kids and Hangman using only Halloween words. We had some prizes for all of the kids. It was a fun class.

Tic Tac Toe & Gestural Drawing

Road trips with children can be quite an adventure, and for whatever reason, maybe I like the torture of it all, we don't have a dvd player for our sweet little ones to enjoy along the way. If you are in the same boat as me I scramble for things for my girls to do along the way. When we came across this project I thought it would be such a great thing for my girls to do while sitting in the car for hours. Maybe just maybe it will stave off them asking, "how much longer until we're there" just a few minutes longer than they normally would. A traveling tic tac toe game! We make it all out of felt which is nice since felt tends to stick well to itself, making it harder to lose pieces. We precut the board and strips. The children each picked out their board color and glued the strips onto the board. We had templates for different icons for them to use as playing pieces. There were many to choose from x's, o's, squares, triangles, hearts, and stars. They picked their two playing pieces and traced them onto the two other colors of felt. This was a good challenge for children as they haven't quite learned how to efficiently use materials yet. We sort of forced the issue giving them smaller pieces and showing them ways to shift and move the pieces around to fit more than one shape onto the piece of felt. They then cut out all of their playing pieces. We then had them pick out a ribbon to tie up their game so they could take it with them wherever they go.

Today we discussed gestural drawing which is one of the easier drawing techniques, but harder for young children to understand. It is a good way to loosen up when getting ready to draw. Gestural drawing is essentially quick drawings that capture a moment, movement, or object. Gestural drawings don't focus on the detail but the shape and movement of the object. They tend to be a bit messier, but sometimes you just have to get "the idea" of what you are drawing. It is a good way to warm up when drawing, and if a form of sketching. I find most children try to focus on details, and really draw which is good, but they also can get very frustrated when it doesn't turn out like they thought. I find gestural drawing a good way to focus more on the big picture and then go back to the finer details once they have had a chance to draw the object quickly a few times. So our gestural drawing lesson was the children looking at a still life of small pumpkins and dried corn. I time them in short increments of 30 seconds to 60 seconds. It is a lot of fun, and the kids seem to enjoy it. It definitely relives them the pressure of having to make something look really good. Plus, they can become better artists practicing like this before they begin really drawing.

Columbus Day

Impressionist Pointillism with Analogous Color

Now that's quite a title. We did in fact go over just that with the kids today. I really love impressionism and the colors are beautiful. Though impressionist artists used such a different approach to creating color shifts, shades, and subtlety. Their technique at the time was shockingly unique. Many artists didn't try to hide their brush stroke, but instead adored it and highlighted it. One of the techniques they used was called pointillism, and at the time the term was used to describe their work in a negative connotation, but today all of that has subsided. How they used color was significant too, and so we discussed the basics of the color wheel with the class today. We talked about primary colors, a little bit about secondary colors, and glazed over tertiary color. Our main focus was on analogous color. Analogous colors are those colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, such as, yellow, orange, and red. Green, blue, and purple are also analogous colors. The children picked three analogous colors to paint their canvas using the pointillism technique. We gave them special round sponge brushes to create the dotted technique, and encouraging them to fill the entire canvas while still being able to see all three colors. It was a small challenge since it is a departure from the traditional way to use a brush. The kids did a wonderful job filling in their canvas with their analogous colors. We topped it with a monogram. They had to cut out their letter glue it down, and fill the letter with buttons. It was a great exercise in scissor skills, gluing, and planning with buttons of all sizes. Some were creative and began stacking some of their buttons to create more relief to their "painting".

This week we also brought some clay for the children to play with if they finished their project early. I also told them if they created something I would take a picture of it for them and post it to the blog so here are some of the sculptures they created out of clay. It was a great day!

Autumn Trees and Bird Ornaments

Hot enough today? I think it was more like a sweltering, sweaty, mess. Much thanks to the custodian that came in to save the day and turned on the air-conditioner for our class!! I think that was much like the day trying to re-focus, since the heat keep most of us in a haze. Okay now re-focus on what the projects were for today. Fall has finally arrived officially, even though it seems as though summer has just started, we worked on a autumn tree watercolor project. The children using yellow, orange, and red tempera paints created a textured background. The idea was to sponge paint the background in autumn leaf colors. We encouraged the kids to let all colors show and use a little blending. Some enjoyed blending so much the background turned into a solid color, nonetheless, a beautiful autumn color. After the background dried we used a straw and black tempera paint to create the trunk and branches of the tree by blowing the paint onto the paper. The results turned out really interesting. Some kids ended up with large, thick trunks and tons of branches, and others with smaller trunks and few branches. The black tempera did need a little help, and some kids were more timid with blowing the paint around, but eventually they got it.

We also worked on a small sewing project, of a felt bird ornament. Using felt, a couple beads, and ribbon the kids were able to turn simple shapes into a super cute ornament. It was a good exercise in coordination having to thread ribbon and beads, and tying knots.

Fall 2010 Week Two Wayne Thiebaud and Flipbooks

This week we took a look at the artist Wayne Thiebaud. He is a contemporary artist that had a love for food. Though he did traditional landscapes and portraiture he was fascinated with food particularly sweet treats. My kind of artist! He worked in pastels and oil paints mostly. Using his interest in painting and sweet treats we had the children draw their own ice cream cone. We had the children use oil pastels for this project due to its inherent nature of texture and blending capabilities. Oil pastels are a cross between oil paints, and crayons, though they blend so much better. I personally really enjoy using oil pastels because they draw like butter. You also don't have to press as hard to get beautiful intense color. When you blend and draw over other colors they mesh and move around on the page to create more natural color, shadows, and/or highlights. I think the ice cream treats the kids drew look amazing. Since, many weren't use to coloring over color it took a little coaxing to get them to understand how oil pastels can work that way. I love the way they turned out.

Our second project for the day were flipbooks. Growing up I remember being amazed by this concept that is the basis for movies and animation today. Flipping through these books and watching the pictures move and do funny things. We tried to break it down by using rubber stamps, and having one stationary object and one object that moves on each page. A simple enough concept, but challenging to do. The kids had a fun time stamping, and some stamps even moved way off the the page onto shirts and hands. The most difficult part was keeping the stationary object stationary on each page. The moving object was a much easier task for the children. Even though the stationary object may not have been perfect the small movements page to page make it interesting. I have to apologize to parents for any books that may have came apart at home. I had to replace new staples in the stapler we used and I think that they were an inferior staple. Who would have thought staples came in good, better, and best grades. If the book loses some pages you can re-attach the book back together with a home stapler if needed.

Fall Session Begins!!!

We are very excited that our fall after school session has begun. We have many fun projects lined up for this session. I guess I am a bit biased since I tend to think all of the projects are fun, but we wouldn't choose projects that I didn't think the kids would get a kick out of. Not to mention projects that can be fun and the children can learn something in the process. Tuesday, our first day of class, and I am happy to say our cup floweth over. As much as I didn't like doing it we had to turn some sweet children away because we are running at full capacity (this isn't a complaint). On our first day of class we made three simple whistle type instruments. First up was the paper whistle, which my friend brought to the table, and I never made them as a youngster. Super simple to make but not as easy to get the noise out of. We also made a straw whistle that sounds more like a kazoo. I get a kick out of this one because the first time I got it to work it tickled my lips and I almost jumped out of my seat. A feeling I wasn't expecting. Lastly, were our harmonica/kazoo which we have dubbed the harmonizoo. Shaped like a harmonica but sounding like a kazoo. Oh the sounds that were coming out of our classroom. It was fantastic.

This session we are also bringing more traditional art into the class. So first up basic drawing skills. Today we started off with reading the book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" to get things going. Then proceeded to talk about basic shapes and lines. All of the children practiced drawing basic shapes and lines. We then brought out a chair and had the class point out basic shapes and lines that made up the chair while I drew it on the board. The idea is to show the children that everything around us is made up of shapes and lines, and if we break it down to those simple shapes it can make it easier to draw. Sometimes things can be very daunting at first to think about drawing it, but focusing and pulling out what shapes make up an object can make it simpler and more accessible to draw. After that exercise the children were asked to draw something crazy from their imagination using simple shapes and lines. They certainly didn't disappoint. We had everything from bad monster pets, a thousand face house, springing eyes to buggy-snail clocks. We are looking forward to the rest of the classes and getting to know and appreciate all of the new and old faces that our joining us.

Nature Lover Day Three

Last day of our summer camp crafty craziness. Starting the day with a colored pencil finale. We created many large bouquets of flowers the children could draw from. They practiced drawing with paper and then we gave them a special card that they could draw their own botanical drawing on, and then give to someone special.

Terrariums, terrariums, terrariums, everywhere. This was incredibly fun project. I enjoyed making my example one many weeks before. This is certainly a project for all ages. We tag teamed this project with our pet rocks to put into the terrarium. The kids were able to paint a rock and while that was drying they made up their terrarium. They first filled the bottom with rocks for drainage, and then dirt and 2 or 3 plants into their terrarium. We gave them each a little frog or lizard to place into the terrarium as well (plastic of course).

To end the day and the summer session we created wiggly worm ranches with the children. We love the idea of taking something and turning it into a dessert somehow. So we thought the wiggly worm ranch would make a perfect dessert. I guess this might seem a bit unusual, but to me it screams chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. We first had the kids make a sign for their worm ranch to make it appear official. We then had them do layers of chocolate pudding, and crumbled chocolate cookies. Then on top they put candy rocks and a gummie earthworm. They looked great, and I loved, let me rephrase that, LOVED it. Though to my dismay some of the kids, shockingly, didn't like them so much. I think because the pudding was a super dark chocolate that I made, as well as the cookies that were homemade. It was a chocolate lovers dream, if you ask me, but if I had to do it again for kids I would lighten up on the chocolate, and probably get an easy mix. Partner that with some chocolate wafer cookies. I think that would be more child friendly. Still yummy either way. Next summer we'll know better. That's it folks, next up fall after school craft kitchen!

Nature Lover Day Two

One day down two to go. Today we worked with the children on blending with colored pencils and practiced on flowers. We went over primary and secondary colors, and how they can achieve those colors with blending colored pencils. Some of the drawings turned out quite amazing. It is interesting to see how children can be drawn to different mediums. Colored pencils are certainly more controlled and exacting. Last week with watercolors those children who like controlled mediums had to let go a bit. I think it is good to let them try all different kids of mediums because it challenges them to think differently about how to achieve what they want to produce. Below are some photos from our session.

Tweet, tweet, or these days I guess I should say chirp, chirp so web savvy people don't get too confused. Birds are all around and certainly in the east bay. We get so many birds that come into our backyard. Some even get brave enough to come into my kitchen. They quickly realize they are in the wrong place when our small dog Bento goes chasing after them. While researching projects for the summer we came across so many birdfeeders, and we really liked the idea, but we wanted to do something that didn't use plastic bottles. My partner in crime remembered doing them as a young girl with lemon rinds and nailing them to a tree. We really liked this idea, and since I have two orange trees we thought it was a perfect match and compostable. So we sliced the oranges in half, and had the kids scoop out all of the meat of the orange leaving the rind. All of the students then got to fill their "birdfeeder" with birdseed and peanut butter. Then we spot glued some string to hang the birder with. They turned out cute, and they attracted some other living friends as well, particularly a bug that looked like a ladybug but was green and black.

Our last project for the day was our posable frogs. This is one of those projects I was really looking forward to because I wanted to have them around the house. We gathered some really great fabrics for them to, and being a fabric fiend it was fun going through all of our fabric and creating groupings that would work really well together for the kids. The kids picked out two fabrics that they liked best, and traced to pattern piece onto the fabric. Promptly then utting out the pieces, and then we assisted the kids in sewing the two pieces together and helped them turn the frog inside out. We used buckwheat hulls to fill up these frogs. They picked out pony beads for the eyes and we sewed them on for them. Some of the children wanted to help sew them on which was a great help. I just love how they turned out.