Two Projects and Two Links

The short one and I haven’t been able to do as much going out and having fun this summer as we would like. We are moving, and trying to do everything that is required to accomplish this has put a little crimp in our extravagant summer plans. (So much for the fun and the learning…) But we have tried some new projects at home so I thought I’d share them with you. Neither of these projects originated in my brain, but came from two great blogs or websites that I enjoy.

Banana Pops

Here we have banana chocolate pops rolled in jimmies (or sprinkles for those of you who didn’t grow up in New England). You stick them in the freezer, and eat ‘em when they’re frozen. Excellent! The idea/recipe came from the Craftzine website/blog. There is a lot of good stuff on this site, and the photography is excellent (especially the photos of those chocolate covered bananas!). Just a tip – don’t use bamboo skewers for this project! The bananas roll around when you try to get the chocolate on. The recipe calls for popsicle sticks, instead.

Map for the Quest

This interesting creation is an adaptation of a “zoo map“. Instead of making a zoo, my son made a map for a knight going on a quest in a great fantasy land. This great idea came from the Let’s Explore blog and website. This is a great blog with easy ideas, and there are some excellent projects to do with your kids this summer on this site. The writer of this site also sells some really interesting craft/educational/fun type-stuff that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Here is a close up – and, yes – the photo on the left is the “pit of blood.” I know what you are thinking – why is a six year old drawing a picture of a pit of blood? You would need to ask his father about their nighttime reading of Redwall to understand that. The photo on the right is the treasure castle that is reached at the end of the quest. My son worked on his map for hours – using those creative juices and his fancy cray-pas art crayons – this was a great idea.

These two sites are great for poking around and finding good ideas. I also across an interesting article on easy summertime crafts in the Washington Post’s Home section last week that you might want to check out.

Cray-pas and Kandinsky

I recently bought a book that I really, really like. It is called The Usborne Art Treasury. The book presents famous works of art from different eras, created in different styles and artists mediums. The book discusses each artwork briefly at a level that a child can understand, and then presents an art project that tries to reflect one or more element or idea in the work of art.

Most of the art projects are simple, requiring only the simplest of art supplies. For our projects, we purchased watercolor paper, watercolors, and a new art supply that we had never tried before which has inspired much joy – Cray-pas!

Craypas

 Cray-pas are artists’ oil pastels made for students that sell for $3.50 for a small box at Michaels (a larger box costs a little more), and they are head and shoulders above your run of the mill Crayolas.  They have bright, vibrant colors that pop off the page and can be used to create the most wonderful works of art.

In this photo, we are trying to create a Kandinsky-like masterpiece.  After looking at the Kandinsky painting that is included in our art book, we took a piece of watercolor paper and folded it into six squares. We then colored concentric circles in each square with the different color Cray-pas.  Then we took our $2 box of kids’ watercolors and painted a different color wash in each square.  After lots of hard and concentrated work, small fry created this masterpiece…

Our "Kandinsky"

Wassily Kandinsky painted bright and colorful abstract paintings, (including my favorite painting of all time called Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle)). Our Cray-pas project was meant to mimic the Kandinsky painting called “Squares with Concentric Circle” or “Farbstudie Quadrate”. (I’m not trying to get all deep, arty, and intellectual on you, but you can take a look here if you would like to see the original.)

I have mentioned previously that I am not into the extremely messy or complicated (although I don’t mind a little mess) – simple and easy is the way to go at my house. And this project was very simple and easy, as are most of the projects in the Usborne Art Treasury. We bought the Cray-pas specifically for this project, but they have been used on many other spontaneous art projects – they are so fun and colorful, but still easy to use. Small fry has made knights and dragons with the Cray-pas, and drawn a wicked rendition of Darth Maul. And they look really great used on black construction paper!

A Note: The Usborne Art Treasury by Rosie Dickens is available in MoCo Libraries and on Amazon.

Planting Seeds

I set out to do something new with the small fry last week – we decided to play in the dirt….

I have never really tried to grow anything with my son – I wondered about his interest and the mess it would make – but I saw a blog article about growing seeds in paper towel or toilet paper rolls, so we thought we would give it a try. Simple, Simple, Simple – that’s my motto. I learned that you can use paper towel or toilet paper rolls instead of buying those peat pots that you get at the Home Depot, and plant them right in the ground when the plants get big enough. We chose some herbs that I can cook with (well, Mom chose them….lets be real…..)

And then we cut the paper towel rolls in half, and then made slits in the end of the rolls and folded them over to seal up one end. We colored the outside of the paper towel planters with plant-oriented magic marker pictures, and then stuffed them with potting soil. When the plants are big enough, you plant the whole contain in a larger pot of soil, and the paper towel role will break down. You don’t have to remove the plant from the recycled planter that you have created.

I think that the coloring part makes this project less pure and natural, as I imagine the ink will leach into the soil, but that was the risk we were willing to take.

We also tried to sprout some kidney beans. This idea came from a great book that we have in our library called The Usborne Big Book of Experiments. You just take a clean glass jar, put a folded up paper towel inside, place the kidney beans between the glass and the paper towel, and put in a little water.

Place the jar in a dark place for about a week and the kidney beans will start to sprout. You have to make sure that the paper towel stays wet. Once they start to sprout, you set the jar in a sunny window and watch them grow.  I am happy to say that our experiments met with great success. This was probably the one of the easiest thing we have done together, and met with a great response from the small fry. He checked those beans every day!

Pretty cool, don’t you think?
•To learn more about growing seeds in paper towel rolls, you can check out a much better description at the You Grow Girl blog. This project was easy, easy, easy, and cost me about $3.00 for a bag of potting soil.
•If you are interested in growing kidney beans, the description above is about as complicated as it gets, but you can read about this experiment and other great experiments in The Usborne Big Book of Experiments.