String Bowls, Theater Class, and Marshmallows

Yup, it's a co-op day.  How can you tell?  Probably by the interesting title to today's post.  I'm sure that's a pretty dead give-away.  I always write about interesting things on co-op days, which is probably why I love them so much!

I think the highlight of the day for me was helping a class full of boys make string bowls.  I would love to show you a picture of Link's string bowl, but I can't.  First, it's not done yet.  The glue needs to dry before it's finished.  It's also going to be entered into the art exhibit that all the other kids are getting to put something in.  You wouldn't believe how excited Link is to have something in "a real arts show"!  You'd think he was having his work displayed in some fancy New York gallery.  Of course, it's probably about the same to him.  He's never had his artwork on display before.  On top of that, he gets to have his artwork there just like his sister.

We also learned something about Link today.  He doesn't like messes.  We were making the bowls with string and glue, which meant the kids had to get glue all over their hands.  Link went the extra mile to get it on his sweater and his pants.  I guess it's a good thing that stuff washes out!  Unfortunately, he spent the whole first half of the project too squeamish to really get his hands covered.  Who knew Link would be so weird about a little glue on his hands?

My daughter came home with a page full of marshmallows.  It was supposed to be an atom, but I guess everyone though that it looked more like a man sitting in a chair.  It's pretty great how she's learning things like that in school.  When I was her age I don't think I had any idea what an atom was, never mind what they might have looked like!  It's amazing just how much they're doing.

Both the kids are very excited over next week.  They're going to be painting.  Nothing says fun to my kids like busting out paints.  I bet they're very excited to get a little bit messy on that front.  I know paint is a kind of messy Link won't be too squeamish about.  He loves it!

Now if only I had more of an idea of what Sander was doing.  I have to say, I'm really relieved not to be in the nursery the whole time again, but at the same time, I'm also really sad about it.  I loved spending my time in the nursery with my little one, but I also love the break.  I'm sure it'll be good for him to work with other adults than just me all the time too.  Maybe it'll encourage him to break away from his usual routine and get interested in something new.  After all, he's daddy's little man and mama just doesn't cut it sometimes.

I really can't wait until next week.  I'm starting to think I'm just as excited about the co-op each week as the kids are!  It's really been a lot of fun and it's working out to be great for all of us.

Theme for the Year, Useful Gifts

It's that Christmas time of year again.  Everyone is out shopping.  In our family we don't really do much of a gift exchange with the adults.  I usually exchange gifts with my partner, but that's about it.  However, kids are a very different story.

This year we've decided to go for a break from traditional.  I was originally going to hand-make all of my gifts this year, but that ambitious goal turned out to be too ambitious for me.  I figured that would cut down on consumerism, but the truth is I'll still end up buying things to make the present.  It's not like I have a sheep to sheer, then wash the fleece, card it, spin it, knit with the yarn, and some time in the process, dye it with home-made dyes that I grow at my own home.  The consumer process does happen in there, and while home-made gifts are typically the best, I honestly think there should be a some value placed on time.  Right now, it's something I just don't have enough of.

That being said, I wanted our Christmas present theme to be useful items.  Now, I know I'm going to be expecting some toys for family.  No matter what you say, nor how much you beg people not to, there are always going to be people who insist on giving toys to kids.  I've decided I'm not going to fight it.  More importantly, it's good for kids to receive toys for holidays and birthdays.  How else will they end up with new toys as they outgrow the old?

Every year my aunt has always been fantastic with flooding our house with useful things.  She sends us crayons, markers, and pencils.  There's been drawing paper, workbooks, and coloring books.  There's been crafts to decorate with and lots of other stuff to inspire creativity.  She sends books, which are always good to have.  There's so much variety, but I noticed that most of it has been useful, at least for the older two, even with a good number of toys sprinkled throughout.

Because of my aunt's inspiration and looking at my children's insane number of toys, I decided this year it's time for something different.  Last year Santa was a huge hit for bringing games to the whole family.  This year he's planning the same.  They encourage family time, togetherness, and fun.  However, this year our family is focusing on things that can inspire outside interests, and we're going to carry that through birthdays and everything.  It means knowing a lot more about my kids than what a kid of their gender and age would like.  However, it's totally worth it.  This is what makes gifts that wow.

Taking my daughter as an example, we can see what appeals to her quite easily.  Archery would be a good direction to choose.  She loves it.  She's been begging me for her own bow and arrows ever since she shot her first arrow.  She's all about art, always wanting to draw, paint, color, or otherwise create masterpieces.  I want to pick something that will appeal to those interests of hers.

My older son is really into art and music.  He likes to sing and make music on anything he can make noise on.  He loves to draw and paint too.  I want to encourage him in those fields because he needs to have interest in something other than toys.  He's got to start developing his own tastes.  He also loves science, but finding science stuff for his age isn't something I'm particularly good at.

The littlest one is really only into making messes right now, so it's hard to pick things he'd like.  He's good with coloring and seems to like the idea of painting.  Anything he can squish in his fingers is also good, so soft clays may not be a bad choice either.

I'm starting to realize that my kids have very limited interests.  They haven't experienced life as much as I might wish.  They don't really have much of an idea of what they might like to be when they grow up because they haven't experienced enough to know.  My daughter wants to be an artist and my older son wants to be a rock star, but how do they know for sure?  They haven't really had a chance to dabble in other areas of life.  Maybe my older son will always want to be a rock star, or a musician of some kind.  Maybe my daughter will always want to be an artist, but at least I hope I can open up some other options for them so they know for sure.  More importantly, if they do decide to keep those career choices, at the least maybe they'll know what direction within those careers.  Maybe my daughter will decide she wants to be a painter, an illustrator, or a potter.  Perhaps my son will want to grow up to be a classical guitarist or a musician with the orchestra.  We won't know until they get there.  All I can do is take this time to give them as many opportunities to explore as possible, and Christmas is just as good of a chance as anything else.

I feel pretty good about this Christmas.  I feel like I'm finally doing something better than just getting toys and leaving it at that.  I'm hoping that they find it as wonderful of a Christmas as I'm planning it to be.  After all, if I can't get away from consumerism, I might as well use the holiday season as a time to help my kids advance their own goals or find new areas of exploration in life.  There are plenty of people to make sure they have toys.  I know them better than anyone else, so it really should be my job to pick out the things that will inspire them this year.

Rainy, Rainy, Rainy Day...

For those of you who are familiar with how Texas weather has been, you'll know the word "rain" is something highly prayed for around here, but seldom happens, at least for this summer.  The blessed watery substance that hydrates the earth seems to have decided not to make it's presence known to the point where lakes seem to be drying up and forest fires are running rampant.

Starting yesterday, the skies decided to grace us with this stuff called rain.  The kids and I sat and watched it in the windows for a while.  Then we went out in it for a bit, just because every kid likes to play in the rain.  We talked about the rain.  We shared our thoughts.  That's when the kids realized that rain is really kind of a downer.  It's not nice outside, so you don't want to go play outside for long.  You get wet and cold.  It's dark and gloomy, so it means turning the lights on during the day just to see.  You can't really take books and toys outside or they might get ruined.  It's hard to play ball when it's raining.  Most people don't even want to drive anywhere when the roads are slick and wet.  It means they lose out on a lot of fun stuff.

With our massive house clean-up going on, we've been facing a lack of space, but it's been coming at a benefit to everyone, especially the kids.  Our dining room table is buried under a mountain of stuff from the kitchen cabinets that all needs to be washed and put back.  They boys room is full of boxes from the closet, so we've been having sleep over parties in my daughter's room.  All the floors need to be mopped, the walls wiped down, and everything, but we haven't been as sharply on it as we should be because we've got so much stuff!  It's meant everything we're able to do is severely limited (which leads to the kids fighting like cats and dogs).  It's been rough with the rain on top of that.

However, even with all this rough stuff going on, my kids are kind of grateful for the clean up.  Sure, for several days they're not going to have much space to play until we process through it all, clean it all, and get it all put away, but we're finding cool stuff as we go.  I've found a completely blank drawing pad, which my daughter was very excited about.  Hers is almost full.  We found a new stock of markers that had been buried in a box.  There were some toys they were looking for and couldn't seem to find.  It seems like with every box we go through, not only are we finding new things that the kids love, but we're also condensing and getting rid of stuff we don't need to hang on to anymore.  The kids love knowing we'll have more space in the house soon and they're enjoying all the fun stuff we're finding.  It's like an archaeological dig!

Though it might be raining and miserable outside, we're still having our fun.  We're exploring the depths of our own home.  When we've finally cleared off the space for the kitchen stuff to go back, we'll have the space to work on art projects with all the new art supplies we've found.  It's going to be wonderful!

While the weather might be dark and gloomy outside, I think this is the best rainy day we've had in years!

My Little Artist (and Maybe Writer)

Just this week at the playground after the co-op, the girls were hanging out and working on art projects.  I had no idea what they were doing, and didn't want to bother them, so I just let them be.  My youngest was a handful enough given he didn't want to eat, drink, or do anything.  He was just miserable.  I just hoped my daughter wasn't imposing herself on the older girls too terribly much.  No one seemed to be complaining, so I didn't even think to ask her about it.

When we were leaving, my daughter said, "We were making ATC cards.  Can I finish mine when I get home?" I had no idea what these ATC cards were.  She was holding out a little piece of card stock that she was drawing on.  I had no problem with her finishing that when she got home.  It was just another drawing, right?

The past few days she's been doing nothing but drawing.  I'm a little afraid she's going to run us out of art supplies in the house!  While I've got two boxes of crayons, some colored pencils (though the pencil sharpener is MIA), and a bunch of markers, we've been going through paper incredibly fast.  I don't know if I can keep up with it!

Not only is she drawing pictures, but she's coming up with stories to go with them.  She told me the other day that she wanted to be a writer some day.  I told her she couldn't just illustrate her books.  She'd have to tell the story too.  Maybe that will inspire her to work on her other skills too.  She's starting to become a really creative story teller!  Unfortunately, that means she's going through paper even quicker to keep up with her stories.  I wish I had an infinite budget for art supplies!  I'd keep her going as long as she's got interest!

My daughter isn't the best artist.  She's constantly complaining that she's not as good of an artist as the other kids in her class.  It's understandable.  They've probably been working on art projects a lot longer than she has.  We haven't spent much as much time on art as maybe I'd like, mostly because of how fast they go through paper!  She's also younger than a lot of the girls in her class, and I don't give her any solid direction.  I want her to draw what's in her mind, not what I tell her to draw.  If she wants to draw a bunny, I want her to show me what it looks like to her.  If she's going to draw a sunset, I want to see how she sees a sunset.  I don't want to tell her how to do it or how to improve her skills because I want her to come to it naturally.  If she asks me for help, I'm not going to tell her to figure it out on her own, but until she asks me for help, I'm not going to step in.  I always hated when my mom criticized my art, and while it did make me a better artist in the long run (not that I ever got all that great), I don't want my daughter to go through those feelings of rejection.  Instead, I'll try and give her as loose instruction as I can, giving her the general idea and then letting her figure out how she thinks it will work.  She doesn't need me cramping her style!

So the other day when they were all out there, they were working on something they called ATC.  I had no idea what they were talking about, but when I got an e-mail about the homeschool play group on Friday, it was mentioned again.  The house we're going to has a pool, plenty of space for kids to run, and there would be craft supplies because they want to do ATC again.

Having no idea what ATC was, I had to check it out.  For all I knew it could be like all the kids in one class busting out in the songs from choir that they all knew.  It could be some religious thing that my daughter was sure to miss out on, simply because she isn't raised that way.  I wasn't sure how I felt about her getting involved with anything I didn't know about, religious or otherwise, mostly because I want to be aware of what she's doing and what she's getting into.  Being something the co-op kids do, I couldn't imagine it would be all that bad, but it's got to be better than the trends towards those teen pop stars like Taylor Swift or that Justin Bieber kid.

As it turns out, ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards.  There's another version called ATEO, which is Artist Trading Editions and Originals.  Basically they're little trading cards that the artist decorates with the media of their choosing.  They can hand these cards out for trade or sell them for a profit.  The general idea seemed to be that these are small samples of your artwork to be shared among friends and other artists.  The cards can be purchased in packs, or they can be cut by hand.  Generally they're made of some sort of card stock, but it looks like there's all kinds of materials available on the market.

I'm thinking when I save up a bit of money I may need to get my daughter some cards to work on.  They're small, quick projects and the girls from the homeschool group all seem to do them.  This would be something she could share with them while working on her art skills.  She could hand them out to friends or send them to family.  They're just the perfect size for sharing.  They may be a little bit on the expensive side when compared to the cost of drawing paper, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

My little artist has come so far, from not wanting to do anything with art for so long to living for it day by day.  We're going to have a lot to work on, and she'll have plenty of new opportunities to work on her skills in the future.  I've already got tons of ideas on what new art projects we can do.  Now I just need to find the infinite budget so we can do them all!

Kids and Arts: Teaching Kids What They Want to Learn

We've been having this reading battle with my daughter for...well...longer than this blog has been in existence.  I've decided that, since the summer's still upon us, maybe I won't do the conventional push for reading.  Maybe we'll do something that interests her, see if we can foster some creativity.

I've been trying to encourage my daughter's love of art.  She's always said she wanted to be an artist, though she doesn't really know anything about art.  We used to have some art books around the house to help her with drawing, but somewhere along the lines they disappeared right along with my sock knitting book and some other things.  She really didn't have much opportunity to study art, nor a lot of artists.  The best I could do was set her to drawing and let her go.

Just the other day Marrok decided he was going to sit down with her.  He was going to work on sculpting, so he wanted to give her a chance to do it with him.  He talked to her about clay, about art, and everything else.  They both worked at making their own sculptures.  Corde made up two different pieces, one with some help, the other without nearly as much.

When they were done they baked the clay in the oven.  She was so excited about her own piece of art turning into something beautiful.  It wasn't enough that she thought it was good, she was just so proud of herself!  I feel bad that she's not going to get a chance to display them in her room until we can get a shelf high enough that her brothers can't access.  She's so proud of her work.

After that she's decided the only thing in the world she's interested in is art.  It's going to be quite the challenge to help her find other interests, but she's interested in something!  I hope this is just going to be the first start to many more interests of all varieties.  My child with no real imagination or drive to be interested in something has found something she loves so much that she's actually asking to read about it!  It's exciting to see that impact and that change happening!

Arts and Crafts: Sticker Mosaics

Once again we're back to the arts and crafts.  Yesterday's project was something fun, something that was really picked up with my middle child in mind.  Being that he's almost four, it's hard to figure out what kinds of crafts will be fun for him, but not so incredibly messy that I'll have a headache from all the clean up.  Thankfully, the craft store came in handy, and not even something planned, just something my daughter and I happened to stumble upon.

My son had his first real craft project of his own.  It was a sticker mosaic kit for kids just his age.  Each of the mosaic cards had pictures of animals.  I let him pick out his first one and we were off.  These kits are fairly simple.  They have foam stickers in different colors and shapes.  All my son had to do was match up the shape and color outline and place the right sticker on it.  It seems easy enough, right?  But it came with it's own moments of frustration until he got it.  My son's got this great habit of saying "I can't know it" when you ask him something he doesn't feel like telling you.  It meant the early on portion was a little frustrating.

Soon enough he got it and we were off.  He was telling me all the colors and all the shapes like a pro!  Of course, with only three shapes (circle, square, and triangle) it wasn't too much of a challenge, but with all the shapes and colors combined with the ability to put the shape in the right orientation on the right spot, he had a lot going on.  It took him a while to do the first one, but for a kid his age, he virtually sped through it!  It seemed like we were done in no time!  Of course, I know my daughter would have gotten through it faster, but he did pretty good for his age!

Much to my surprise, he turned out to have much more patience than I expected!  As soon as he was done with the first one (he chose the bird), he wanted to jump right in and do the second!  Who am I to resist a kid who's on a roll?  Of course, we got right to it!

Now, I have to admit, jumping right into another one was a bad idea.  Even though he's almost four, he doesn't have infinite patience.  He tends to get bored and a little chaotic.  He doesn't pay the most attention to what he's doing.  As a result, I got a bit frustrated by the time we were a third of the way through and I voted we take a break.  Besides, it was after dinner and getting late.  I figured there was every chance he wasn't going to finish it, but he was rather insistent.  He wanted to do it!  He went and played again and then came back refreshed!  I was a little afraid he'd want to finish them all in one night!  Of course, by the time he was done he needed to get ready for bed, so I managed to luck out on that one.  He had to wait and finish them another day!  Hopefully he'll give it a couple days before he picks it up again because I don't want to run out of things to do!  Those craft kits aren't super expensive, but they can add up quickly when you're blowing through them so fast!  Maybe tomorrow we'll be on to some play-doh or something.

So my daughter wouldn't get left out, I got her one as well, though I'm not so much of a fan of the ones for older kids.  I'd rather get the stuff to make a real mosaic.  Even so, she found the one she considered perfect, a sticker mosaic of a mermaid.  If you feel you may die of shock at the price on Amazon, they were actually much cheaper at the craft store, less than half the price.  The ones they have for the older kids use numbers matched to an image of the stickers on the box.  It's actually a pretty good set-up, so it wasn't too bad.  Most importantly, my daughter loved doing it.  She sat and worked on it with my partner, which she liked even better because he's not often able to be involved in our homeschooling efforts.  She's really big on having everyone involved when we're doing homeschooling, whether it's family, friends, house-mates, guests, or even a friend crashing on our couch for a few days.  It doesn't matter who they are, if they're a part of her life and happen to be around when we're working on something she wants them to be involved.  She particularly likes sitting down and coloring in her coloring book with my partner.  While I was pregnant with the littlest, she and my partner colored pictures for me from her book that they put up on either side of the bed, talk about one loved mama!

Once all the mosaics were finished they each got to put them up in the house.  Since all the kits come with little stick-on hangers, we were able to put them up with no more than a tack.  Originally the plan was that they were going to put them up in their rooms, but that plan went out the window when my son finished his and the baby was sleeping in his room.  He was very determined that his mosaic would go up right away, just like his sister's.  He was so determined that when he finished the bird he found just the right place for it, in our living room next to the door.

I have to admit, I felt a little bad when my daughter saw us hanging up my older son's mosaic.  She poked her head out of her room, where here mosaic was put up prominently in the entry way.  She then asked, "Is his mosaic in the living room and mine's not because his is more awesome than mine?"  We explained to her the situation and why we couldn't put her brother's in his room and she seemed pretty satisfied.  She was extra proud of herself when my partner told her that her brother has a whole bunch of them to put around all over, but she's only got one, which makes it extra special.  Hers was also glittery and has a whole lot more stickers, which makes it extra awesome.  On top of that, it's in just the right spot that everyone who comes in the room can see it just as they walk in.  What better way could she have to show off to all of her friends?  Honestly, what I didn't tell her was that I loved where hers is hanging because I think the beautiful girlish style to it is a perfect accent to her room and maybe we need to think about getting her some more really feminine stuff for her room.  We're not going to paint or anything, so we might as well give her a really pretty decorations in her room to make it feminine in there.  She's growing up fast too, so letting her have a little bit of style to her room, some of her own artwork, and maybe a nice lamp or something will help her room have less of a barren look and prevent it from looking too much like a little kid's room.    As much as I don't want to embrace the idea of her growing up, it's nice to see her growing up and developing her own sense of style.

I have to say, looking at the pictures it almost looks like no one has any fun during craft time at our house!  You always see pictures of families smiling and laughing while doing crafts together.  I've come to realize that's not true, but I understand why they like to portray it that way.  I can't imagine pictures of kids and adults paying rapt attention to what they're doing inspires people to buy their products, even though it's definitely incentive for me!  Something about seeing kids sitting quietly and concentrating seems like an inspiration in itself!  At least they're quiet, busy, and working their whole brain to come up with an end result!  I have to admit, I like seeing that look of attention and concentration on my kids' faces more than I like see them smile, not because I don't like seeing them happy.  I do!  I guess I just can't explain how much joy it brings me to see them doing something they can be so thoroughly involved in.  Their smiles are beautiful, but I find a whole different beauty in seeing them so focused and intent on what they're doing.


So, they now all have their mosaics up, decorating the home.  There's a mermaid in my daughter's room, a kitty in the kitchen, and a bird welcoming our guests to our living room.  It's nice to have their artwork displayed.  It's nice to be able to show off some of what they've done.  I never imagined enjoying that kind of art up on my walls, but here I am!  I can't wait to have more all over the house!  My son has three more mosaics to do.  Then we've got a set of magnets for them to paint.  Those will likely go up on the refrigerator.  The link isn't for the exact product, but we got a generic craft store brand  I got some stained glass window hanging projects for them to do and put up in the windows.  This isn't the same set, but they're the same kind of fill and bake kind of set, same brand too.  Ours are just singles as supposed to sets and were exceedingly cheap at the craft store.  We ended up picking up one of each.  It's going to be a challenge with an almost four-year-old in the mix, but I think we can handle it!  My windows need decorating!  I'm really looking forward to all the various arts and crafts projects I can get going around here.  There are so many options!  I think once we're a bit more settled and my daughter has some privacy in her room we might have to work on some things she can make to decorate her room!  I'm getting excited already!

Arts and Crafts: Painting a Water Bottle

I know, I know.  It's been a while since I've updated anything.  Shame on me...  Our family has been pretty busy.  Trying to keep busy has meant running out of time to do anything else, like updating my blogs.  However, I've got more to write about!

I've been meaning to write about my daughter's most recent art project.  We went shopping to find some fun projects, since we haven't been including a lot of arts with our homeschooling.  Crayola has a whole bunch of arts and crafts stuff on the market, which has really inspired my daughter to focus on some art projects!

Now talking my daughter into art is like trying to talk a two-year-old into eating candy.  She keeps telling me she wants to grow up to be an artist, but she hasn't done much with arts.  I'd love to get her into art classes, but they're a bit out of our price range right now.  Instead, we've started looking at projects we could do at home, and the current trend in her interests happens to be painting.

Our first big project was painting a water bottle.  It's one of the Crayola Pop Art Pixies projects.  While normally I don't buy into trendy things, I do like some of the projects they've got.  The particular character this was designed for is an environmentalist.  She's also got another project that's little herb planters.  They have a huge variety of projects, which I think is wonderful!  There's really some good ideas started.

Not having any newspaper to put down, we used one of the shopping bags we haven't yet taken to recycle.  Before we put down the bottle on the bag, my daughter picked out all of her favorite stencils from the bunch and sticking them on just the way she wanted them.  She needed some help getting the first couple of them on smoothly, but I have to admit, getting stickers on without bubbles isn't exactly the easiest of things.  It was nice.  It turned into a project we could work on together.

Watching her with the paint was an exercise in releasing my own sense of perfection.  She'd get too much paint on the brush and it would start to run a bit making some of the colors blend a little.  She wouldn't get enough paint on the brush or wouldn't get the water out enough, so the paint would come out thin and runny another time.  I spent my whole time looking at it and having to remind myself that this project didn't have to be perfect in my eyes.  That's the beauty of art.  I could think the end project looked horrible, but the truth is, if she thought it was beautiful, then it was.  It really opened my eyes to view it with a lack of perfectionism, something I wasn't even able to do as a child.  That's why I never really got much into painting.  I couldn't paint the way I envisioned it, so I gave up.

When all was said and done there were all kinds of crazy blended shapes and the whole thing was painted beautifully.  She added some squiggly waves down a the bottom and continued to work away until there wasn't much more room left to paint.  We decided to set the bottle aside and let it dry.  My daughter wanted to sit there and watch it dry because she was so excited, but we decided to find something else for her to do.  Thankfully it didn't take long at all to dry!

Once it was dry we peeled off the stencils.  I'd advise for anyone who gets these kits to peel the stencils off while the paint is still wet, but I didn't even think of that.  We lost some of the detail when the stencils came off because the paint wanted to peel off all as one.  The two of us worked together to fix some of the stuff that peeled off and then I painted her name and the date on the bottle, that way she would be certain to remember when she did her first big painting project.  We waited again for it to dry.

That bottle has become a total environment saver!  She's used that bottle for every drink she's had since she's made it.  Because it's designed for travel she'll be able to bring it with her as well.  She's able to use it both at the house and on the road.  It's even more perfect because she's able to bring around something she's proud of, an incredible piece of art!

The one thing about this that is disappointing is the lack of art projects for boys!  It seems many of the arts and crafts projects on the market are designed for girls.  This has me frustrated over that whole gender issue again.  Why is it that girls are supposed to be interested in arts and crafts, but boys aren't?  With the number of art programs remaining in public schools, I have to wonder how many boys aren't getting any exposure to art at all!  It's a little disappointing to think of all the boys that might be missing out because they don't market these projects for boys as well.